Teacher pathway, Level 2

Outcome: To be able to record assessment judgements for pupils against objectives

Why it matters: Once you have recorded assessment judgements in Classroom Monitor you can use them:

  • To inform teaching and learning in your classroom

  • To calculate assessment scores for tracking pupils

  • As a basis for reporting to parents and other professionals

Time to complete: 15 minutes


 


Loading a Markbook

When you login to Classroom Monitor, it opens on the markbook menu screen. Here you can make the selections that you need before pressing the ‘Load Markbook’ button.


You must select:

  • Group: One or more groups can be selected

  • Curriculum: Only subjects from one curriculum can be loaded into the markbook at a particular time

  • Subject: One or more subjects can be selected


You have the option to select:

  • Ability/Year: One or more can be selected. If you don’t select an ability/year, all will be shown

  • Strand: One or more strands can be selected. If you don’t select any strands, all will be shown

Tip: Load a focused markbook with only the pupils and objectives that you need right now to save time and effort.


If you want to load the objectives in a particular order, click the 'Show ordering options'. Here you have the option to order by one or both of the following:

  • Order pupils by: surname, first name, age or attainment in the objectives shown.

  • Order objectives by: Subject, strand, ability or attainment by the pupils shown.

Tip: Reordering your markbook can be useful when you’re planning to identify strengths and weaknesses for the whole class and individuals.



Getting to know the markbook

Your selected objectives appear down the left and selected pupils across the top. Each pupil has a tile for each objective where their current assessment judgement is recorded.




If there are more pupils than fit on the screen, you can scroll to view the others. If there are more objectives than will fit on the screen, you can scroll down to view the others. If there are more than 25 objectives selected, you will see a 'Load Additional Objectives' button to load the rest.

 

Extra information in the markbook

In some frameworks, guidance is provided to help you make assessment judgements. You can view this by clicking on the circled icon on an objective.



Clicking the arrow next to an objective will tell you some more information about it. You will see the subject, the year/ability tag(s) and strand tag. This is particularly useful if you have loaded a lot of objectives.




Recording assessment judgements 

The colours available for assessment judgements are grey, red, yellow, green and blue (if available in your framework).  Each colour of assessment will show the appropriate terminology that it represents. Tip: Different colours can represent different things depending on your framework and school practices, so you should check this before starting to record assessment judgements.


The palette, which you can find in the top left-hand corner of the markbook, is used to colour tiles. There are two ways of colouring the tiles:


Select and colour: Select the tile(s) that you want to change by clicking on them. You will see a red border around the selected tiles. Then select the required colour from the palette to make the change. 


Tip: Clicking on an objective will select the corresponding tile for all pupils. You can then select the most appropriate colour for the whole group before tweaking the colour for pupils for whom this isn’t appropriate.


Paint with colour: Click the paintbrush in the palette, followed by the colour that you want to use. In the image below, you can see that the paintbrush is purple to show it is selected and the green M has been chosen to use.


Then, you can click on the tile or tiles that you want to change to that colour or you can 'drag' the colour across a number of tiles by holding down the left mouse button. You can put a new colour on your brush by clicking in the palette. Paint mode can be switched off by clicking on the paintbrush again.


Saving assessment judgements 

Your assessment judgements are automatically saved as long as you are connected to the internet. Look out for the ‘Save Successful’ message in the top right.



To find out when assessment judgements were made, you can:

  • Hover your cursor over a tile: This will tell you when the colour of the tile was last changed and which teacher did this.

  • Hover your cursor over a pupil name: This will tell you when assessments were last saved for that pupil in these objectives


Scoring the markbook

As you update your assessments, these are used to calculate an attainment score for each child. This uses the number and colour of each assessment judgement recorded. These scores can be viewed in the PROGRESS area which is covered in a separate learning guide.