The presence of progress scores in our school system seems to have led to a progress mindset in many schools, in which progression through school is seen as a series of discrete steps within each school year.
It is curious that this mindset should have become embedded in our school system for those aged 6 to 16, given its four multi-year “key stage” structure. The expectation outlined within the National Curriculum* is that children should develop across two years in key stage 1, four years in KS2, three years in KS3 and two in KS4.
The only attainment target in the National Curriculum is that “by the end of each key stage, pupils are expected to know, apply and understand the matters, skills and processes specified in the relevant programme of study.” There is no breakdown of any attainment expectation in any year group, much less in any term within a year.
Whilst KS1 English, Maths and Science are split into programmes of study by year group, this is only true for Maths and Science in KS2, where English is split into two-year programmes of study. All other subjects in KS1 and KS2 are split into key stages rather than year groups. In KS3 and KS4, all subjects are split into multi-year key stages.
There are performance measures which are used within the accountability system, but these are created across key stages as detailed in the DfE’s Understanding school and college performance measures. These include measures of “pupils’ average progress in English reading, English writing and maths” from KS1 to KS2 and “progress across 8 qualifications (Progress 8)” from KS2 to KS4. These progress measures use data generated four and five years apart, respectively.
The current Ofsted School Inspection Handbook says that inspectors “will not require schools to provide predictions of attainment and progress scores”, and they will not examine or verify internal assessment information first hand.
There is no suggestion that children progress in small steps throughout the school year or that schools should try to track in this way.
The progress mindset – seeing learning as a series of discrete steps within each school year – seems to have its origin in the way multi-year progress scores are created and the way they came to be used for a brief period in the early 2010s. At the time, the measures of attainment generated at KS1 and KS2 had an order but no numerical value, so they were allocated numbers in the form of ‘point scores’. A typical Year 2 child scored 15 points whereas a typical Year 6 child scored 27 points, for example.
Whilst there was no reason to assume that a point had any underlying consistency, systems using these point scores then became embedded in schools under the pressures of the accountability system at the time, which saw ‘expected progress’ as a numerical value calculated via point scores.
Progress Mindset assessment systems developed for the system of point scores required students to be allocated numbers of some kind – or proxies for numbers, which act as numbers to all intents and purposes – and those numbers needed to lead inextricably upwards from a lower point to a higher point.
Assessment based on a progress mindset has a particular structure. Students tend to move regularly from one step to another, usually a term at a time. Autumn is, for example, Year X emerging, Spring is Year X developing, and Summer is Year X secure. Extra steps are often added to allow the system to show ‘more progress’.
Teachers typically have access to a single set of data given to them when they take responsibility for the class, usually from assessments undertaken the previous Summer term. Other than some statutory assessment data, teachers are unlikely to be given any other student data, or to value the data they are asked to generate or use.
In the worst cases of progress mindset data, teachers simply ‘add one’ to previous assessments. Where schools want to show more ‘progress’, they have every incentive to simply create more steps and so students can appear to advance further between each data drop.
In its most benign form – as with the system of levels created to assess progress through the National Curriculum when it was first introduced – a progress mindset sees students develop over time from point A, to point B, to point C and so on. In its more problematic iterations, assessment based on discrete steps breaks under pressure, as James Pembroke explains here.
As James says, building an assessment system on progress measures means that ‘Learning will be reduced to a constant gradient, teachers will be tempted to add the required number of points each term, and the data will soon be out of kilter with reality.
There is no requirement for assessment systems to be built on a progress mindset, however, and every reason to think that there are more effective ways of monitoring students as they move through school.
Are you interested in exploring the current state of data in schools and finding out what works and what doesn’t? Join us at one of our 2024-25 Data in School Conferences
“I thought it was brilliant! I got home and did a SWOT analysis of assessment in our school to help focus where we are and where we need to go next. I just wish all the leaders in my Trust could’ve been there.” (attendee of DISCO Solihull, 23 Nov 2023)
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