Year 7 (2020/21) – Baselines and Progress Measures

We are aware that schools are exploring options for target setting and tracking for new Year 7 who had their KS2 national tests cancelled. Whichever method you use to set your target grades, you can import them into 4Matrix in the usual way using spreadsheets. If you have used CAT4, MIDYAS or any other baseline tests or data, you may wish to import these into Custom Fields to view alongside your data.

Some schools are looking into the possibility of obtaining a Progress 8 score for the new Year 7 students. 4Matrix did provide a Scaled Score conversion option in October 2019 to use with current Year 11/10/9/8 (see https://www.4matrix.com/news/scaledscores), which converts Scaled Scores to Progress 8 Starting Points based on historic national data patterns. However, we currently have no plans to provide a Scaled Score conversion for CAT4 scores, MIDYAS or other baseline tests for the following reasons:

1.       As KS2 tests were cancelled in 2020, no universal prior attainment data exists for Year 7 students. The principles of Progress 8 require students’ prior attainment data to all be in the same format.

2.       In addition, due to this lack of universal Key stage 2 prior attainment data, we do not know how future progress/’value added’ DFE headline measures will function for this cohort.

3.       Regardless of the lack of Key stage 2 data, 4Matrix do not recommend predicting Progress 8 for lower year groups. There are many variables to consider which would deem this figure too unreliable.

4.       4Matrix includes a fully comprehensible package for Key stage 3 in the CDA (Curriculum Driven Assessment) system which does not require a universal starting point. It is also possible to import 9-1 grades for Key stage 3 students which will then work as per any other GCSE-graded series, with the caveat that Progress 8 should be ignored.

The situation could be used as an opportunity for schools to focus more so on what students are learning and less so on where they might end up in 5 years’ time – which is a key feature of the 4Matrix CDA solution.

Please contact us should you require any further information in relation to this matter.

Article revised: 28/09/2020