In house exams/assessments.

RealJohn

I've been wondering for a while, what's the standard practice (if indeed there is one) behind in-house exams and assessments? Do most schools have organised exam timetables with class groups or year groups all examined in each subject at the same time or is it left to the subject teachers to assess their own classes when they see fit (depending on when report cards are due I suppose)?

I imagine it varies from school to school to some extent of course but I was just curious to know what the usual format would be (if there is one).

rainbowtrout

I'd say there will be a lot of variation in the answers you get here.

We have timetabled Christmas and summer exams.

We found a few years back that having christmas tests for JC and LC students was very close to mocks, so now we have their exams the week after the Halloween break. It works quite well for us. Then they have their mocks the fortnight before Feb midterm. We used to do them after midterm but as we send ours away to be corrected they used to come back very late as so many schools are doing them at the same time.

Non exam years have timetabled tests the week before the christmas holidays using running for four days, including the last day. Part of this was to combat falling attendance in the run up to Christmas and it has worked.

Our summer tests for non exam classes work in the exact same way.

Tests are run in blocks based on subject choice. So all the core/compulsory subjects are on at the same time, e.g. English, History, Science and then the option blocks run as they would on the timetable eg. Chemistry/Art/Ag Science/Music.

Sometimes if there are multiple classes doing a subject in fifth year/sixth year, all students of that subject sit it at the same time so the teachers involved don't have to make out several different tests for the same subject. E.g. We have three ag science classes in fifth year, which span 2 subject blocks so as almost two thirds of the year do the subject it was put on by itself and the non ag had a study session at that time.

Miss Lockhart

We are pretty similar to what rainbowtrout has described.

All years, including TY, have timetabled exams for Christmas and all non-exam years have timetabled exams for Summer.

It is done on a subject basis - ie all 1st years do English together. LC options are also run on a subject basis - so all biology will be on at the same time even if on different option lines as we are very big on common assessment. All mixed ability classes must do the same test in each subject and all SEN classes must do the same test in each subject.

We also hold exams (Christmas and Summer) in the last week of term, including the last day, to combat poor attendance. This works, and is one of the reasons we have reinstated exam year Christmas tests even though it is close to the mocks - we found the 3rd and 6th years just took the time of to go shopping if they didn't have exams.

Sometimes there will also be midterm tests organised on a year by year basis - but this is done in class time and it really depends on the year head.

solerina

We are similar to above....all years have blocked timetabelled exams before Christmas and all (except LC and JC obviously) are again blocked for summer exams. We have someone in charge of these exams and he organises the TT and supervision rota to make sure it runs smoothly. It takes 3/4 days in total

Moody_mona

I did no Christmas exams when I was in secondary school; every student did "mocks" the two weeks before February midterm. Thought it was brilliant. It eliminated disruption in February where normally some are doing exams and some not.