The difference between the Current Grade and the Average Unit Grade

There are two types of Summary Grade used on GCSE, A-Level, and many other qualifications' trackers that update automatically upon mark entry.

The Average Unit Grade column is shown in the Summary area to the far right of your units, while the Current Grade is hidden by default and needs to be selected in your tracker View settings.

In some cases, these grades will be identical, but you'll find that they often vary. Read on to find out what these grades mean for your students.

The Current Grade is based on the overall total marks that a student has attained.

While the Average Unit Grade is only taking into account the units that each student has attempted, and is commonly referred to as a working-at grade.

As highlighted in the green box above, all students have either a grade 2 or 3 as their Current Grade.

We can also see that Paper 2 (shown in the green column) is empty, meaning the students haven't attempted any of the Paper 2 content yet.

This means that their mark from Paper 1 is compared to the overall boundary, leaving them at the bottom end of the grading scale.

Alternatively, the students' Average Unit Grade column is showing a far more accurate spread of grades.

This is due to the tracker creating an equivalent mark for Paper 2 based on their performance in Paper 1, meaning that an accurate overall grade is produced.

💡 If it is still early on in the course, you can look at the Average Unit Grade for a more accurate depiction of where your students are tracking towards.

The Current Grade column is most useful when your students are coming towards the end of their qualification, or if you have completed a full mock series. The tracker is then telling you exactly how many marks they have attained, and what grade they would have achieved should these have been their actual exams.

Couple this with features such as the Target Grid to understand exactly how many marks each student needs to achieve their MTG, and the Topic Summary to ascertain where they can get these marks from.