Assessment at Key Stage 3
This page explains the method of assessing attainment at Key Stage Three (Years 7 to 9) which was introduced in January 2024. There is a “quick guide” infographic as well as a section of Frequently Asked Questions. Further information about the Key Stage Three Curriculum can be found here.
Please note that these FAQs are intended as a reference guide to our Key Stage Three assessment and levels. There is no expectation that parents/carers read them and you will almost certainly not want to do so from beginning to end, because there is a lot of detail which is repetitive at times. The best approach is to target the questions which particularly interest you and read the answers to them. We hope you find them useful. Click on any question to expand the answer.Frequently Asked Questions
What does my child’s level mean?
The level tells you how strongly your child has attained this academic year in each subject’s formal assessment tasks, compared with the rest of the year group. A level of 7.5/8.5/9.5 indicates that a student’s attainment is in the highest scoring 20% of the year group, a level of 7.4/8.4/9.4 indicates the next 20% and so on.
How did the teachers work out my child’s level?
Teachers in each subject designate certain tests and tasks to be used for formal assessment purposes. When teachers mark them, they give scores for students’ work. These scores are totalled and used to work out how highly each student is attaining within the year group. Those in the highest scoring 20% of the year group are assigned 7.5/8.5/9.5, those in the next 20% are assigned 7.4/8.4/9.4 and so on.
Does the level reset completely after each report or does the assessment which contributed to one level also contribute to the next?
Each level is based on the outcomes of all the formal assessment in the subject which has taken place to date during that academic year. For example, in the spring term, we might report levels based on two or three end of topic tests in a subject. The next set of levels in the summer term would still incorporate those end of topic tests, but would also include further tests which have taken place more recently, plus the internal exam taken in June.
We will reset levels at the start of each academic year, but we plan to inform parents/carers of levels from previous years in reports to provide context and to help them get a sense of their child’s attainment over time.
Is the standard for each level consistent from year group to year group?
Levels are based on how highly a student has attained within their year group, so the standard will vary a little from year to year and it is possible that work of the same standard could receive different levels over time (e.g. work attaining a low 7.4 one year might get a high 7.3 the next). Levels are not designed to support comparisons between the attainment of students in different year groups. However, the academic profile of our intake at Beaumont remains similar from year to year, so the standard of work required to attain each level is unlikely to change significantly.
Why can’t you just give a GCSE grade?
There are no grades for Key Stage Three attainment and GCSE grades are designed specifically for assessment at the end of Year 11, after students have studied the relevant syllabus. They cannot simply be applied to the Key Stage Three curriculum. Grades are also based on the attainment of large cohorts of students across the whole country. We simply do not have access to this sort of information, so even if we tried to report grades we would not be able to do so with any accuracy.
How is it helpful to know how my child is doing in comparison to other students in the year group?
Our aim is not to promote comparisons between individual students, but to provide the most accurate and useful information about attainment available to us. There are no national standards of attainment at Key Stage Three and no national tests set by the government, unlike at Key Stages Two and Four, so the attainment of other students in the year group is the only reference point available to us to provide parents/carers with information about how their child is doing.
We believe this data will give a more precise picture of how students’ attainment compares across different subjects and we hope that this will lead to more informed conversations at home, help students to know where they most need to improve, and give them useful context when they take their GCSE options in Year 9.
The data is also very useful to us because it enables teachers to identify accurately which students are struggling and might need additional support, which students’ performance seems to have dipped over time and which parts of the curriculum students are struggling with more than others.
How do I know if my child is meeting age-related expectations?
There are no national age-related expectations for Key Stage Three, so how highly a child should be expected to attain in each subject is an individual matter, for which prior learning, personal aspirations and levels of interest might be taken into account.
We can offer reassurance that we work very hard to provide a curriculum which is rigorous and challenging, benchmarking ourselves against the best practice we see in the wider educational community, so we are very confident that we more than hold our own as a school when it comes to the standards to which our students are educated.
What level should I expect my child to get?
There is no way for us to accurately measure a student’s potential and we do not want to put an arbitrary limit on it, so we do not set expected levels. It is also worth noting that levels are likely to vary from subject to subject and to go up and down over time. These things are nothing to worry about.
To provide students and parents/carers with some contextual information, in our reports we do indicate how highly students attained within the Beaumont cohort in Key Stage 2 national tests. This comes in the form of levels from 6.1 to 6.5, with 6.5 representing the highest attaining 20%, 6.4 the next 20% and so on. This gives an idea of a student’s starting point and can offer a useful reference point, but we would not expect a student to maintain this level all the time in every subject. It is also important to remember that Key Stage Two tests only cover literacy and maths, so attainment in other subjects may differ significantly, especially in fields like the arts or sport.
How do I know how well my child is doing compared to other children across the country?
