Grading scales: turning a raw total into a letter
The bands that decide whether a learner of 74 is a B, a B2 or a Bien.
A grading scale is a list of bands. Each band carries a minimum score, a maximum score and the letter or mention the school awards inside it: 80 to 100 is A, 70 to 79.99 is B, 60 to 69.99 is C, and so on down the ladder. Grades are never typed anywhere. Ekati takes the weighted total produced by the assessment template, finds the band that contains it, and shows the letter.
The head of school or the head of department owns this screen and sets it once per assessment scheme — usually two or three scales sitting side by side, for example one for a secondary programme graded out of 100 and one for a vocational programme graded on whether each module is completed.
It is worth ten minutes of attention. A scale is what a learner, a parent and a future employer all read on the same document, and a scale that leaves a gap — 74 belonging to no band, say — produces exactly the quiet unfairness a school regrets at the end of the year.
Set up a grading scale in five steps
A continuous ladder with no gaps and no overlaps.
-
Step 1
Open Assessment > Grading Scales
Every band is its own row: name, minimum, maximum, the letter, and whether it is active. The table can be sorted on any of those columns, which is handy when checking a whole scheme at once.
-
Step 2
Click New and name the band
Give the band a Name that says both the scheme and the range — “Secondary /100 — Excellent”. That is where the bilingual wording of your mentions belongs, rather than in the report card design.
-
Step 3
Fill in Min Score, Max Score and Grade
The Grade field is free text and takes anything your school actually prints: A, B, C, A1, B2, C3, or Très Bien if that is what the certificates will carry.
-
Step 4
Build the ladder without gaps
Start at 0, work upwards, and make each band’s minimum exactly the previous band’s maximum. A complete /100 scale: 0–39.99 F, 40–49.99 E, 50–59.99 D, 60–69.99 C, 70–79.99 B, 80–100 A.
-
Step 5
Save, then check a real total
The bands apply everywhere a grade is shown as soon as they are saved. Before announcing the scheme, open a grade entry grid, type a total you already know, and confirm the letter matches what you intended.
How a raw total becomes a letter grade
Which number the bands read, and what happens if none fits.
The bands read the weighted total, out of 100
The number that reaches the scale is the weighted total from the assessment template, on the /100 scale when the weights sum to 100. A learner who writes a genuinely good paper and a genuinely weak one can still land on the same letter when the course’s weighting rewards a different component — which is exactly what a weighting is for. Scale your bands to the total, never to a raw mark: a course marked out of 60 does not need bands out of 60.
A band can hold a word, not only a letter
The Grade field accepts anything you want printed. Some schools keep the letters and leave the translation to the report card design; others put the mention directly in the band, so that “Excellent” or “Très Bien” appears on the broadsheet, the transcript and the certificate without any further work. Pick one convention and hold it to it: a term report reading B2 and an annual report reading Excellent for the same performance is worse than either system on its own.
What happens if a total matches no band
The grade cell falls back to a plain letter ladder out of 100 — 80 A, 70 B, 60 C, 50 D, 40 E, below that F — so that no learner is ever left with an empty mention. That is a safety net, not a plan. When your own bands are active they are what you will see, and a gap in them will quietly show a default letter instead of the one you meant.
Writing bands you can defend in front of a parent
Three habits that keep a scale defensible years later.
Start at zero and end at the top of the scale
Build the ladder from the bottom up. The first band’s minimum is 0, the last band’s maximum is 100, and each minimum is the previous maximum. Every possible total then has exactly one home, and when a parent asks why this is a C, you can point at the exact interval rather than at a judgement.
Deactivate the old scheme, do not delete it
When the scheme changes, switch the old bands to inactive instead of removing them. Marks entered last year keep the letter they were awarded, because the band that applied is no longer active and is therefore not consulted — while this year’s marks take the new scheme. Deactivating keeps the history readable; deleting it makes last term’s reports inexplicable.
Two schemes for two programmes is normal
Nothing stops you keeping several scales active at once, and that is the point of the screen. A secondary school graded out of 100 and a vocational programme graded on module completion can both be active, because they are read on different boards. What you must never do is let two bands of the same scale cover the same interval: a total of 74 could then earn two different letters depending on which row is read first.
Where a grade gets read
Every screen that inherits your bands.
-
As you type
Grade entry
The Grade column in the mark sheet resolves live as you type, so a teacher sees the letter before saving anything.
-
Before you mark
Assessment templates
The weights in the template decide the scale your bands are written against — make sure the two agree before the term starts.
-
Published results
Class broadsheets
The letter printed in the last column of the class board is read straight from your bands.
-
Printed on paper
Report cards
Whatever wording you put in the Grade field is what parents and learners see on the slip.
Grading scale questions
Asked by head teachers setting a scheme for the year.
-
How do I set up A1, B2 and C3?
Each of those is simply a band. Click New, put the interval in Min Score and Max Score, and type A1 in the Grade field. On a weighted total out of 100, a workable ladder is 90–100 A1, 80–89.99 B2, 70–79.99 C3, 60–69.99 D4, 50–59.99 E5 and 0–49.99 F. Keep the intervals continuous and keep the letters short enough to read on one line of a report card.
-
Do I grade out of 20 or out of 100?
Your bands are written against the weighted total, which is out of 100 whenever the template’s weights add up to 100. The /20 Average sits beside it on the mark sheet and the class board for report cards that print a /20 summary. So build your ladder on /100 and let the average do the conversion.
-
Where do I set the pass mark?
There is no separate pass-mark field, because the pass mark is the bottom of your own ladder: the lowest band you regard as a pass. A learner below it receives the letter you gave that band, and it is that letter — not a hidden flag — that appears on the broadsheet and the report card. Decide the pass band once, name it clearly, and the school has a rule it can explain.
-
A learner shows no letter at all. What happened?
Two causes, both quick to check. Either no band is active for your school, so Ekati has nothing to look the total up in, or the total falls in a gap between two of your bands — for instance a top band starting at 85 and the one below it ending at 79.99. Open Assessment > Grading Scales and read the minimum of each band against the maximum of the one above it.
-
Can I delete a band once marks have been awarded?
Deactivate it rather than deleting it. An inactive band stops being consulted, so current marks take the new scheme, while last year’s report cards keep explaining themselves. Deleting the row removes the evidence for a mark a parent can still see on paper — and in a school that is a rare and unwelcome thing to have to do.