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  Classroom Monitor is the award-winning online interactive markbook used in over 1,500 UK primary schools. The system comes pre-loaded with criteria for every subject from the National Curriculum, Assessing Pupil Progress (APP), Early Years Foundation Stage and P-Scales, and also allows teachers to personalise the curriculum to meet their needs. bee-it spoke to a number of schools to see what impact Classroom Monitor has had on their assessment and reporting strategy...
At Egerton-Rothesay School in Hertfordshire, Assessment Co-ordinator Gregers Forssling was instrumental in the implementation of Classroom Monitor. He said:
‘Prior to Classroom Monitor, we had quite a reactive system in place for tracking pupil progress – namely Excel spreadsheets. I designed the database but we found it very difficult to circulate it amongst staff and allow editing by multiple teachers at the same time. We were also aware of the risks of teachers deleting Excel code rather than cell content, potentially jeopardising the whole system.
In September 2010, we began to look into various different APP or online markbook systems, finally settling on Classroom Monitor and we have never looked back since.’
 Screenshot of the Classroom Monitor online markbook
The Classroom Monitor system relies on teachers inputting data into the online markbook, which can then be extracted and presented in various different ways, such as to analyse information, generate end of term or year reports, or share the pupil progress with parents through the new online parental portal.
Each year group or class has its own area within the online markbook, consisting of pupil names and curriculum criteria to mark against. Pupils can be marked as ‘red’ (working towards the target), ‘amber’ (almost achieved the target), or ‘green’ (the pupil has met the target). Additionally, teachers can upload evidence of each pupil’s work to the system, providing a record of assessments which can help with Ofsted inspections as well as parents’ evenings.
Graham Horton, Headteacher at Cirencester Primary School in Gloucestershire, shares his experience of Classroom Monitor:
‘Cirencester Primary School was established in September 2010 as an amalgamation of an infant school and a junior school. This caused a lot of difficulties in terms of setting up technology – for instance, we had to account for two different sites having completely different IP addresses, however the installation of Classroom Monitor was very simple. Everything was implemented by the Classroom Monitor team, and as data is constantly being cross-referenced with the school’s MIS, any changes within the school are automatically reflected within our APP system.’
Classroom Monitor prides itself on being ‘fast and easy-to-use’, a key factor when implementing a new system within a school. Angela Feria, Administration and Data Officer at Clements County Primary School in Suffolk, agrees. She said:
‘We have been using Classroom Monitor extensively since September 2008 after moving away from a traditional paper-based system. Following the installation, the Classroom Monitor staff came into the school to teach us how to use the system. Since then, we have never needed further training as the online help and video tutorials are amazing and you know there is always someone at the end of the phone if you do get stuck or need a bit of guidance. Our teachers have really embraced the system and now create their own assessments, print targets and generate reports for parents’ evenings!
The teachers really love it, even the less-technical ones are often logging in to the system at home to update pupil progress!’
 Screenshot of the Classroom Monitor cohort comparison graph
The data within the markbook can be analysed in a number of ways, with teachers able to drill down into any group that has been established within the school’s MIS and turn the relevant data into graphs, Excel spreadsheets, Word Documents and more. Commonly, the type of data extracted tends to be the ‘class’, ‘year’, ‘sex’ or ‘pupils on free school meals’ categories, however Mr Forssling has found another use. He explained:
‘We specialise in Special Education Needs and have pupils with a range of learning difficulties at our school. Classroom Monitor enables us to look at how pupils with autism or dyslexia are performing in comparison to other pupils, enabling us to quickly recognise and act upon any potential issues.
We have had lots of positive feedback about the system, with teachers commenting on how easy it is to use. In the past, teachers would fill in and circulate a sheet of exam results and curriculum levels. I would then input the details into the Excel database but sometimes this took so long, by the time I had finished inputting the data, we were at the next assessment time! Classroom Monitor has saved us a huge amount time whilst making assessments and reports better.’
When asked what improvements they would make to Classroom Monitor, the reviewers unanimously agreed that the system is currently meeting the needs of their respective schools and therefore, they could not think of anything they would change.
Chris Scarth, Director of Prime Principle, the company behind Classroom Monitor, spoke to bee-it about the newest developments to the system. He said:
‘We are always looking at ways to improve the system and have lots of developments coming in the near future. A number of schools are currently trialling our new parental portal which enables teachers to share pupil information with parents in a quick and easy way. We are also linking free online resources to assessment criteria to provide parents with a bank of tools which can help improve their child’s results.’
Combined School Ratings:
Ease of Setup: 5
Ease of Use: 4.5
Fit for Purpose: 5
Value for Money: 5
For more information about Classroom Monitor, click here.
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