Teacher pathway, Level 4

Outcome: Use Classroom Monitor effectively to support subject leadership

Why it matters: Subject leadership activities can be difficult to fit in around teaching and other responsibilities. This learning guide will look at how you can use Classroom Monitor to support your subject leadership activities, making them more efficient and effective in terms of:

• Providing support for teachers

• Monitoring standards

• Identifying areas for subject development

Time to complete: 30 minutes


Options for recording assessment in your subject

In any subject, schools may use one, or a combination, of the following in Classroom Monitor:

  • Recording formative assessment against objectives in Markbook

  • Periodically recording a judgement e.g. Below, On track, Above in Progress

  • Importing test data

 Which option(s) work best for your school will depend on what is required for subject leadership purposes, and there may be some differences in requirements from subject to subject in a single school e.g. Core v Foundation subjects.


Markbook

The key advantage of using the Markbook for the teachers is that it can support them in their day to day practice, for planning and progression purposes, whilst generating data that can be used for tracking as a by-product without extra effort. As a subject leader, markbooks provide you not only with high level data for monitoring the standards in your subject but also provide a detailed picture of the learning in your subject which you can use for development purposes. They can also be a framework that helps teachers to ensure progression and avoid repetition of learning in a subject.


An important component of successful markbook usage in a subject depends on the assessment framework being used in that markbook. Classroom Monitor is not tied to a single assessment framework; you can choose from our range of markbook frameworks or it may be possible to add your own assessment framework. 


When evaluating a new or existing framework, there are two key questions to ask:

  • Does it fit our curriculum or scheme of work for the subject? You will want to think about content, skills and expectations as pupils progress through the school.

  • Are there an appropriate number of objectives? You will need to find the right balance between having enough to be useful for formative assessment and monitoring but not so many that recording is onerous for teachers.


It is a good idea to set expectations for how often markbook assessment should be recorded in a subject and also whether evidence should be saved in the markbook.


Judgements

Teacher judgements can be recorded in the Judgements report in PROGRESS. Some schools use a judgement as a way of 'triangulating' data from different sources, for example a markbook and test score, whilst others simply like to record a judgement to be used as the sole source of data for tracking and monitoring in that subject.


Teachers will need to know what type of judgement they should select in the Judgements report and how often this should be recorded.


Test data

If pupils take tests in a particular subject, this data can be imported via the External Data area of Classroom Monitor.


Monitoring standards in your subject

There are a number of reports in PROGRESS that can help you to monitor standards. Remember that in order to view data for any group that you do not teach, you will need to be designated as an SLT user or to have the relevant groups assigned to your account.


Overview Reports

As you'll recall from an earlier learning guide, the overview reports are for monitoring classes and year groups: School Overview (SLT only) for whole school data split by year group; Year Group Overview (SLT only) for year group data split by sub-groups; and Class Group Overview for whole class data split by sub-group. They work for markbook subjects where you have a set of distinct objectives for each year group. If your subject isn't structured like this (e.g. you have objectives that cover the whole of KS1) then you should take a look at some of the Group Tracking reports.


These reports can show you: 

  • Whether there are particular groups who are below or significantly below expectations. You can use this information to identify groups or teachers who may need more support in the subject

  • How groups are doing in your subject in comparison to other subjects

  • The names of pupils who are above and/or below expectations. Click on a cell to find the names of pupils that you might want to identify as gifted and talented children in your subject as well as others who may benefit from some intervention.


Matrix

This report is designed to compare two sets of data. You can load it for any group that you have access to and can choose to map any two sets of data for that group. In the context of subject leadership, you may want to use this report in a number of ways, for example:

  • Comparing attainment in the same markbook subject at two points in time- a good way to look at whether pupils are making the progress you would expect in a subject

  • Comparing attainment between a test and a markbook subject- to see if data from testing and teacher assessment is agreeing

  • Comparing attainment in two different markbook subjects- to see how pupils are attaining compared to another subject

Whichever data you are comparing, the Matrix will allow you to easily identify pupils who aren't where you would expect them to be:

  • Pupils in the Sig Below or Below category aren't meeting the expectations set for the group on that measure

  • Pupils on the diagonal are in the same category on both measures; clicking 'show overlay' will highlight this for you. Pupils above or below the diagonal aren't where you would expect them to be.

Clicking on the number in a cell will show you the names of the pupils in that cell, or for multiple cells. In this way you can identify pupils who may require some intervention; ideal for use in Pupil Progress Meetings.

 

Identifying areas for subject development

If teachers are recording assessment information in the markbooks this can give you a wealth of intelligence about learning in your subject. At a simple level, accessing class markbooks can give you a visual overview of the class’s progress in that subject for any groups that you have been given access to. Remember that you can reorder the markbook by attainment to get a good view of strengths, weaknesses and gaps.



The Curriculum Tracking report in Progress collates data from the markbook so that you can analyse a group's attainment in relation to specific criteria in your markbook framework. You will select a particular group, or year group, along with a single subject and single ability tag.


Here are some features of this report that may be useful to support your subject leadership activities:

  • You can sort the table by a particular column. So, for example, you could sort by the Target column to group together objectives which have been covered but not achieved

  • You can use the 'Search' box in the top right to find objectives which mention a particular word or phrase. So, for example, if you've loaded up 'Computing' and want to focus on all objectives to do with programming you can search for 'program'