An exciting thread for the new year...how do you meaningfully track progress in secondary English?

[AHardDaysWrite]

I'd really appreciate hearing about how other schools do this. We enter data for all our pupils every 6 weeks. However, I don't think the way we currently do it really gives us an accurate picture of progress and helps us plan effective intervention. At KS3, we use APP and assess various AFs throughout the year. So we might have a year 8 pupil who does well on a reading piece and gets a 6b, but then the next assessment is a writing AF, he's not as good at writing and he only gets a 5a. On paper, then, he's not making progress, but it might be that the next assessment is a reading one so he goes up again (so SLT and parents are happy) but in fact he's not a secure level 6 because his writing is still weak. The same happens at KS4 - we enter a mark for whichever piece of work we've done most recently, so it might be a mock exam paper or a CA. Again, that doesn't really give an accurate assessment of progress - because just because a student has scored an approximate grade B on one CA, that doesn't equal a grade B overall when the exam is worth more marks and assesses different skills.

What's the answer? I know ultimately the answer is to assess holistically as often as possible, but how do you do that without doubling the marking?

Hopeful bump!

We do very similar to you. At ks3 we do three assessments a term - en1, en2 and en3 - but only really track it via reports (also termly) so there's a risk of subjectivity.

At ks4 we have a very fancy spreadsheet that we enter all the ca marks into and it colour codes whether pupils are meeting targets or not. Again, slightly subjective as they are unmoderated marks.

I've been hod for a year and have just started implementing more standardisation activities in the department. I'm also considering end of year exams for all year groups (partly to get them used to itbbefore new style exams)

I'm mostly posting because this is an area for concern for me too and I'll be interested to read what's suggested.

I teach at a small special school and we track and report reading, writing and S&L separately in KS3. I (the only English teacher) do a formal assessment each half term focussing on one skill set and make a change if I think the others have gone up. But I only have 15 KS3 students though!

For KS4 we just make it very clear that the reported grade is a CW grade and the exam grade is an estimate (estimates from mocks mostly. We do a lot of mock exams). Again I only have 17 KS4 students.

For the KS3 students I stapled each APP grid in the front of their book and highlight the boxes I feel they are secure in and date it. I update this every half term (using a different colour highlighter and date it again). The students get a real confidence boost from seeing the "towers" go up and Ofsted (sigh) loved it too.