How to use a standardised school-grading system across your trust: case study

Last reviewed on 8 March 2022
School types: All · School phases: All
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You need an accurate picture of the strengths and weaknesses across your schools so you can prioritise effectively and report to the board. Stephen Astley from Unity Schools Partnership shares how his trust uses a standardised grading system to achieve this. Follow his tips to implement this approach in your trust too.

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Contents

  1. In a nutshell
  2. Prompts to help you decide which areas to track
  3. Define, test and refine the criteria for each grade within your areas
  4. Agree and moderate grades in consultation with others
  5. How to report to your board of trustees

We spoke to Stephen Astley, director of secondary (he was director of primary and middle education when we wrote this case study) at Unity Schools Partnership, for this article. The trust has 30 schools with a mix of primary, middle, secondary and special schools.

In a nutshell

What's the approach? 

Be aware that you won't be able to complete the process overnight, as you'll need time to define your system, trial it and then refine it (Unity Schools Partnership spent a year trialling its system, and it's still

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