Allocating Pathways

Synopsis

The process of allocating pathways to students can differ from school to school. There are no right or wrong ways in deciding which pathway a student should be on for each subject. The beauty of DPR is the flexibility it provides by allowing pathways to be changed throughout the year between different collection points. However, it is still useful to try to assign "correct" pathways initially to reduce the number of times a school admin will need to log in and change a student's pathway.

We will outline one of the ways we recommend schools set pathways, this is a method that most DPR schools have used with great success and places students at the correct level of learning as well as being challenging for students.

Understanding how pathways are linked to subjects

The majority of schools use 4 pathways, A, B, C, and D. Pathway A is for the brightest of students, and pathway D being assigned to students who need that extra help. Although you are not limited to 4 pathways this is a good base to start. Some schools have added Pathway X for the more able students in the cohort.

Before we proceed further, it is important to understand the difference between what we mean by Subject Area and Subject and how they are linked to a pathway.

The key concept to understand from the above illustration is that a student is allocated a pathway for a particular subject, not a subject area. If we use the example above, this means a student can be allocated Pathway A for English Language and Pathway B for English Literature.

Calculating Pathways

You can use students' prior data to determine which pathway you should assign a student. The image below shows the ranges used for each pathway using students' KS2 scaled scores. For students who may not have either of these, you can use CATS test or Progress Test scores if your school carries out these tests.

For example, for student X:

English

KS2 Scaled Score: 107

Mapped Pathway: A (106-120)

Maths

Maths KS2 Scaled Score: 105

Mapped Pathway: B (99-105)

Other Subjects

Average Scaled KS2 Score: 107 + 105 = 106

Mapped Pathway: A (106-120)

An example Excel Spreadsheet demonstrating the above has been uploaded to this article

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As we all know, learning is not necessarily "linear", therefore, the above should be treated as inspiration for how your school could allocate pathways.