CCEA English Language Tracker for Predicted Grades

CCEA English Language tracker for predicted grades is an easy-to-use spreadsheet perfect for Northern Ireland English teachers.

If you are an English teacher in Northern Ireland, then you know that tracking all of the components of the CCEA GCSE course requires good organisation. This tool is designed specifically for you and your students. It has the exact weightings for each component of the CCEA English course, and has built in formula to simplify your assessment tracking processes. I use this to inform my predicted grades each year to ensure I am being fair, consistent and accurate, based on the best use of the data I have available to me. I hope you find it useful too.

Preview and download the spreadsheet here:

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Why Use Our CCEA GCSE English Language Tracker?

Benefits of Tracking Student Results:

1. Insightful data

Easily access detailed information about individual student performance across various English units. This spreadsheet makes parent consultations a breeze, as you have all the data you need to keep conversations focused on the data. It also helps in department analysis and feedback to SLT/HoD.

2. Early intervention

With a clear tracking process, you can monitor students’ progress and intervene early if you think a student is underperforming. This is a vital part of teaching and learning strategies for all of us, so having a tool to help makes life so much easier.

3. Motivational boost

Empower your students by showing them their progress, motivating them to strive for better results. Honestly, this was a game changer for me last year with quite a challenging group of Year 12 students. Many of them had underperformed in Year 11 but had great Speaking and Listening, and Controlled Assessment scores. I took a look at their tracking in this spreadsheet and realised that in their Unit 4 exam, they only needed a small number of additional marks above what they had achieved in the Unit 1 exam. I did one-to-one meetings with a small group in March to show them how close they were to achieving their ‘C’ grade and that focus and effort now would pay off. This really changed their focus, behaviour and attitude. And it made lessons so much better!

4. Time saving

This Excel spreadsheet is all set up for you to use. Simply add your students’ names and scores as you go through the two-year course. The formula is already built in, saving you time and effort. The colour-coding allows you to quickly and easily locate information. You can add additional rows for your students, and could even add a column for baseline data to allow you to compare target grades to outcomes. It’s all ready for you to use.

5. Data-driven decisions

Make informed teaching decisions by analysing trends and identifying areas for improvement. I know that I’m a bit of a data-geek, but honestly, I love to sit for a hour or two on results day in August and input the outgoing Year 12 data that comes through from CCEA. It helps to see which units my students performed strongest in, which outcomes were a surprise, and where I can put my focus for the following year. In other words, it is the perfect tool for department analysis and action planning.

How to use the spreadsheet:

Copy and paste your class list names.
Input data as you go through the year. I like to use mock scores for Unit 1 and Unit 4, to see how close to grade boundaries the students come.
Input the highest two Speaking and Listening scores for your students. The spreadsheet is already set up to choose the highest of each category.
When it comes to predicted grades for CCEA, I often experiment by copying and pasting the Unit 1 score into the Unit 4 column. This gives a realistic score based on prior attainment for each student. Based on this, you can see what outcome each student would get and where they need to focus before the final exam.

A big note of caution: the spreadsheet calculates the UMS score from the RAW score by a simple percentage conversion. I know this is not how CCEA do this. The dark and mysterious formula used by CCEA to convert RAW to UMS is unknown to me, and I think to us all. But this is a ‘good enough’ way to calculate an estimate. There is nothing exactly precise here. Rather, it is a great way to track and inform predicted grades. Please be aware of this when communicating tracking scores to students, parents and within your department: this is only an estimation.