Scorecard Vs. Assessment Summary
Scorecard Vs. Assessment Summary
Is it time to make the switch?
To answer this question it’s helpful to take a look back at the evolution of assessment within Learning Ladders...
Scorecard, designed in the era of ‘life after levels’; supports teachers in assessing pupils as they move through the curriculum without gaps.
A cumulative score, generated all the way back from Reception, highlights gaps in a pupil’s learning. These gaps, viewable within the Gap Analysis tool (a tool well utilised by teachers today) supports teachers' future planning.
We still stand by this. A solid foundation in the curriculum is key to moving forward securely and scaffolding success for the future.
As time has moved on, feedback from schools suggests that whilst in theory, the concept of moving through the curriculum with no gaps is easy to process on paper, the reality is that many pupils will inevitably move through their curriculum with gaps here and there. With the system looking back from Year R, 10 points missing per year for example, (70 points by Year 6) would result in a judgement of Significantly Below.
In a system that has a cumulative aspect to it, this can cause quite a headache for teachers in Years 4, 5 and 6 who have pupils with a handful of gaps in the lower years- these pupils will always struggle to be ‘on track’.
Out of this feedback came the launch of Assessment Summary in 2017.
With no requirement to backfill historical progress (unless teachers want to of course), Assessment Summary provides schools with a flexible assessment solution, generating automated judgements based on bespoke assessment policies, saving teacher’s time.
Bespoke your yearly expectations
Amend your attainment and progress expectations for each subject
Amend your attainment and progress expectations for each subject
Over time, the need for greater flexibility on a subject by subject basis has increased.
Set bespoke end of year expectations as well as contextual termly expectations for each subject within Assessment Summary settings.
This is formed on the basis that each subject sees progress at different stages. For example, the teaching of maths may be more segmented by aspect whereas reading skills develop over the year.
Termly expectations take into account contextual factors to assessing pupils, such as seasonal influences, religious festivals or curriculum design (in implementing a mastery approach for example).
Assessment Summary expectations are used to inform a sophisticated algorithm for generating automated judgements teachers can have confidence in.
Automated Judgements
The bespoke assessment policy settings; customised expectations and descriptors, inform the algorithm to produce reflective, automated judgements.
Recommended judgements exist to support teachers in viewing their assessments, reduce workload and ensure all children are on track to make progress. These judgements are viewed within the Assessment Summary page.
Teacher Judgement
The crucial aspect to anything within Learning Ladders is how it informs your teaching and learning. For any judgement made within Learning Ladders, it should be based on sound professional judgement.
It is a well established fact that algorithms alone are not enough to provide a holistic reflection of a whole child and their progress and attainment. After all, an algorithm can only present what it’s been told.
If a child has missed two weeks of school due to illness but the teacher knows they are still on track to meet expectations- override the judgement.
So even with Assessment Summary judgements (informed by bespoke, contextualised expectations), the option for Teacher Judgement is included for teachers to triangulate the system’s suggested judgement, own observation and holistic view of a teacher, ensuring that judgements are representative of where a child is working.
Feedback from schools who have used the automated judgements over time agree with the automated judgements generated and usually only amend judgements for certain pupils where necessary.
Global Milestones
Assessment Summary enables schools to set global milestones in line with their school’s unique assessment policy. Customisation of the milestones includes the ability to set the number of milestones (2-6), labels and colours. Your assessment policy is reinforced with these customised colours, descriptions and number of milestones used in Class and Student assessment pages when noting assessments.
These milestones enable the sharing of assessments with parents through Ladders at Home, indiciting to parents which learning objectives are in progress or complete. Sharing explicitly learning objectives with parents enables all adults in a child’s life to say the same thing, at the same time, in the same way.
Easily export data for each subject
Have full visibility behind the judgements generated in Assessment Summary. Export the data for any subject onto an easy to view and print .CSV file. View each child’s data for a subject across all prior years, as well as a half termly breakdown of progress and attainment within the current academic year.
No more backfilling!
Assessment Summary attainment will take into account a pupil’s current year group expectations.
This means that you do not have to go through the process of backfilling prior year groups in order to see cumulative attainment (sigh of relief!)
Progress is calculated using the assessments made within any year group. For example, if you have a Year 5 pupil who is working through the Year 3 and 4 curriculum their attainment may be shown as ‘below’ however their progress may be ‘good’ or ‘above expected’.
Of course if you would still like to enter historical assessments in order to view an accurate Gap Analysis, you will still be able to backfill your curriculum statements.
Assessment Summary- a simple yet powerful reporting tool
Assessment Summary takes the prep out of progress meetings with the ability to view attainment and progress across each subject (or multiple subjects in the multiple subject view).
Assessment Summary takes the prep out of progress meetings with the ability to view attainment and progress across each subject (or multiple subjects in the multiple subject view).
With the added bonus of bespoke colours and attainment and progress descriptors, the reports can be downloaded and printed as a springboard for conversation.
For schools who view attainment and progress across multiple subjects within Scorecard, check out our new feature, the ‘Multiple Subject View’ in Assessment Summary. This view allows teachers to view judgements for Attainment and Progress across multiple subjects, simple to export into a useful .csv file.
Read more about our Assessment Summary tools here.
Read more about our Assessment Summary tools here.
Insights
Insights is the scenario based reporting tool for teachers and senior leaders to take a broader look at attainment and progress across different groups.
Insights uses the expectations in the system to calculate the percentage of children meeting the assessment descriptors set in the system. Schools are able to see the algorithm behind the judgements to ensure that the Learning Ladders system is aligned to school and MAT expectations.
There are a number of different reports available:
New features
As you will have noticed, Learning Ladders prides itself on listening to feedback from schools, identifying areas for development and regularly releasing new features.
Many of our new features, as well as features in the development pipeline, utilise Assessment Summary settings. These include our bespoke, automated Pupil Reports feature, as well as the GL Assessment Dashboard which allows teachers to view Summative and formative assessments on one screen- Another great reason to switch over from Scorecard.
Can we use both Scorecard and Assessment Summary?
The simple answer to this question is no but we know that a change from Scorecard to Assessment Summary may need a period of transition to develop confidence and make comparisons. So, for a short time, why not run Scorecard and Assessment Summary alongside until you feel confident that the reports are aligned to your school/MAT expectations.
Due to the differences in how attainment and progress is calculated, you cannot run both Scorecard and Assessment Summary alongside each other long term- you will see different judgements.
Learning Ladders suggests turning off Scorecard and activating Assessment Summary and Insights for more flexibility within expectations and judgements to reflect the context of your school.
Assessment Summary | Scorecard |
Create bespoke thresholds per subject | One set of thresholds for all subjects |
Non-cumulative | Cumulative |
‘Above’ / ‘Greater Depth’ pupils included within yearly expectation | ‘On Track’ pupils achieve up to 100% of their year group’s curriculum without gaps |
Amend your four descriptors | Five set descriptors |
What happens when we switch from Scorecard to Assessment Summary?
Like Scorecard, Assessment Summary and Insights use the same granular data, so this is unchanged.
Learning Ladders are here to support you with every step, from setting your bespoke assessment policy to helping schools to update teachers on using the new tools.
Scorecard is no longer being updated/improved and will be deprecated at some point in the future.
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