To add an End of Topic Test with custom grade boundaries, click the Tools toggle at the top of your tracker, click Add Customised Assessment and fill in the details.
In Step 3 Grade Boundaries you can select Custom Grade Boundaries from the drop down. Enter the raw mark grade boundaries you wish to use.
Your students Raw Marks will be converted to a "Tracker Equivalent Mark" to match the grade boundaries set for your tracker. This way the assessment will contribute the appropriate marks towards the Summary Grades.
Watch this 3-minute video which explains how custom grade boundaries work.
Can I add Custom Grade Boundaries on all trackers?
Currently Custom Grade Boundaries are only enabled on Maths, Science and MfL. This is because of the added complexity of assessing course with Tiers.
Whilst choosing different boundaries for different assessments, it can also reduce the rigour and can hide assessments that are not challenging enough or are too challenging. To support with improving the quality of assessments we encourage users to match the challenge level of the assessments to that seen in the final exams, which means the whole tracker grade boundaries can be used instead of Custom Grade Boundaries.
How are the Tracker Equivalent Marks calculated?
In assessments with Custom Grade Boundaries, the Tracker Equivalent Marks column converts the raw mark for the test in to a mark a student would have achieved in a Past Paper, based on the Grade Boundaries set by the tracker.
This ensures that all Customised and Published Assessments within a unit can be compared and used to calculate a Unit Grade and Overall Course Grades.
Watch the video at the top for some specific examples of how this is done.
How do I cap the grades?
If you are capping the grade e.g at a grade 5 for a Foundation Tier test, then enter a raw mark that exceeds the maximum raw mark for the test to make it unreachable.
As the students will not be able to reach this mark, the maximum grade they can achieve will be the next lowest achievable grade.
You can also use this approach to cap an assessment to only give grades within a range, for example from grade 4-7, although it is not as rigorous for estimating grades as using assessments across the full range of grade for the tier.
Can I use the same test and boundaries on both tiers?
Yes! The calculations we have used means that you can add the same assessment out of the same max marks with the same custom boundaries to both Higher and Foundation Tier trackers. This means that all students are comparable and will come out with the same Customised Assessment grade no matter which version of the tracker you are on.
Watch the video at the top to see how this works.