- Case Studies
How Baysgarth School uses RM Compare as a multi-functional assessment tool
A drive for innovation in assessment
Baysgarth School in North Lincolnshire has been a local provider of education for over 35 years. With this experience, Baysgarth champions innovative approaches and is always looking beyond the traditional forms of teaching, learning and assessment.
Their English faculty found traditional assessment practices to be particularly subjective and unhelpful in identifying students that require further support. From here, Baysgarth started to look at comparative judgement to inform their assessment process.
A need for a strong evidence base to inform interventions
By finding a natural rank order, comparative judgement helps identify which students need additional attention and support. This is most impactful on student development when introduced earlier in school life to help recognise areas for improvement and accurately display progress.
The school quickly realised their need for a solution that could adapt to their specific curriculum and RM Compare provided this. Support and guidance was given to the school to facilitate the use of the tool
“From Day One we felt valued. Even though the people we were dealing with at RM were working from home due to the pandemic, we knew they were there to help us, and were not simply motivated by profit”
A multi-functional tool
RM Compare uses the concept that people are instinctively better at making paired judgements: adaptive comparative judgement (ACJ). Repeated comparisons, optimised by an adaptive algorithm, generate a highly reliable rank order through consensus on ‘what good looks like’.
Not only does it highlight where extra student support is needed, it helps schools to understand teachers’ judgements. The reality is this: marking is subjective by nature, and human error exists!
With a comparative judgement tool like RM Compare, these concerns are significantly reduced and you are able to see which markers are aligned and which stand out for whatever reason. This makes for a great continuous professional development tool (CPD).
The future
The English faculty of Baysgarth School first used RM Compare for judging writing and have since extended its practice to English Literature essays.
The adaptability and depth of evaluation that RM Compare brings to the table has meant the school are now looking to use the assessment tool in other creative subjects like History, Art, Music and Drama.
“There is no hiding place with a platform like RM Compare. No pupil can slip through the gap – we can see in an instant how everyone is performing”.