The purpose of in-school moderation is to check the consistency of teachers' judgements after they have made their assessments, to identify and resolve any differences and to agree school standards.

To make the process manageable, it is helpful to have a focus for the moderation rather than try to moderate all the judgements made. You will need to select a sample of work on which you will agree judgements within your school.

The focus for the sample:

• should reflect your school interests and concerns
• can vary at each assessment round.

In mathematics, the focus for the first moderation might be Ma1 and Ma2 and for the second Ma1, Ma3 and Ma4. The pilot project demonstrated that it is important for schools to keep Ma1 a focus at each round as it permeates across Ma2, Ma3 and Ma4.

In English, choose your own focus for each moderation. The focus could be a particular level or level boundary. For example, the focus might be pupils on the level 3/4 boundary in writing for the first moderation and pupils at level 4 in reading for the second moderation.

More help is provided in the Guidance for planning and supporting in-school standardisation and moderation  (PDF 0.16 Mb)