Assessment

Regular assessment is essential for ensuring students make strong progress. Teachers at CAST use a range of techniques throughout every lesson, including questioning, paired discussion, and mini-whiteboards, to check understanding and adapt teaching to meet students' needs.

Students also complete formal written assessments twice per half-term in each subject. These provide a clear picture of progress over time and identify specific areas for development. Teachers provide written feedback on these assessments, and students are given dedicated time to respond, acting on feedback to deepen their understanding and address any gaps in their knowledge.

Students' assessments and feedback are stored in an assessment folder for each subject. This allows students to track their progress over time which provides a powerful support for revision in Year 13

• All years have twice yearly formal exams that are summative and sat under examination conditions.
• Students and parents are sent an exam timetable in advance, with the topics students should be revising to make as much progress as possible.
• Each formal assessment is followed by a results report being sent to students and parents.
• Following each set of exam assessments, the data is collected with students' progress being analysed. Extra support is put in place where required.
• Students' act on feedback from their teachers' on how to improve for their next assessment.
• Baseline assessments are sat by Year 12 and 13 students for each subject during their lessons at the start of the Autumn term to identify gaps in learning.

For most courses in Key Stage 5, external assessment is in the form of A-level exams held in May and June of Year 13.

However, some subjects also have a coursework component. This varies from course to course and more information can be found on the subject pages. These subjects are:

• Computer Science
• Geography
• Extended Project Qualification (EPQ)

Please see the T-level Laboratory Science and T-Level Health for information about their external assessments at happen throught Years 12 and 13.