Grade Aspects

In this example we'll create a new aspect called Maths Age Related Expectation and link it to the grade set we created in the last lesson.


Grade Aspects

What is an Aspect?

An aspect is where assessment manager stores its results. We usually see them as columns on marksheets (where they are often paired with result sets to show the date of the result). There are four types of aspect: grades, comments, marks or age.

What is a Grade Aspect?

Grade aspects are the most used type of aspects. They hold results as grades defined by a grade set. Common examples include English Sub Level and Maths GCSE results.

Tip: Use a Naming Convention

The number of aspects in your system can grow fast and it can be difficult to remember the names of every aspect. You need a naming convention to standardise your aspect names. Here's a system that works for me:

* <Key stage> <Subject> <Type>.

Where <Key stage> can be KS4, KS3, KS2, KS1 or EY, <Subject> is the name of the subject e.g. Ma, Mat, Maths, Mathematics (but whichever name you choose be consistent!) and the <Type> could be Target, Attainment, Result, Estimate etc. You can use spaces and symbols and names can be up to 40 characters.

Tip: Use a * to prefix your current aspects

Most of us inherit hundreds of aspects from systems created by our predecessors. Often these aspects are not used. I recommend that you identify the aspects that are in use, and prefix them with a symbol character (usually a * or !). SIMS lists aspects in alphabetical order so if you do this you don't have to scroll past hundreds of aspects to find the ones you want.

Aspect Names Must Be Unique

If you try to save an aspect with the same name as an existing aspect you'll get an error message. If you use a good naming convention this shouldn't be a problem.

Complete and Continue