Issue No. 006, 9th December 2011 - The Alice Smith School

Use of Baseline Data at the Secondary Campus
By Trevor Spence
Assistant Principal - Development
This is the third and final article on the use of baseline data. In the first article, I explained how the Computer
Adaptive Baseline Tests were used to improve our understanding of your child's potential and learning needs. In
the second article, I explained how such data provided us with a value added measure of the school's
effectiveness. In this article, I will explain how this is all linked together in something we call - pupil tracking.
Pupil tracking is an umbrella term for a range of activities that go on within the school that could equally be
described as keeping an eye on your child's progress. It is a process in which tutors, teachers, departmental
heads, assistant and key stage leaders, Assistant Principals and even the Principal are all engaged in at different
levels. A tutor and teacher will, for example, keep an eye on each individual child's progress, department heads
will track a class' progress, while assistant and key stage leaders will watch the progress of particular students
who are causing us concern.
At the core of pupil tracking is the establishment of targets for each child and establishing ways of measuring
progress towards those targets. These can be academic targets, but they can also be personal development
targets. Here I am concerned with academic targets.
At the start of each year, the teacher will set two targets for each child, the end of year target and the end of key
stage target. The CABT provides a prediction that, alongside prior data, the expected rate of progression and the
teacher's own judgement, is used to inform these targets. To this is added the KLASSfactor, ie. the expectation
that every child has the capability of achieving their maximum potential at the Alice Smith School and therefore
needs to be set a target which is ambitious but achievable. In simple terms, this means that the child's target will
often be a full level or grade higher than the CABT prediction. At this point, we now have a starting point and an
end goal set for each child.
Before proceeding to explain what happens next, further explanation of the rate of progression is needed. As an
example, let‟s consider the rate of progression at Key Stage 3, ie. from Year 7 to Year 9. Data from the UK shows
us that the normal expected rate of progression is 2 levels over three years. As each NC Level is divided into
three sub-levels, then this can be considered as 2 sub-levels a year. For example, a child may start on a 4c in
English and therefore be reasonably expected to be at 4a by the end of Year 7, 5c by mid Year 8 and so on.
What happens if we decide to be ambitious and aim for three levels of progression over the Key Stage? Now the
child needs to make three sub-levels of progress in each academic year. In other words the same child from the
example above would need to move from a 4c to a 5c by the end of Year 7. We now have a KLASS rate of
progression that is ambitious and challenging, to both child and teacher.
Of course a child's learning rarely moves in such a linear fashion. Rather there are plateaus where the child's level
of understanding remains on the same level, followed by sudden bursts of progress as things begin to click, this
can be further confused by dips as a child faces a new challenging task. This is why it is important to keep the
long term goal in mind, not get upset about occasional setbacks as long as the overall picture is one of progress.
So what happens next? Over a six week period, some teaching and learning goes on, a range of assessment
methods are used to measure the child's progress and this progress is plotted against the child's target to see if
the child is making the necessary progress. Every six weeks this tracking is reported to parents through the
Progress Report. Where the child is making the right amount of progress, the teaching and learning can be
considered effective and can move on confidently to the next challenge. Where the progress is so great that the
child is leaping ahead then the learning is clearly working very well but the teaching may need to adapt to raise
the level of challenge. As students can often excel in a specific part of the course, we wait to see a consistent
pattern before raising the level of challenge by setting a higher target. Where the child is not making the
expected progress, then the teaching and/or learning is not being effective for that child. The teacher looks at
the individual learning styles of that child, considers the child's level of motivation and reflects on the teaching
methods used in order to identify a way to address this issue. The teacher may, at this stage, look for parental
support in tackling the issue, particularly where it is a case of motivation, but is more likely to be tackling this in
class. Where a poor level of progress is being made concern is shared between the parent, the teacher and
others, like the Head of Department and the tutor. Intervention strategies are planned and the child's progress is
watched closely until things improve.
Through such pupil tracking, we can ensure that each child is appropriately challenged and provided with the
support necessary to help them overcome such challenges. Infused with an appropriate level of ambition it can
help the child and teacher maximise potential and thus achieve the school's mission.
For internal circulation only 9 th December 2011
KLASS Times I page 13