Choose Standardised Grade Boundaries for your assessments

Note: Standardised Grade Boundaries are only available if the below criteria is met:

Standardised Grade Boundaries allow you to control the distribution of grades across classes, helping to ensure fairness and consistency in assessment grading.

When you choose Standardised Grade Boundaries in Pupil Progress, you can define the percentage of students who should achieve each grade. We then calculate corresponding raw mark boundaries based on the current student data.

Schools may find this option particularly useful at KS3 and trust level, as it allows internal assessments to be standardised so that students receive grades that accurately reflect their performance relative to their cohort - in the same way exam boards work.

First, add your Customised Assessment as you normally would. This could be at the school level or trust level.

When you reach Step 3 Grade Boundaries, select the type Standardise grade boundary distribution.

Once selected, you won't be able to set distributions immediately as there is no mark data to base the calculations on.

Proceed to complete the final steps to add the assessment, then return to the class and begin data entry.

For Standardised Grade Boundaries to work, marks must be entered into the assessment for at least 20 students. This allows for an optimal distribution of grades across classes.

If you try to set Standardised Grade Boundaries before entering marks for sufficient students, you'll be met with an error and will need to return and complete data entry in order to continue.

Once enough marks have been entered and you are ready to set Standardised Grade Boundaries, you'll need to edit the assessment.

Then, scroll down to Step 3 Grade Boundaries where you previously selected Standardise grade boundary distribution. The fields should now be available for you to set your distributions.

You'll then see three columns:

Once you're happy with your chosen percentages, select CALCULATE DISTRIBUTED BOUNDARIES. The page will update to show the raw mark boundaries to the right of each grade, and the actual percentage of students achieving each grade - this will be as close as possible to your requested distribution.

You can select CHANGE DISTRIBUTION at any time to update the percentage of students achieving each grade.

You may want to do this if you're unhappy with the raw mark boundaries the platform has calculated, or when additional student data has been added to ensure the boundaries remain reflective of the cohort.

Once updated, select CALCULATE DISTRIBUTED BOUNDARIES to save the changes. A pop-up warning will prompt you to confirm, as the recalculations may cause students' existing grades to change.

It's not always possible to get an exact match between the distributions you request and the distributions available. However, our algorithm will ensure the most suitable distribution is reached.

For example, if you have 22 students with data and want them split equally across each decile (a decile divides a set of ranked data into 10 equal parts), two of the deciles will still have 3 students in and the rest will have 2.