For Design and Technology, students move around different lessons during the year and are assessed for each subject. With our template setup detailed below, we'll show you how to set up the course structure and assessments to allow you to manage moving students around and marking assessments.
Once you set everything up using the instructions below, teachers will have one marksheet for each of their Design and Technology classes. On each marksheet will be any Ad Hoc assessments you've linked - e.g on the Textiles marksheet you'll see the Textiles ad hoc.
Using the method below will mean students don't appear in marksheets when they're not doing the subject. If you want students to appear in all marksheets all year round contact us for your support or training options.
When creating report cards, a separate grade will be shown for each subject, and for each of your Ad Hoc assessments.
Permissions
- School: Academic structure: Administer - Create extra courses and enrol students
- School: Assessments: Administer - Set up assessments
- School: Report Cards: Administer - Set up and manage report cards
If you don't have permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.
Setting up your courses
Step 1 - Set up the course
Click +Add on the School > Programmes > Courses page.
You can only select one year group per course you create. Leave the Year group field blank to be able to create sub-modules assigned to different year groups. When all the details are correct, click on the green Add Course button.
This creates the course (the top-level component). The next step is to set up year groups. To do this, from the Course Overview, click +Add in the Modules section.
In the slide over add the name of the module and fill in the other details. Select the year group then click the green Add Module button.
You will be taken to the module overview. You will then need to add a sub-module within this module by again clicking +Add in the Modules section.
In the slide over add the name of the module and fill in the other details. Then click the green Add Module button.
For each bottom-level course, you'll need to schedule when the lessons will be. For example, Group A1 does Design and Technology on a Tuesday at 9am.
You will be taken to the module overview. Return to the School > Programmes > Courses page and you will see this sort of structure.
Repeat this for your other Design and Technology subjects, for each year group.
Check that the total number of bottom-level courses = number of subjects x number of student groups x number of year groups. In my example, there are 3 subjects, 3 year groups and 4 groups of students in each year group, so there should be 36 bottom-level courses.
Step 2 - Add the students
Next, you'll need to enrol the students. Follow the instructions below to enrol them into the first carousel, then use the instructions after to move students into their other classes as they change subjects.
Although there are other ways of enrolling students outlined in our Carouseling courses guidance, such as moving the teachers instead, we don't recommend using alternate methods.
- This is because the enrolment dates need to be exact into the lessons, so students show up in the right registers and right assessment marksheets on the right dates.
- Using other methods, students will appear in marksheets and have a blank mark when they are not doing a particular subject.
There are two ways to enrol students into their first class:
- Manually - You can see how to do this here. Make sure you add an end date for when this student group should no longer be doing this subject.
- Using our bulk enrolment spreadsheet - You can see how to do this here. Make sure you select the Design and Technology subjects.
When uploading the spreadsheet, make sure you add an end date for when this student group should no longer be doing this subject.
You can check the students enrolled from School > Programmes > Courses > Table view. Just select a bottom-level course, and click More Information.
When students are due to move classes, go to School > Programmes > Courses and select the bottom-level course.
In the Students section, move them to the next subject they are taking. Tick the boxes next to the students, then use the Bulk action button.
Setting up the assessments
The next step, like with any assessments in Arbor, is to add them to your site
Adding the assessments to your site
When adding your assessment, you can either:
- Add students to existing Progress 8 assessments so students who take the subject at GCSE will automatically have a baseline input. Go to Students > Assessments > Annual Policy > Manage Assessments. Select the assessment and add more students and linked courses.
- Select to create a new summative assessment from Students > Assessments > Assessment Framework > Assessment Catalogue.
Select your grade set, then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Next. Then on the next page click Complete setup.
Select to add the assessment to your annual policy.
Select the students in your course to link to, and select the course, then click Add assessment(s).
Repeat this for your other Design and Technology subjects.
Add any Ad Hoc assessments
Because you've set up one course for each assessment, you can create one Ad Hoc assessment for each Design and Technology subject. You can see how to do this here: Setting up Ad Hoc Assessments
When adding the Ad Hoc to your Assessment Framework, choose the marking strategy of One mark per course to collect multiple marks for each student, for each course they are enrolled in (you will be able to select the specific courses later on).
When adding the Ad Hoc assessment to your Annual Policy, choose the assessment details. These settings will impact which students are assessed and when.
- Subjects - If you only want to assess the Design and Technology courses, select Design and Technology as the subject. If you want to assess all courses, leave this field blank and the assessment will be linked to all the courses.
- Assessment date and assessment periods - Select the same assessment periods as your Design and Technology assessments.
Adding baselines and targets
To be able to analyse your overall assessment, you will have needed to input a baseline (to calculate progress) and an Academic Year Teacher Target to get the marksheet to be colour-coded.
To add a baseline and year target for each student, use our import spreadsheet. You can see how to do this here: Using the import spreadsheet
You can fill in the baseline, year target and final target for each student (what they are expected to get at the end of Year 9). Then follow the instructions in the article above to import the baselines and targets back into Arbor.
Target Judgement rules determine how mark sheets are colour coded, depending on how your students are doing in their assessments relative to their targets.
You can change the default judgement thresholds for your assessments, so students can be judged as 'on track' even if they're just below what they should be at a certain point in the year. You can see how to do this here: Editing the default Target Judgement Rules or adding more
Marking the assessments
- As a teacher, follow these instructions: Teachers - Getting to the summative assessment marksheet and adding marks
- As an Administrator or SLT, follow these instructions: Admin or SLT - Get to the summative marksheet and add or import assessment marks
You can change the date in the filters at the top of the page to look at and add marks for previous assessment periods if you can't see them or edit them in the marksheet.
Click to add a mark, or tick the boxes next to the students and click the Bulk action button to mark in bulk.
You can also import assessment grades using these instructions: Using the import spreadsheet
Use Data Collection Policies to help make sure the marks are entered on time so you can include them in Report Cards.
You can define the collection deadline, who is responsible for inputting marks and when approvals will take place. Staff will automatically get an alert in the To Do section on their Homepage when it's time to input the marks, or you can send them a reminder.
See how to set up Data Collection Policies here: Manage data drops using Data Collection Policies
Sharing grades with guardians or students
You can share all grades through the Parent Portal, or restrict their view to just a few using Report Cards.
If you use the Parent Portal and Arbor App at your school and have chosen to show progress results, guardians can see student's marks.
Guardians can click the View Student Profile button and go to the Progress section of their profile to see all the current and past grades.
If you don't want to make all marks visible, you can choose only to share certain marks on report cards. You can send report cards to parents and students by sending them an email, or by sending it through the Parent Portal or Student Portal.
First, set up your report card. Be sure to add your assessments from the Attainment tab - just click +Add in the Progress Assessments section. For full details on setting up a report card use this article: How to set up a Report Card
From the Report Cards tab you can click a student's name to view the different attainment sections of the report card.
You can update the current mark (this also updates the mark in the assessment's main marksheet), and mark the entry as complete.
Once all mark entry is completed, and the marks have been approved it will no longer be editable in the marksheet.
You can then share the reports using these instructions: Send Report Cards to parents or students
For example, on the Parent Portal guardians can click the View Student Profile button, and go to the Report Cards section to download the Report Card.
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