Analysing student progress for our entire school in one system

Marshfields School is an inclusive 191-place special provision for students aged 7 to 19 with a wide range of Learning Difficulties. The school truly believes that every student matters, and puts their continued success at the forefront of everything they do.

Marshfields started working with B Squared in 2020. Before this, the school was using a very bespoke system of assessment by exam outcome, which was different for each subject area. This made it difficult and time consuming to compare a student’s progress across the curriculum and analyse whole school progress. According to Deputy Headteacher, Ian Graham-Wells, “Using Connecting Steps, we are now able to robustly assess all students at the point of entry and then assess on a regular basis. This means we can accurately determine the progress made over time by students in each individual area of the school. This has in turn, allowed us to introduce robust quality assurance and accountability measures as part of whole school improvement.”

Progress is tracked and timely interventions are made

“Using B Squared’s software has meant that progress can be tracked. This has given teachers the ability to showcase the work they do, day in day out, in the classroom and ultimately celebrate the success of the students in school. It also means that timely intervention can be made to help students who may be struggling to reach their goals.”

Helps students recognise successes and next steps

“Students at our school are now able to confidently talk about their past and future learning goals and what they need to do to improve and move to the next steps in their learning. This means students are far more confident and independent, as staff are able to easily demonstrate to them, using B Squared, what they need to do to move on and to celebrate what they have achieved.”

Efficient, straightforward and manageable assessment

“Connecting Steps has provided a one-stop-shop for all things assessment in our school. This has streamlined the process and made all aspects of assessment for all stakeholders efficient, straightforward and easily manageable.”

“From September 2023, we will use the new Connecting Steps Analytics as our sole platform for the analysis of progress data. It will allow us to track progress using B Squared’s standardised score function to report student progress in months and years, which fits our existing approach. This streamlines our data tracking system into a one stop scenario. The new Analytics will revolutionise assessment at the school and benefit staff workload, allowing for a greater focus on what matters the most – student learning.”
Ian Graham-Wells, Deputy Headteacher, Marshfields School.