There are no national tests set by the government at Key Stage Three, unlike Key Stages Two and Four, and we have no access to data about the attainment of students in other schools, so we cannot provide a precise answer to this question. However, we know that Beaumont cohorts consistently attain more highly than the national average, both when they join us from primary school and especially when they get their GCSE results, and we put a great deal of effort into providing a curriculum which is rigorous and challenging. Therefore students do not need to be in the top half of a Beaumont year group in order to have attainment which would compare well with their peers nationally.
What GCSE results does this mean my child is likely to get?
We do not teach GCSE courses at Key Stage Three, so we cannot forecast GCSE grades at this stage and the levels we issue in Years 7-9 do not map directly onto GCSE assessment criteria. However, it may provide reassurance to note that Beaumont cohorts significantly exceed the national average at GCSE every year (the average GCSE grade at Beaumont is a strong 6 whereas the average result nationally is more than a grade lower and typically around 40% of Beaumont results are at grades 7-9). Therefore students do not need to be in the top half of a Beaumont year group in order to be on track for strong GCSE results.
How do I know if my child is making progress?
Progress in school means learning more of the curriculum and this will come about just from your child attending school and carrying out the work set. It is not possible to comprehensively capture this learning process in attainment levels, but they can give you an idea of how your child’s recent attainment compares with how they have done in the past. Please bear in mind, however, that we would expect levels to fluctuate a bit over time, so secure conclusions about progress cannot be drawn from upward or downward shifts by one level in a report. To get a sense of your child’s progress, look for significant changes and trends over time as well as talking to them about their own learning and asking for their teacher’s thoughts at the next parent consultation evening.
What should give me cause for concern?
The things to look for in a report which might cause concern are, first and foremost, teacher ratings of ‘L’ or ‘C’ for behaviour, effort and home learning. These are leading indicators which are likely, over time, to cause a decline in attainment. If all your child’s ratings are ‘G’ or ‘E’ then they deserve praise because these are the things within their control and they are doing what we would expect of a Beaumont student. This is likely to stand them in good stead when it comes to academic performance, so we would recommend not using attainment levels alone to identify concerns. However, if your child’s attainment has dropped by two levels or more since the previous report or there is a downward trend over an extended period of time, this might be a starting point for a conversation with your child about whether anything is not going as it should be.
My child got a higher score in their latest test. Why has their level not improved?
The first reason why this might have happened is that our levels are based on more than one assessment task, so a higher score on the latest one will not necessarily make a huge difference to the overall score. The second thing to bear in mind is that each student’s level is not only determined by their own performance, but also by the work of all the other students in the year group. Therefore, a student might get a higher percentage in a test than they did on the last occasion, but if most others improved their results as well, then the level would probably not increase. For the same reason, a lower score would not necessarily lead to a downward change in level.
My child has been at the same level in consecutive reports. Does this mean they are not making progress?
No. Progress in school means learning more of the curriculum and your child will have been doing this. Of course, their peers will also have been making progress at the same time, so when assessments take place they will reflect the fact that everyone knows more and can do more than the previous occasion. Therefore remaining at approximately the same point within the cohort and maintaining the same level is only to be expected and is nothing to worry about.
My child dropped to a lower level in the latest report. Should I be worried that they are getting worse?
This depends on a number of things. Each student’s standard of work tends to fluctuate from assessment to assessment because they are likely to have greater aptitude for some parts of the curriculum within each subject than for others and because random factors affect performance, such as feeling a bit under the weather on the day of the test. These things can easily lead to a drop in the level from one assessment point to the next without it indicating that there is a cause for concern.
However, if your child’s attainment has dropped by more than one level and/or there is a sustained reduction in the level over two or more sets of reports, this might indicate something worth investigating. Our advice would be to start by discussing it with your child, who might be well aware that they have not been giving of their best in a subject or that there is something inhibiting the quality of their work. The teacher’s latest report might also give an indication of the problem (e.g. the grade for home learning or effort might be ‘L’). If these avenues of inquiry do not enable you to identify the cause of a significant decline in attainment or your child is unsure what they can do to address it, the best person to contact for further advice is your child’s teacher in the relevant subject. If the lower levels are to be found in a range of subjects, you should get in touch with the form tutor in the first instance.
My child’s level has gone up and down quite a bit. Should I be worried?
Not necessarily. Progress is messy and a student’s performance typically fluctuates over time, so we would not expect a student to maintain the same level at each reporting point. Levels are also affected by the performance of other students within the year group and it is quite normal for a topic which feels easy for some students to seem hard to others. Broad trends over time are needed to draw conclusions and unless there is a consistent downward drift then there is unlikely to be cause for concern.
My child’s attainment is below average for the year group. Should I be worried that they are doing very badly?
Not necessarily. The attainment of Beaumont year groups is consistently higher than the national average, both when they join us from primary school and especially when they get their GCSE results, so scores in the lower half of a Beaumont cohort certainly do not represent failure and students in this position may well still be on track for GCSE results at grades 4, 5 or even higher.
