Assessment and Reporting to Parents

Assessment

The key principle in Notre Dame is to use assessment to support learning and to motivate pupils. Assessment is used to identify pupil’s strengths and to take appropriate action on those areas where there is room for improvement. All assessment will have a clear purpose and be appropriate to the learning stage of each individual pupil.

The assessment procedure will be used to involve pupils, teachers and parents/guardians in the teaching and learning process.

Reporting

Information on the achievement of all pupils is provided in the form of a Pupil Profile.

All pupil reports are produced from the information provided by teachers in the form of a computerised profile. For S1-S3 pupils, each sheet provides a profile of comments describing pupil progress in each subject based on the Curriculum for Excellence.

The key elements are:

• Curriculum for Excellence levels of attainment;
• comments on the pupil’s strengths (what they can do) and development needs (what they have to work on next);
• comments on how they are progressing in relation to the S1-S3 Broad General Education course.

Each department will also make comments on areas which have an important influence on progress and attainment in that subject, e.g. effort, behaviour, etc.

In the Profile Report for S4, the reports for National Qualifications subjects take the form of a profile which covers a range of topics within each subject.

In all cases, the assessable elements are those which the Scottish Examination Board has chosen. Our school reporting system is in line with National developments.

In the Profile Report for S5 and S6, attainment is recorded according to procedures followed by the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

Frequency of Reporting

Interim reports are prepared early in the session. These are followed by the main reports which are compiled once per session and sent to parents of all pupils.

Meetings

Parents’ meetings are organised for each year group to enable parents to discuss their child’s progress.

For every year group, guidance staff will interview pupils by January to review interim progress.

Tracking and Mentoring Programmes

There is currently a comprehensive Tracking and Mentoring programme in place for S4-S6 students. The Tracking Programme will give feedback to Guidance and subject teachers, students and parents/carers on a regular basis and is in addition to our current reporting procedures. This will monitor attendance, progress in all subject, attendance at supported study as well as a range of other important information. This information will allow teachers to advise students and parents/carers on progress, presentation levels for examinations and progression routes.

Each S4-S6 student has a Mentor who will meet with them on a regular basis and agree with the student areas for development and study. Each S5 mentor has only three students and is therefore able to spend an appropriate amount of time advising each student according to their individual needs. S6 students are involved in individual and/or group mentoring to encourage peer support and to enable students to set their own targets under the supervision of SMT and Guidance staff.

A copy of the tracking information and agreed targets will be provided to parents/carers.