The way that markbook assessments are translated into scores in Classroom Monitor is all to do with 'weightings' and 'thresholds'. All of the "off the shelf" curriculum frameworks in Classroom Monitor have their own thresholds and weightings built in but these can be adapted to better suit your school.
As with terminology, before adapting your thresholds and weightings it is important to think through one main question: What impact will the threshold and weighting changes have on the data I see and that my teachers use for the purposes of both formative and summative assessment?
It is important to be very clear on the purpose of threshold and weighting changes to ensure that they will not have unintended consequences on outputs for teachers, SLT, external agencies and parents/pupils.
On this page we will consider:
- Weightings of hexagons: This detemines how much impact the different colours of hexagons have on the calculation of children's overall scores.
- Threshold percentages: The percentage of markbook coverage which will trigger a particular "step" within each stage.
What are the Default Settings in Classroom Monitor?
The default settings vary depending on the curriculum framework that your school has chosen to use. Our curricula page provides access to the default weightings and thresholds for all of the off-the-shelf frameworks that are available in Classroom Monitor.
As an example, the default settings for the Rising Stars Progression Framework are shown below. Remember that these are customisable within school so may not represent your set up.
What Impact Will any Changes Have on my Data?
Of course any changes you make to the weightings and/or the thresholds will have an impact on your data - that is likely to be why you are wanting to make changes! This video explains some of the consequences for you to consider.
What are the Default Settings in Classroom Monitor?
The default settings vary depending on the curriculum framework that your school has chosen to use. Our curricula page provides access to the default weightings and thresholds for all of the off-the-shelf frameworks that are available in Classroom Monitor.
As an example, the default settings for the Rising Stars Progression Framework are shown below. Remember that these are customisable within school so may not represent your set u
What Does That Mean in Terms of How the Scores are Calculated?
Well, as an example (using the default figures above)...if you have a markbook consisting of 10 objectives. Your 10% coverage (giving a Beginning score) could be made up of 1 Exceeding statement, or 2 Almost statements, or 1 Met and 1 Almost...and so on. The Unweighted hexagons (U and T) do not count towards the overall score and are for the purpose of outputs such as the Assessment Summaries as well as being a visual clue for the teacher when looking at weaknesses across the class and planning interventions/support as required.
Visit our Markbook Scoring Explained page for more information.
Why Do My Pupils Still Have a Score From the Previous Year Group/Stage?
By default, the low threshold of a markbook is set at 10%. This means that until a pupil has achieved 10% coverage of a particular ability level of markbook they will not score at that ability level so a score for a previous ability level will be used. At the start of an academic year, it will take pupils some time to get to that threshold for the reasons given below.
You would not expect children to have "Met" lots of objectives straight away in the year. They may have a number of "Almost" statements i.e. they have some evidence of meeting the objective in some lessons but have not accumulated enough evidence for the teacher to be confident they have the depth of knowledge and understanding required by the new curriculum. They may also have a number of T statements to show they are being introduced to topics but are not yet showing sufficient evidence of understanding - and the T statements in our default example are not weighted.
Therefore, a low threshold of 10% allows you to get data around the end of the first Autumn half term which is meaningful and shows that pupils are being given access to the curriculum at the relevant year group, without focussing too much on having lots of Met statements, which are more likely to occur later in the year. So 10% might seem low to some schools but actually if you set it a lot higher than this then you run the risk of seeing no data in the Attainment and Progress area until very late in the year, which can be too late to impact on interventions in good time to make a difference within the school year.
NB 'overall' subjects (e.g. Maths in Rising Stars) use a mean average of scores in the sub-subjects (e.g. number, measure). A pupil with an age appropriate score in a sub-subject may still have an overall score from the previous stage due to low scores in subjects that have not been taught recently.
How Do I Make Changes?
Visit our help page for instructions for changing scoring thresholds and scoring terminology. To change hexagon weightings and terminology: Rising Stars Progression Framework users can use the Customise Assessment Terminology page whilst users of other frameworks should contact us.