Overview

This article explains how to create grade methods that use judgements / mastery pathways / descriptors instead of grades, for example, Emerging, Developing, and Secure.

Using this approach, track student improvement over time, and analyse class performance (similarly to how you can for grade methods that use official grades).

Depending on your needs, these can be configured to be worth a custom number of points or no points. 

Prerequisites

• You must be an administrator.

Instructions

Follow these steps to create a grade method that uses judgements / mastery pathways / descriptors instead of grades:

1. Select CONFIG.
2. Select Grade Methods.
3. Select KS3/4 Methods.
4. Either check that your grade descriptors are set up as a grade method, or create a new grade method.
5. To create a new grade method, select Create KS3/4 Grade Method:
   
6. From the Step 1 of 7 - Set up Grades Method window:
   
   
   1. Enter a Method Name.
   2. Check Points (Check None for no points, or check Custom for custom points).
   3. Check Subgrades (Check Yes to include subgrades, or check No to not use subgrades).
   4. Select Next.
7. From the Step 2 of 3 - Define Whole Grades window:
   
   
   1. Enter your descriptors in order (in Whole Grades), from the highest value to lowest value. Whole Grades are restricted to 8 character in length. You may need to shorten the names for your judgements, for example, Developing to Develop or Dvlping as shown.
   2. If you opted to use custom points, for each Whole Grade enter these in Points (up to 3dp).
   3. For each Whole Grade, enter the number of Entries you want the judgment to be worth.
   4. Select Next.
8. If you opted to use subgrades, complete the steps when prompted to set these up as you would for other grade methods (see Step 3 onwards in the Sisra Analytics: KS3/4 - Creating Grade Methods (Admin) article.
9. From the Step 3 of 3 - Confirmation window select Finish:
   

Outcome

Your grade method has been created. 

Set up your KS3 cohorts and create an EAP using the grade method, then upload these judgement grades and analyse them in your reports in the same way as any other grade method.

In the example below, you can see how a student performs compared to their expected EAP grade:

In this example, you can compare a report with one from a previous term to see whether students have shown improvement or not:

Related information

• Sisra Analytics: KS3/4 - Creating Grade Methods (Admin).
• Sisra Analytics: KS3/4 - Creating EAPs (Admin).

Updated 25 June 2025 12:36