Tracking of pupils' progress forms an essential element of the school's provision, informing teaching, therapy and support.

Half-Termly Progress Monitoring

Each pupil’s parent is able to access, at any time, their son’s record of overall progress, engagement in his learning, by viewing the half-termly Progress Monitoring Grades sheet, published to the Parent Portal of our Management Information System (MIS), and updated with new information six times a year.  At the bottom of this page there is a guide to interpreting the half-termly progress monitoring data.

Parents' Evenings and Annual Reviews

Parents are also invited to at least one parent and teacher consultation evening (Parents’ Evening) per year, and are expected to attend an in-depth annual review meeting in order to share in examining progress, especially in relation to the pupil’s therapeutic skills targets.  Close communication between parents and the school is encouraged throughout the academic year. 

School Reports

At the end of the year, parents receive a detailed, annual school report addressing the progress and engagement of their sons in all academic subjects, in their pastoral development, in respect of the residential provision where applicable, and in all therapeutic disciplines other than counselling.

Core Skills Tracker

The evolution of the tracking system used at More House School has been directed by a purposeful shift from tracking the acquisition of knowledge, to tracking the acquisition of essential skills.  In today’s modern workplace, we can all access nearly any fact in a matter of seconds using the powerful computer carried on our person – our smartphone.  Yet employers complain of the lack of employability skills possessed by graduates, unable to apply knowledge, unable to synthesise and evaluate information, unable to present ideas or work within a team.

To ensure that teaching and learning continues formatively, we have sought to implement a system with a continual and developmental focus on transferable skills, not only across academic subjects, but into society.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy as a framework, our core-skills tracker is used to assess each pupil’s progress in each of his classes.  In every academic-subject area a pupil’s skills development is monitored through the hierarchical progression of:

Knowledge - Comprehension - Application - Analysis - Synthesis - Evaluation

In so doing, pupils’ acquisition of knowledge is assessed, but far more powerful is the continual measurement of their ability to manipulate that knowledge in accordance with the hierarchy of skills.

These six skills relate directly to the wording of grade-descriptors in GCSE and A Level syllabi documents, in every accredited/examined course delivered within the More House School academic offer. 

Pupils are helped to understand that these six core skills apply across all of their subjects and therapeutic work, but with differing weightings.  Teachers can identify strengths and weaknesses in individual students and target development effectively.  Pupils can be helped to recognise their own profile.  Differing pupils’ profiles help to identify strengths, and can support decision-making over courses. 

This scheme complements linked systems tracking our boarders' progress in developing independent living and social skills, and tracking students' progress within therapeutic support disciplines.  The model supports our teachers, therapists and tutors to be as effective as possible in supporting each individual learner in the school, and maximises pupils’ outcomes.