KS3 - Bands Explained

Cooper Skill Set Bands

Under the old National Curriculum system, it was possible for a student to achieve a level 6, say, whilst still having gaps in their understanding of some basic mathematical concepts. This could go largely undetected because of the overall NC level covering this up. However, it has, in the past, led to consequences along the line when the building blocks for harder mathematical concepts were missing. Our new band system seeks to address this by not allowing students to progress to the next band until they have demonstrated security in at least 80% of the objectives in the previous band. As a result, this means that a number of students have been awarded bands that appear significantly lower than we might have expected. This is an important process for identifying these gaps and giving them the opportunity to work on these targets.

We are confident that, over the course of the three years of KS3, students will achieve their target bands but that this will not, necessarily, be a linear process - they may make big jumps at some stages and smaller ones at others.

For example, it may be that, by fixing a couple of misconceptions, a student is able to jump a whole band or more in a very short space of time. We have tried to exemplify this further in the example Case Studies below.

Case Study 1

A student on a National Curriculum low level 5 at the end of Key Stage 2 has a Year 8 target of a middle level 6 under the old level system.

In the recent Skill Set assessment this student got a band 4b. This student achieved 9 out of 13 objectives in the band 4 assessment and also 7 out of 11 objectives in the band 5 assessment.

To improve, this student needs to answer questions correctly in the next assessment on adding and subtracting simple fractions, calculating areas by counting squares and multiplying 2 or 3 digit numbers by a single digit. This would then give them at least a band 5b but could be even higher, depending on how they performed on Skill Set 6.

Case Study 2

A student on a National Curriculum mid-level 4 at the end of Key Stage 2 has a Year 8 target of a middle level 5 under the old level system.

In the recent Skill Set assessment this student got a band 3b. This student achieved 8 out of 14 objectives in the band 3 assessment and also 3 out of 13 objectives in band 4. To improve, this student needs to answer questions correctly in the next assessment on measuring length and perimeters accurately, multiplying a 2 digit number by a 1 digit, representing fractions on a number line, and adding and subtracting using the column method. This would then give them at least a band 4c but could be higher depending on how they perform on the Skill Set 4.

Case Study 3

A student who achieved a National Curriculum level 6 at the end of Key Stage 2 has a Year 8 target of a good level 7 under the old level system.

In the recent Skill Set assessment this student achieved a band 5b with 8 out of 11 objectives achieved on band 5 and 8 out of 12 objectives on band 6. To achieve the band 5 objectives, this student now needs to answer questions correctly on working with coordinates, percentages and order of operations. This would then give them at least a band 6b but could be higher depending on how they perform on Skill Set 6 and Skill Set 7.

How to work on target topics

You will see that, on the list of Skill Set objectives, there is a reference to a Mathswatch clip number. Mathswatch is an online resource that we subscribe to that has video explanations of all the topics in the Mathematics curriculum. To access the resources:

Go to vle.mathswatch.com
Login using Centre ID: school email address and password: changeme.
In the search box type a Clip number or a topic title
Watch the video with pen and paper ready so that you can take notes and pause it when instructed to do the questions.
For further practice, click on the yellow "Interactive Questions" button at the top of the page.

For Band 3 & 4 work, see the page "KS3 Band 3 & 4 Objectives Practice" on this website.

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