At Westfield Academy, students will be assessed for how they are performing against the subject expectations for a student in either Year 7 or Year 8.

Students will be assessed against a 5-step system. Students will be tested at the end of each term, and they will be given a mark for their test. This mark will correspond to one of the 5 steps that a Key Stage 3 student can achieve.

These steps are as follows:

Step 5 - Excelling

• A student has exceeded the expectations in that subject, and they are showing this consistently across their tests. The student is showing excellent knowledge and understanding of the subject through the work that they are producing, and they are using subtlety in their responses.

Step 4 - Mastering

• A student shows a sustained and secure knowledge and understanding of the subject, and they are using this knowledge consistently across their tests.

Step 3 - Securing

• Secure knowledge and understanding in that subject area. A student is performing at the expected standard for a student in that year group based against the national expectations for that subject area.

Step 2 - Developing

• A student is showing some knowledge and understanding of the subject, and they are applying this to their assessments. They are not yet secure in all of the knowledge in that subject area, but they are developing this knowledge in the work they are doing.

Step 1 - Establishing

• A student shows a limited understanding of the subject area. They are able to show a basic understanding, and they are establishing their knowledge in this area. They need to ensure that they are working on the basic information in order to work on becoming more secure in that subject.

The expectation would be that all students in the year group would be on at least a step 3, securing, at the end of the year, as this would mean that they are secure in their knowledge and what is expected of them in the year group they are in.

Target grades

All students in Years 7 & 8 will have a target grade that is their end of Year 11 target. This will be there to show the students what they should be working towards at the end of Key Stage 4.

Target grades are calculated based on a student’s Key Stage 2 outcomes. These grades are the expected outcomes that a student should make between Key Stage 2 & Key Stage 4.

Target grades will be as below:

Numerical Target Grade	Equivalent letter grade
9	A**
8	A*
7	A
6	B
5	C+
4	C
3	D
2	E
1	F

Subject grade descriptors

Each year group will have a subject grade descriptor for each subject that states exactly what the students would be expected to have learnt and achieved in the year and what the minimum expectations for the year would be, which link with the national expectations surrounding that subject.

For example, in English, we would expect students to be able to get a basic understanding of Shakespeare and some of the devices he uses in his play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ so that they understand what rhyming couplets are, how characters are presented etc, which would then link to KS4 when they have to study ‘Macbeth’ at GCSE, and they would have to understand how and why Shakespeare has presented his characters the way he has and how he has used techniques such as rhyming couplets etc. In Maths, we would expect students to have an understanding of how to calculate the area of a triangle, which they would then apply to other shapes as they move into Key Stage 4 and GCSEs.

Subject grade descriptions are available as attachments below for Years 7-9, for all subjects.