Grading both effort and achievement - what are your thoughts?

[loveyouradvice]

I heard about this from my sis, whose son at private secondary now gets marks for both effort and achievement - really useful and illuminating, especially as they spotted he was only scoring Bs on effort in his less popular subjects. I raised this with Habs Girls when I went round (DD now y5 state primary) and they said they couldnt see any point in doing this at a girls school as girls would always score top marks for effort.... What are your thoughts and experiences? Personally, thought would be great for my daughter who can tend to cruise at times.....

They score both at my son's school which makes you realise the teachers can tell when he is trying at a subject but just rubbish at it and vv.

seeker - my DSS2 would have got E for effort and A for achievement right through primary with that sort of measurement system. But that wasn't his fault - he was never asked to do anything at all that required any sort of effort!

My DS is at a State Primary and they give them house points for effort and improvement. The problem I see is that the children who achieve top results with less effort because they're more academic get less points than, let's say, the bottom group child who manages to solve a maths problem after much struggle. I'm not saying the child doesn't deserve it of course. But the bright end up with the top results but little recognition for them.

They do this for DCs. We started by being amused with the top result/low effort ones, then half considered ruling out any good result/top effort options, but decided to ignore it all and focus on objective test rankings and marks, which you may think should match [subjective] reports on results. Surprisingly not, even at schools who should be able to get this right - with outstanding departments and up to date predictors. Observation - DCs always at/near top in any subjects they like. The effort part helps to point out which teachers they are not keen on, and vice versa.

Most kids know what they're [not] good at. So for me, forget the effort part. [They also know who they [don't] get on with.] In life, it can be more useful to know early on what you're bad at more than what you're good at. The worst thing is not knowing because someone doesn't like doing the dirty work of telling you or helping you.

My DS is at an academically selective school. They are graded on both effort and achievement, the school applaud the highest achievement grades. At home we reward him for high effort grades.

". Observation - DCs always at/near top in any subjects they like. The effort part helps to point out which teachers they are not keen on, and vice versa."

And presumably you/the school do something about pulling those effort grades up?

hi seeker - we're talking quite "good" schools here, so I tend to assume they've done what they are interested in doing, rather than not spotting an issue. Also realistic about what is an issue to us may not be to the school. Instead of investing my time in the school, I try to understand DCs' behaviour. Discounting hormones and health, they have a pretty good idea what needs fixing. The more "objective" stuff on marks and cohort ranking I think avoids a lot of guessing what a report means.

TBH we've never been that hung up about effort. By this I mean how much input, and not "social attitude", which is not negotiable. When you love doing something it's never an effort. At other times even the simplest of tasks is almost insurmountable. But some tasks need to be done, however they feel. So we focus on marks and ranking and cohort. DCs know they are privileged to be at their schools and aim to contribute as best they can, while being true to themselves.

What a fascinating set of replies - great to hear all this.... now going to ask the other schools Im looking at for DD what their ideas are and why....I totally agree that they are a good idea, and although subjective are a great insight into DD approach .... I really like the idea of grading "participation"

DC prep schhol give three marks:effort, achievement and presentation (where appropriate).

Yes please!

DSD is dyslexic and struggles so so much. But she tries so hard, puts effort into everything she does. It's categorically Not Her Fault that she can't do a lot of what she is expected to.

It doesn't help that she constantly gets lower grades than her twin sister who frankly doesn't give a toss about her schoolwork and rushes everything through in five minutes.

It is devastating to us that a bright girl is constantly knocked in confidence despite trying harder than most of her peers. :(

Our DS gets both and while we are pleased and proud if he does well in attainment, we know there are some areas he finds harder esp as he is dyslexic, so we too try to be encouraging about the effort bit too. I think it helps; he can generally now recognise when he has been coasting.

I dislike effort grades because your imnposing a linear scale on something that doesn't really work like that.

There is another thread that is talking about something similar, and I posted this on there, which I found interesting.

Some children work hard, but ineffectively. Teaching is about making effort worthwhile.

Oh my giddly aunt.

You're

I once got an A for achievement and a B for effort. That was a compliment really, I guess. Looking back they'd probably overestimated the effort grade in any most subjects I got an A in though.

I'm with Fallen Madonna and Hully Gully I'm afraid. Effort is not measurable. When I was at school we got grades for effort and attainment, I wanted to know why I got lower grades for attainment than somebody else who had lower marks in the exam. I was told it included your classwork as well, so my question was, "what is effort, how much you smile at the teacher?". As an adult I can see that a child who tries hard but struggles is deserving of praise, but surely this can come in the comment on the report? Also my DCs get grades for punctuality, behaviour and organisation - why effort as well?

My DCs comp has always graded effort, behaviour and quality of homework as well as providing an achievement grade - either NC or GCSE level. I've still got my Dad's old school reports and those included where he was in each class eg 3/25. That's what my DH really wants to know !!!