SLT pathway, Level 2

Outcome: To have developed a shared understanding of how your school will use Classroom Monitor to meet your assessment needs

Why it matters:  Classroom Monitor is most effective in schools with a clearly defined and shared understanding and usage expectations. Consistency in usage and a shared understanding by all members of staff ensures reliability of the data which you are monitoring and analysing. It also encourages staff to use Classroom Monitor in a way which means that they will get the most out of the system to positively impact teaching and learning in your classrooms.

Time to complete: 15 minutes


It is likely to be useful for SLT to hold a meeting to review the school’s Classroom Monitor set up prior to teachers starting to record assessments. Suggested areas to cover are outlined below.


Markbook assessments

Classroom Monitor doesn’t tie you to a particular markbook framework. This means that you have the freedom to use a framework, or frameworks, that work for your school. If you have already made the decision about which framework you will be using in your school, Classroom Monitor will already be set up according to your school’s needs.


It is important that you all understand:

  • The structure of your markbook framework(s)

  • How scores are calculated in your markbook framework(s)

We provide overview information for our Partner Frameworks, but if you are using a bespoke framework you should have information about structure and settings in school.


For Markbook subjects, it is advised to set minimum expectations for how often assessments in each subject should be recorded in the markbook. We would recommend that teachers record ‘little and often’ as they teach and assess to get the maximum benefit, but setting minimum expectations will help teachers to manage their workloads most effectively.


External data

Many schools use tests to help their assessment and tracking of their pupils. Importing this into Classroom Monitor, can help to create a fuller picture of your pupils and to keep all of their assessment data in one place. You should decide whether you want to import test data into Classroom Monitor, which tests and how often you will do this.


Judgements

Some schools like teachers to record a judgement which allows them to ‘triangulate’ data from different sources, be that markbook data, external data that has been brought into Classroom Monitor or data and knowledge from other sources. It is important to define:

  • when these judgements should be made

  • the subjects the judgements should be made for

  • the criteria that should be used for making the judgements (a number of options are available in the system)


Historic assessment information

You should consider what historic assessment information you would find useful to bring into Classroom Monitor. You may want to have some key information in the system for tracking purposes. Test data can be imported via the External Data area.


There is no requirement in the system to backdate judgements or backfill markbook assessments and we would always advise that any information added to the system has a definite purpose going forward. For this reason, we would advise against setting requirements for backdated assessment when teachers start to use Classroom Monitor.