Assessment templates: how a course mark is built
The components and weights that decide what a learner’s mark in a course is made of.
An assessment template is the recipe for one course’s mark: the components a learner is assessed on, the maximum each component is worth, and the share of the final mark each one carries. A template called “Secondary — CA 40% + Exam 60%” is two components — continuous assessment out of 40 at 40% weight, and the examination out of 60 at 60% weight. Attach that template to a course and the grade entry grid, the class board and the report card all build the same mark from it.
The head of department owns this menu, and works on it twice a year: once before the school year opens, to set up the standard templates, and again whenever the ministry’s weighting changes. Teachers never touch it — they simply see the columns it defines when they open the mark sheet for their course.
Doing it once, carefully, is the whole point, because a weight is a promise. A class assessed 40% on continuous assessment but marked as if it were 50% becomes a fairness problem the moment a parent reads the report card. Weights are therefore set centrally and apply to every learner in every class that shares the template.
Build an assessment template in five steps
Ten minutes of work that every teacher inherits.
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Step 1
Open Assessment > Assessment Templates
The table lists every template with a chip counting its components, its Active flag and the date it was created. Duplicate and bulk-delete actions sit on the rows.
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Step 2
Click New and name it
Give the template a Name and a Description that says when it applies — “Secondary, 2025/2026” is worth typing. That description is what a new colleague reads in six months.
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Step 3
Add the components
In the Components block, click Add Component once per assessment. Each row asks for a label, a Max Score, a Weight %, an Order, and whether it is Required.
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Step 4
Make the weights add up to 100
A weight is the share of the final mark. The weights should add up to 100 so the weighted total reads out of 100; a component left without a weight simply takes an equal share. Mark a component Required if a learner may not be submitted without it.
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Step 5
Save, then attach it to courses
Save the template, then open each course and attach it. From that moment the mark sheet, the class board and the report card read the same components and the same weights.
How a template turns raw marks into a final mark
The arithmetic behind every figure on the mark sheet.
Proportion first, weight second
Nobody adds raw marks together. Each raw mark is first turned into a proportion of its component’s maximum — 26 out of 40 is 65% — and that proportion is then multiplied by the component’s weight. A learner with 26/40 in continuous assessment at 40% and 48/60 in the exam at 60% earns 26 points of continuous assessment plus 48 points of examination, for a total of 74 out of 100. This is why two classes whose marks look incomparable on paper can still be compared on the class board.
The total reads out of 100; the average out of 20
When the weights add up to 100, the weighted total is naturally out of 100, and the screen keeps an Average out of 20 beside it. The average is the figure most French-language report cards print in their summary line, which is why it is stored rather than derived on the fly.
Why the maximum score and the weight are two different numbers
The maximum score says how much a learner could earn on that component. The weight says how much that component counts towards the final mark. They move independently: a class that sits three 20-mark tests out of 60 gives each test an equal 20% of the final mark, while a 60-mark examination carries 60%. If you set the two the same out of habit, you will eventually double-count a heavy component — or, worse, have marked an examination that nobody had agreed was worth more than the term work.
Order is what learners see
The Order field fixes the left-to-right sequence of components in the grade entry grid, in the exported sheet and on the report card. Set it once and the grid reads the way the school teaches the subject, rather than the way the components happened to be typed.
Reusing a template instead of rebuilding it
How to branch a scheme, and how to retire one without damaging history.
Duplicate a template to branch it
Tick a row and use the table’s duplicate action to get a copy with all its components, saved beside the original under a “copy” name. That is the fast route from “Secondary 40/60” to “Secondary 30/70” after a single ministerial instruction: duplicate, adjust the two weights, rename, and attach the new one to next year’s courses. The original stays untouched for the classes still being taught under it.
Deactivate rather than delete
Switch a template’s Active flag off at the end of a year rather than deleting it. Its components disappear from the pickers for new courses, but the marks already entered through it keep their meaning, last term’s board still prints the same figures, and a parent comparing two report cards sees a consistent scheme rather than one that moved under their feet.
Changing a weight after marks are entered
A weight belongs to the template, not to the mark, so altering it changes how future totals are computed from marks that were entered under the old weighting. If you need to change a scheme mid-term, duplicate the template, adjust the copy and attach that one going forward — and leave the original in place so this term’s results stay comparable with each other.
What reads from a template
Four screens that change the moment you save a weight.
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Marking
Grade entry
The mark sheet borrows its columns, maxima and weights directly from the template attached to the course.
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Letters
Grading scales
The bands that turn the template’s weighted total into a letter read it on the /100 scale.
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Results
Class broadsheets
The class board reads the same total per course, which is what makes one column comparable to the next.
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Printed
Report cards
The term report prints the components and the final mark exactly as the template calculated them.
Assessment template questions
Asked by heads of department setting the weighting for a new year.
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Do the weights really have to add up to 100?
They should. When the weights add up to 100 the weighted total is simply out of 100, which is what the mark sheet, the class board and the grading scales all assume. If they do not, the total still computes but no longer reads on the familiar scale, and a band you set for 80 will land somewhere unexpected. A component with no weight at all is different: it simply takes an equal share of the total, which is fine for two or three components and confusing for six.
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How many components should a course have?
Two is the usual answer for a secondary school: continuous assessment and the examination. Three or four is comfortable for a vocational course, and beyond about six the mark sheet becomes hard to read on a phone and hard to mark on paper. The practical ceiling is the number of assessments your school genuinely runs — a template with a component nobody is ever assessed on produces a Total that is permanently lower than 100 and a class that looks weaker than it is.
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What does Required actually do on a component?
It decides whether a learner can be submitted with that mark missing. A required component must carry a mark before Submit Marks goes through, and the screen names the component that is empty. Leave a component optional when a genuine situation exists where the assessment was not sat — a learner who joined the class mid-term, for instance.
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Can two courses share one template?
Yes, and they should whenever they carry the same weight. A single “Secondary — CA 40% + Exam 60%” template attached to every secondary course is what guarantees that the columns of a class board are comparable. If one course genuinely breaks the rule, duplicate the template, change that course’s copy, and leave the shared one alone — the wide sheet then shows you exactly which course was assessed differently.