We also need to be careful with generalisations about what success looks like. This will vary from student to student and will depend on starting points, aspirations and levels of interest in the subject. What feels like doing badly to one student may represent stunning success for another. To assist students and parents/carers to take prior attainment into account our reports indicate how highly students attained within the Beaumont cohort in Key Stage 2 national tests. This comes in the form of levels from 6.1 to 6.5, with 6.5 representing the highest attaining 20%, 6.4 the next 20% and so on. Of course this is only one piece of data and does not determine a student’s potential, but it does help put performance into context and we hope it will assist discussions about what would represent success for each individual.
My child has the lowest level for lots of subjects. How can I help them not to be disheartened?
We appreciate that attainment levels can be very difficult to receive for any student, especially if they tend to be lower than average. We believe it is still important to be honest and transparent with young people and their parents/carers, which is why we share the levels, but we are also sensitive to how this might make them feel.
It is worth remembering that the Beaumont cohort tends to perform at a significantly higher level than the national average, so what looks like low attainment at Beaumont is likely to look higher when compared with peers across the country. Students whose attainment is below average at Beaumont can still go on to get GCSE results which open doors for them to achieve their goals in life.
It is also important to note that assessment is a starting point, not the last word. We report attainment because it helps students to know where they most need to focus their efforts so they can improve. How students respond to the routine diet of results and feedback arising from the many quizzes, tests and other assignments they carry out at school is far more important to their progress than the levels they get a couple of times per year. We want our assessment to promote students’ learning far more than we want it to measure what they have learned.
In spite of all this, we recognise that some young people have huge challenges around mental health. It is unlikely that attainment levels will be the sole cause of this, but we appreciate that a disappointing report can be a bitter pill to swallow and may add to these difficulties. We want to support our students so that they can flourish and so if you have concerns about your child’s mental health in connection with school, whether or not it arises from a report, please contact their Form Tutor or Head of Year.
What does it mean if my child does not have a level?
Levels are based on a range of assessments and we can normally only issue a level if all of them have been completed, so if no level is entered for one or more subjects, the most likely reason is that some or all of the assignments are missing. This might have arisen because of absence from school or failure to complete homework.
Levels are based on all formal assessment undertaken between September and July, so if your child joined the school during the academic year, it is unlikely that we will be able to issue them with levels until the following year.
What should I do if I am worried about how my child is doing in a subject?
Before drawing the conclusion that you should be concerned we would ask you to consider whether your child’s level is significantly out of step with what they have achieved before in the subject and with their performance in tests at the end of Key Stage Two. We would also ask you to take note of whether information has already been provided about the likely causes of underperformance. For example there may be a low attendance percentage or ratings of ‘L’ or ‘C’ for behaviour, effort or home learning in the most recent report. There may also be negatives or detentions logged on My Child At School or your child’s teacher may have expressed concerns at parent consultation evening. If so, these are the issues your child needs to address. If this does not answer your questions or address your concerns about your child’s work in a particular subject, you should contact the relevant teacher via the school’s email address (admin@beaumont.school).
What should I do if I am worried about how my child is doing across the curriculum?
Before drawing the conclusion that you should be concerned we would ask you to consider whether your child’s level is significantly out of step with what they have achieved before in their subjects and with their performance in tests at the end of Key Stage Two. We would also ask you to take note of whether information has already been provided about the likely causes of underperformance. For example there may be a low attendance percentage or ratings of ‘L’ or ‘C’ for behaviour, effort or home learning in the most recent report. There may also be negatives or detentions logged on My Child At School or your child’s teachers may have expressed concerns at consultation evening. If so, these are the issues your child needs to address. If this does not answer your questions or address your concerns about your child’s work in a range of subjects, you should contact your child’s Form Tutor via the school’s email address (admin@beaumont.school).
How can I help my child to do better?
The most important thing you can do is to ensure your child attends school and to reinforce the importance of home learning, providing them with a quiet, calm space to complete it, free from the distraction of phones, TV or other devices. We also appreciate it when parents/carers take an active interest in their children’s education, asking them about what they have learned, praising them for hard work and supporting the school in the event of any consequences like detentions.
If you are looking for further advice about how you can support with particular subjects you will find information about this on each subject’s page in the Curriculum section of our website. Parent consultation evening also provides an opportunity to ask your child’s teachers for their suggestions.
What should I do if I think my child’s level is incorrect?
Attainment levels are based on a range of different assessment tasks, so it is unlikely that a single assignment that your child has shown you will account for the level on its own. Please bear in mind that the level is determined not only by your child’s scores, but also by the results achieved by all the other students in their year group, to which your child does not have access.
Taking these things into account, if you still have reason to believe there is a mistake, please contact your child’s teacher for the relevant subject, who will be able to check whether the level has been reported correctly.
