NSH/DJM/CCH
23 September 2021
Dear Parent/Carer
YEAR 11 INTERNAL ASSESSMENTS WEEK
MONDAY 27 SEPTEMBER – FRIDAY 1 OCTOBER
We are sure that you will be aware that amongst our planning for all of our students to return to school, we have been planning to ensure that our Year 11 students are supported to ‘catch up’ and further progress with their GCSE and vocational studies. We have a variety of support planned over the coming months and we will write to you with further details when appropriate. For now, our priority has been to ensure the safe return to school of all of our students and their safety and wellbeing.
Having said that, we do need to have formal systems in place of measuring our students’ progress and identifying gaps in knowledge and understanding to ensure that we are correctly planning our intervention strategies and targeted support. We are holding formal Year 11 internal assessments in all of our subjects starting on Monday 27 September. Your child’s teacher will tell your child on which day the assessment is taking place.
We have spoken to all of our Year 11 students about this and our Year 11 teachers have been talking to students in lessons. We will publish a grade card at the end of October, which will detail your child’s end of Key Stage Four Target Grade and End of Key Stage Four Progress assessment grade for each subject. The End of Key Stage Four Progress assessment grade will be based upon your child’s teacher’s estimates of their expected outcomes in Year 11, based on their current effort and progress. This can obviously change as your child progresses throughout the year.
There will be a number of other formal assessments taking place throughout Year 11 (including the Year 11 mocks in January) all of which will continue to contribute to the overall End of Key Stage Four progress assessment.
In order for you to support your child in preparing for the internal assessments next week, we have included a revision list detailing all of the topics that are being assessed. In addition to their exercise books, your child should still have all of their KS4 revision guides which we distributed in Year 10.
Whilst we stress the importance of your child taking these assessments seriously, preparing for them as best as they can and striving to achieve their best, we have equally stressed the importance of health and wellbeing. We are fully committed to supporting all of our students, particularly our students who are sitting public examinations this year, in ensuring that we support and prepare them as best we can for the challenge of GCSEs next summer in whatever final format they make take.
Yours faithfully
Mr N Holmes - Director of Student Progress
Mr D Merrifield - Directory of Key Stage Four