One Grading Policy for the Whole School

Ask five teachers how a term grade is worked out and you may get five answers: one averages everything, one weights quizzes double, one counts missed homework as zero. Each is defensible, and together they make grades impossible to compare. The ClassKite Gradebook gives a school one written grading policy, applied the same way in every class, with a record of every change. This guide is for the school admins who set it.

What school admins see

School admins get a Gradebook section of their own, with five parts:

• School Overview. Active classes, how complete each class's grading is, and published report cards that need revision.
• Browse Gradebooks. Find a class by teacher, or a student by name or school ID, and open that class's Gradebook and individual reports.
• Reports and Exports. Excel workbooks for the classes you choose.
• Grading Policies. Where the rules are written and applied.
• Change History. Every change to policies, reporting periods, removed results and published report cards, newest first. Nothing in it can be edited.

Admins can also see the Gradebook the way a teacher or a student sees it, without changing anything, which is the quickest way to answer a parent's question.

Write the policy once

A policy says how a grade is calculated: by weighted categories or by total points, which practice types count in which category, whether the best or the most recent attempt counts, what happens to missed and unfinished work, how many decimal places are shown, and the grade bands if you use letters.

A policy version is never edited after it has been applied. A change is a new version, with the reason you give for it, so last term's grades can always be explained by the rules that were in force.

You decide where each policy applies: as the school default, for a grade level and subject, or for chosen classes. The narrowest one wins, and each class shows which policy it follows and why.

Preview before you apply

Before a new policy takes effect, a preview lists the classes it reaches and the students whose grade or grade band would change, largest change first. If results change while you are reading the preview, ClassKite asks you to look again instead of applying something you did not see.

Applying is all or nothing: every class in the selection moves to the new policy together, or none does. An applied policy can be rolled back, and you can also schedule a policy for a future reporting period so that nothing is recalculated today.

Reporting periods

A reporting period has a first and a last day and a status. When you close a period, its results can no longer be removed or restored and its policy cannot be changed, until an admin reopens it. Until you create your own periods, a school has a single period covering all dates.

What teachers may adjust

You choose between two modes. With a school-enforced policy, teachers can read it and cannot change it. With delegated adjustments, you unlock specific settings for a teacher's own classes, such as category weights. Either way, teachers see which settings are managed by the school.

Removing a result from the Gradebook is a separate permission. A school can decide whether its teachers may do it in their own classes, and an admin can do it only when that permission has been given to them by name. Looking at a Gradebook never includes the right to change what counts.

From first use to a policy of your own

Nothing changes on the day a school first opens the Gradebook: the starting policy averages each student's practices, which is the figure reports already showed. You can then set the school's timezone, create your reporting periods, and write your own policy when you are ready.

Frequently asked questions

Can admins see students' results?

Yes. A school admin can open the Gradebook of any class in their own school. Students still see only their own results, and teachers only their own classes.

Does changing the policy rewrite published report cards?

No. A published report card is a fixed record. If its figures would now be different, it is marked as needing revision, and the teacher decides whether to publish a new version.

Is there a class rank or a league table of teachers?

No. The Gradebook has no rank, and the school overview shows how complete each class's grading is, not a comparison of teachers.

Which plan includes it?

The school-wide Gradebook is part of the School plan. The schools page explains how the plan works.

See the Gradebook page for the teacher's side, or read how the Gradebook adds grades up.

Talk to us about ClassKite for your school — or see how the School plan works.