Not telling Students the median mark.

[Itoosurvive]

The recent directive in our independent school was that after any test, exam or assessment, students should no longer be given the median mark for either the group or year, even if they ask. They were only to know their own score. The grounds for this were that students below the median could be upset by their mark.
Is this now common practice not to give any point of reference to students' scores? The school is 11-18.

I don’t give our medium marks, not to save upset but because I don’t see the benefit of knowing. When getting a test back students should be focus on where they can improve and where they lost marks. Comparing to a medium doesn’t tell them anything and focuses more on the number attained rather than thinking about the work.

In the same way I don’t give out ‘grades’ on individually pieces of work, as that is all they then see then don’t look sun deeper that that.

What is the benefit to their learning of being told the median mark?

IME it’s parents who tend to want that information.

I've never done this or heard of this being done? If a test was especially hard, we adjust grade boundaries, so students know if they got a 7 they've genuinely done well, if they've got a 3, it always means they've done poorly (across the year group).

Students know what they got last time and should generally expect to see their grades (not necessarily % score) going up during the year.

I do think the justification is a bit odd though because students who are going to get upset about a poor test score will generally get upset by a poor mark regardless (and some students need reassuring that 100% is not expected).

I tend to use the mark scheme wording for each student, and then I highlight where they have achieved at each level, so they can see what they still need to work on.

Over many years of teaching (both GCSEs at Yr11, and also Tertiary level core subject retakes at 16-19) my students have said knowing what they've achieved so far via highlighing the MS, and then seeing where they're still need to put in more work, is helpful because it's visual.

But I don't think anywhere I've worked has focused on the median.

I think that's a good idea.

A former colleague once told me that when he worked at BT an edict came down that everybody had to complete the average number of jobs per week. It was something like 2.4 per day / 12 per week.

Management hadn't factored in that the average was pulled up by some hard working people that did 50 jobs per week. Once they realised their colleagues were doing so little work, and there would be zero repercussions for reducing their efforts, they stopped busting a gut - and why not if you're not being paid more for working harder?

The average jobs per day dropped like a stone.

I'd suggest that telling children they are x above the average will cause some of them to ease up and settle for 'about/above average' rather than 'very above average'.

We have mixed ability classes for GCSE. After each assessment I give them their assessment grade and their own target grade.