What are 'Attainment Settings'?

For easy analysis and sharing of data, in the Overview and Matrix reports, pupil attainment scores are categorised into 5 bands:

As all schools have individual approaches, schools are able to control which scores are placed in which band. When a user generates one of these reports, they have the option to adjust the attainment settings and select the thresholds that are appropriate at that point in time. The thresholds that have been used to categorise scores are always shown in the Legend at the bottom of these reports.


IMPORTANT: Any changes to the attainment settings will only be applied to that user's account and reports. As a school it is important that the required attainment expectations and report settings are communicated to all your users.



Selecting your Attainment Settings

You can edit the settings by clicking on 'Show Attainment Settings' in the relevant Progress report menus.




External Data


When selecting your settings for external data, you may want to refer to guidance provided by the test publisher. You can type numbers in the white boxes to reflect how scores should be categorised. The grey boxes will be generated based on the data selected and your entries in the white boxes.

Markbook Data

When selecting markbook settings, you can choose '% of assessed' or 'Overall %' in the report menu.

  • 'Overall %' takes account of assessment all objectives in the pupils' year groups so can be used to analyse progress towards end of year expectations. 

  • '% of assessed' only takes account of the objectives that the pupils have been assessed in during the current academic year

Typing numbers in the white boxes will allow you to place markbook percentage scores into appropriate categories. If you would like some guidance in setting your thresholds for markbook data, there are some suggestions below. If you would like more information on how markbook scores are generated, please visit Markbook Data. 


Suggested attainment settings for markbook data

NB These are provided as guidance only and and do not represent any external expectation. Schools should feel free to adapt the suggestions to suit their individual requirements 


Using '% of assessed'

Some schools feel that '% of assessed' gives a better indication of attainment earlier in the school year. As it only looks at objectives assessed so far in the school year, rather than all objectives, it can give a better indication of end position and an earlier indication of pupils who may require intervention.  When using ‘% of assessed’, your attainment settings are likely to stay fairly constant throughout the year. You may want to consider using the end of year example settings shown below.


Using 'Overall %'

As all age-related objectives are used in 'Overall %', the attainment settings used to generate a report will need to reflect the specific expectations at that time of year. This means that they will need to be changed over the course of the year. Some suggestions are given below. Again, these are for guidance only and schools should adapt them as required.


End of Term 1: Around a third of statements may have been assessed. As most statements will be re-visited and developed later in the year, a pupil working 'at' expectations may only have been assessed with a yellow tile in these objectives although there may be some green.


End of Term 2: The majority of statements are likely to have been assessed at this point. At this point, a pupil working 'at' expectations would have been assessed with a green tile in at least some of them.

End of Year: All statements will have been assessed at this point. To be working 'at' expectations, a pupil would need to be assessed with a green tile in a minimum of half of the statements. 


NB These could be used as '% of assessed' settings throughout the year.