Adding an Ad Hoc Assessment to use for Tutor Comments on Arbor Report Cards

When using Report Cards on Arbor, you may want to include a personalised comment from a child's Form Tutor (or the Headteacher). To include a comment that the Tutor or Headteacher can customise on a per-student basis, an Ad Hoc Assessment must be set up to capture the comment, which can then be added to the Report Card.

1. First Time Setup

If you don't have an ad hoc assessment set up for capturing Tutor Comments, you'll need to follow these steps:

1. Head to Students > Assessments > Assessment Framework > Assessment Catalogue.
2. Click 'Create new ad hoc assessment'.
3. If you'd like to set up or choose a Category, this can be done on Step 1. Categories are not essential for setting up the ad hoc assessment.
4. In Step 2, input the name of your ad hoc assessment (e.g., Form Tutor Comment). Then, select the Key Stage as required (use Mixed if comments will be input for students across multiple Key Stages).
5. Select the Marking strategy of Single Mark and the Mark type of Text, then click 'Next'.
   
   
6. You'll then move through to Step 4. Click 'Complete Setup' to finalise the setup.
    

2. Adding the Ad Hoc Assessment to the Annual Policy

After you've created your ad hoc assessment to hold the Tutor Comments (or if the ad hoc assessment was created previously), you'll need to add this to your Annual Policy to enable comments to be entered:

1. Head to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Manage Assessments.
2. Click 'Add assessment to policy.
3. Under Available Assessments, choose the Assessment Type of Ad hoc, then select the assessment from the Assessment(s) drop-down list.
   
   
4. On Step 2, leave the Subjects box blank, then select the desired Year Groups in the Students drop-down menu.
5. You'll then need to select either an Assessment Date or Align to assessment periods.
   • Selecting an Assessment Date will create a single instance of the ad hoc assessment tied to the date.
   • If you will be collecting Tutor Comments for Report Cards multiple times through the year, you'd be better off aligning to assessment periods - you can choose the desired period set from the drop-down menu (e.g. Termly, Half-termly, or your own Custom Assessment Periods).
     
6. Click Add assessment(s) to complete the setup.

3. Entering the comments

Once your ad hoc assessment has been added to your Annual Policy, staff can enter marks by following these instructions.

Comments can be entered by clicking into the right-hand column for students, typing into the text box, and then clicking OK. Snippets can be used to speed up the comment entry process.

Once you've added the assessment to your Report Card in the next step, staff can also enter comments by heading to Reports on a Student Profile:

1. After clicking on Reports, choose the desired Report Card, then click on Tutor Comment (note: this will reflect the name you have given your ad hoc assessment!) under Sections on the slideover menu.
   
2. You'll then be taken to the student's Report Card, where you can type in your comment (or use a Snippet). Be sure to click Save Changes after typing in the comment to ensure this is saved!

4. Adding the Ad Hoc Assessment to the Report Card

Once you have your ad hoc assessment set up, and added to your Annual Policy, you'll then be able to add this to your Report Card:

1. Head to Students > Report Cards.
2. Click into the Report Card you are working on.
3. Select the Attainment Tab.
4. Click 'Add' next to Ad Hoc Assessments, then tick the assessment(s) you'd like to add on the slide-over menu and click Add Ad Hoc Assessments.
5. You'll need to ensure that the Date Range under the General Attainment Settings overlaps with the Ad Hoc assessment period you want to use.