Feedback
Feedback to schools and Education Authorities is delivered by Secondary+, the secure website. It consists of Assessment Feedback and Science Attitudes, Predictions Feedback, and Value-Added Feedback.
Assessment Feedback
This consists of the scores pupils obtained in the tests and their SOSCA Band for each subject - i.e. which quarter their score puts them in. Along with a spreadsheet of the scores in detail and School Band Profiles, there are Individual Pupil Records which can be printed out to form part of a pupil's Portfolio or Profile. The scores are shown for the sections of the three assessments as well as an overall score for each one.
Attitudes to Science
The Science Assessment includes a survey of pupils' attitudes to science. The feedback from the survey shows you each pupil's average score on each sub-section, on a scale of 1 to 5 from negative to positive attitudes, and their overall score. How your school's pupils scored on each sub-section is also shown against a background of all the pupils in the SOSCA sample. Lastly, pupils were asked to reply to three questions about science and their free-text comments are reported anonymously and in random order for your information.
Predictions Feedback
Predictions are produced from the overall SOSCA score, hence only for pupils who have taken all three assessments. Using past performance and the pupil's score we predict what grades each pupil is likely to get at GCSE or Standard Grade in a wide range of subjects, and also what Level is likely to be achieved in 5-14 Assessments. Chances Graphs show the range of grades that have been achieved by pupils with similar scores, making it clear that the pupil's input is important to what actually is achieved.
Value Added Feedback
The first tranche of Value Added Feedback shows the progress that each pupil has made up to the SOSCA Assessments, based on the ability scores in a previous assessment - PIPS P7 or MidYIS Baseline - as long as the data is available.
The second tranche comes when pupils have reached their later examinations at GCSE or Standard Grade and their results have been passed to us for analysis. It shows the progress in attainment made from SOSCA onwards.
Standardised Pupil Scores
The Pupil Scores spreadsheet will provide scores for Reading, Maths and Science. To be able to make comparisons between children and classes, these scores are standardised with an average* pupil scoring 100. The standard deviation is 15 which means that approximately two thirds of pupils will have a score between 85 and 115; pupils scoring above 130 are in the top 2.5%.
*The basis of the average is the complete set of pupils taking our curriculum-based assessments this year, which numbered well over 11,000 in 2009.
Examples of Feedback
To see examples of SOSCA feedback please download one of these:
SOSCA Attitudes to Science survey - example report
To access your own school's own feedback, registered schools are able to log on to our Secure Secondary+ site - use the Secondary+ LOGIN at the top right of the page.
Durham University