Summative and Ad Hoc Assessments Setup FAQ

This article covers common questions regarding the setup of Summative Assessments in Arbor. If you cannot find an answer to your query in this article, check our dedicated section of the Help Centre on this topic here.

What are Ad Hoc Assessment categories?

Ad Hoc Assessment categories allow users to group assessments, but they do not impact the assessment setup or reporting in Arbor. Users can select existing categories or create new ones, but choosing a category is optional.

When setting up an Ad Hoc assessment, you can choose whether to group the assessment into an Ad Hoc Assessment category.

Please note that:

• Ad Hoc categories do not affect the setup of assessments in any way.
• Which category an Ad Hoc is in cannot be seen or reported on anywhere in Arbor after setup.

You can select from any existing categories, or add a new one by clicking +Add.

You don't have to choose a category for your Ad Hoc Assessments - you can just click Skip.

Can we have different assessment periods for different student groups?

No, it is not possible to set up one assessment with different assessment periods for different student groups e.g. year groups or key stages. You have two options for managing your data drops if they are different between different student groups.

If you have already set up your assessments and need to change your assessment periods, please follow these instructions: Can we change or edit the assessment periods once the assessment is set up?

Option 1 - Set up more than one assessment

When setting up your assessments, you'll need to set up a new assessment for each student group, and link each one to the assessment periods you want to use for that student group.

Progress 8 assessments can only be set up once on each school site. As such, you won't be able to use progress 8 assessments when using this option, or our out-of-the-box analysis.

When doing assessment analysis, you will have multiple assessments to analyse rather than just one, but you can still compare your assessments between years using the Transition Matrix page.

Option 2 - Set up one assessment

Using this option, you'll need to set up one assessment with the maximum number of assessment periods you'll need. For example, if your year 10s need termly assessments, but year 11 needs half-termly, you'll need to set up 6 assessment periods.

This means that teachers will need to 'skip' some assessment periods (leaving these marks blank or adding a not required mark), so you'll need to let them know which assessment periods are required. You can also make it clear to teachers when marking is required using Data Collections.

This option means that you can analyse assessment marks for your students together and saves you time that would be needed in copying baselines and targets across to different assessments.

Can I add the Ad Hoc Assessment to other subjects once it is already on my Annual Policy?

Yes, if you've added the Ad-Hoc to your Annual Policy for a certain set of subjects, you can add it again for additional subjects.

To add the Ad Hoc for additional subjects, you'll need to:

1. Head to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Manage Assessments and click on 'Add assessment to policy'.
2. On the Choose Assessments page, select the Assessment type of 'Ad-hoc' and choose the desired Ad-Hoc assessment in the Assessment(s) drop-down, then click 'Next'.
3. On the Assessment Details page, select only the desired additional Subjects, then the required Student groups and Assessment Periods before clicking 'Add Assessment'.

Once this has been done, you'll have created a new instance of the Ad Hoc Assessment for the new subjects! Please note that any courses using the subject will need to be set as an Assessable Course in order to have the Ad-Hoc assessment applied to them.

Can we turn assessments into other types?

No, it is not possible to change one type of assessment into another, for example, a curriculum assessment into a summative assessment. You would need to set up the assessments again in the correct format.

Can I use a different grade set for targets, baselines and assessment marks?

No, your targets and baselines need to be based on the same grade set as the marks you input, to enable the system to calculate the levels of progress made and how many grades a student is away from their target.

However, you can set up different marking grade sets which will display the raw score as a different grade, which can then be used to report to parents. You can see how to do this here: Display grades using different scales on marksheets.