How we monitor your progress

Monitoring Progress

We will closely monitor your progress during your time with us in the Sixth Form from both an academic and a pastoral point of view. Nothing is more important to us than your health and well-being, and we have a responsibility to look after you and provide support where necessary. Ultimately, you have chosen to join the Sixth Form because you want to be successful in your A levels, and monitoring your academic progress is an important part of the support we offer.

Regular Assessment

You will expect to be assessed regularly through both formal and informal means, and this assessment will be used by your teachers to keep a record of your progress at regular intervals throughout the year.  These records will be used, along with the judgement of your teachers to periodically report the grade that you are working at.  We use these judgements to assess how well you are progressing towards meeting your target grade and to make decisions on the best ways to support you as a result.

At the end of the year, all of the monitoring data, including your grades for your Year 12 exams (which take place in the summer term) will be used as the basis for generating your predicted grade for the end of Year 13.  This predicted grade will form a central part of any application you make to study at university or apprenticeships, which you will make at the start of Year 13.  So whilst your predicted grades may change (up or down!) during Year 13, it is important to recognise that your level of performance during Year 12 is what we will use for your university/apprenticeship applications.

Target Grades

At the start of your studies you will be given a target grade determined by your GCSE scores and the perceived difficulty of the A level subjects you have chosen.  The school uses a system called ALIS to set these target grades.  They are not meant to put a limit on your aspiration, but provide us with a useful benchmark to assess how well you are doing in each subject relative to the potential predicted by your GCSE results.  We want you to aspire to achieve whatever you want to achieve, but first and foremost you should be aiming to make adequate progress towards meeting your target grade in each subject, and by monitoring your progress we can determine the best way to support you in achieving this.

Most students join us with aspirations of achieving grades between A* and B, but in many cases, their target grades may be lower than this.  Your target grade should serve as a timely reminder of the hard work and commitment to your studies that will be required to achieve success – whatever that means to you.