Hmmm. This topic slooshes in and out of my consciousness on a regular basis, and I have been prompted to write a post on it today by some questions from my venerable friend John Kelleher and re-reading of this blog post by the colossus that is Dr Fautley. Plus a few people asking me how I get from what gets put on my radar diagrams (described here and here) to the what gets put into SIMS for reports/reviews.

Martin very usefully separates out for us various ways that are/can be used to mark students’ work. When I fill in my radar diagrams (see above – the different coloured blobs are done on different days) I have come to the conclusion that my decisions are mostly comparative, based on what I have seen and heard from the students in all my classes. It’s sort of holistic, based on my guild knowledge of music and experience as a musician – ‘trust me, I’m a musician – I know quality when I see it’ – that might sound like bull but there’s something in it, I think. But then again it’s not at all holistic because I’m doing this in twelve different categories.

Aside from all of that, though, and this is where Martin identifies a problem, is how we get from this rather (in my opinion) beautifully-crafted mark out of 60 to something that my school – the ‘system’ – requires me to enter onto a spreadsheet. This is where shitistics come in.

My school – sadly, but hopefully not for much longer – has gone down the ‘let’s give everything a 9-1 grade’ route. So every student has a 9-1 grade as a benchmark for GCSE, and also for the end of each year. So mark out of 60 has to become a 9-1 fine grade. In this process of translation pretty much all idea of validity is lost, Chinese whispers style. Ask me for a number and I’ll give you one (a number that is). And I’ll make damned sure, by the power of shitistics, that it is the kind of number that you want. That is, one that shows progress from the last time you asked.

So, I’ll look at the kids’ results and set some grade boundaries so at least, for what it’s worth, there is consistency between teachers and from student to student. I’m not actually pulling a number completely out of thin air. But I’ll make sure that, for the majority of students, the number is what the ‘system’ wants. I’ll see what the average mark out of 60 is, have a look to see what the average current grade is ‘supposed’ to be, and work from there. At its best, it is a very blunt tool that might tell you who has done well and not-so-well this term. But not about why. If someone has done badly, it might be because they’re lazy, because I’m a crap teacher, or because they’ve missed 10 lessons this term for whatever reason. If only I had the opportunity just to say, they got 18/60 this term, but they were only in 2 of the lessons so that’s actually pretty good…

The other problem with translating marks into grades for reporting is that the grades themselves need explaining. ‘Dad, I got a 3a in music!’ ‘Oh, is that good?’ Surely ‘Dad, I got 56/60 this term in music’ is much easier all round?

Cut the shitistics, give ’em raw data.