---
title: Creating QLA Markbooks and Smith Proformas (Wales)
description: Creating QLA Markbooks and Smith Proformas (Wales) | Help & Support — GO 4 Schools
---
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# Creating QLA Markbooks and Smith Proformas (Wales)
Question level analysis (QLA) is carried out following an assessment for which marks are recorded at an individual question level. It enables middle leaders and class teachers to identify topics/areas of strength and weakness, and carry out targeted intervention, or even plan to re-teach key topics. You can collect this data in markbooks, which will sum the marks and then convert to a grade using personalised grade boundaries.
This guidance document will detail how to create marksheets to collect this type of item level data and will go on to describe how you can then extract this data, either for analysis in an explorer, for downloading to a CSV, or for printing off directly from our postcard view. It is possible to create a Smith proforma as a form of personalised feedback for students.
Using GO 4 Schools markbooks for QLA and Smith proformas should reduce staff workload by preventing the duplication of data entry, particularly if you are tracking QLA in an excel document and then teachers are entering the overall grade for the assessment in GO 4 Schools in preparation for a school snapshot of data.
#### **Building assessments for effective QLA and targeted intervention**
When constructing assessments for QLA it is important to consider whether the questions being asked will provide you with data to effectively identify topics or skills that pupils are struggling to grasp. Exam papers, by their very nature, are designed to separate students at the end of a course and not identify gaps in knowledge or misconceptions as a course is being taught. Therefore, for QLA to have the most impact in the classroom, you will need to consider including diagnostic questions along with past paper questions in an interim assessment, ideally grouped into the topics or skills that have been taught up to this point in your course.
#### **Constructing QLA marksheets**
QLA marksheets can be added to any pre-existing subject markbook following these steps (please note you will need curriculum leader access to access the **edit markbook** page):
1. Click **Add a new marksheet**.
2. Change the name of the marksheet to match your test.
3. Adjust the weighting accordingly, you may wish to change it from the default ‘1’ to 0 if it isn’t going to contribute to the calculation of the current grade.
4. Click on **Add a new assessment or tracking column**.
5. Select **Add a new mark assessment** – you will need to add the same number of assessments as questions. For a better level of analysis it is recommended that you have an assessment for each sub-section of the question (as often a question can cover a number of topics).
6. Delete the default **grade** assessment.
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Once this basic set-up is in place you can make the following adjustments:
1. Change the name of the assessments to show the question number and the associated topic/skill.
2. For larger questions you may want to split it up further (if possible).
3. The marks will need adjusting from the default 10 to the marks available for that question.
4. Click on **Change** and select **Sum of all assessments**.
#### **Appropriately naming the assessments**
It is beneficial to name your assessments not only with the question number, but also with the topic, or assessment objective. When you are in a subject explorer this will allow you to search across marksheets for assessments (questions) on the same topic/skill and view them side by side.
#### **Including a ‘notes’ field to provide written feedback**
Rather than providing the student with written feedback on the paper (which they may mis-place), or in their books, you could include an open-text field in the marksheet for staff to provide some feedback:
1. Click ‘Add a new assessment or tracking column’.
2. Select ‘Add a new note column’
3. Rename this assessment to match the schools feedback policy.
#### **Using colours to identify topics or skills**
You may wish to provide teachers with a visual representation of which questions cover which topics/skills:
1. Click on the image to open the table of available colours
2. Click on the colour you wish to be displayed in the assessment heading.
#### **Adjusting the grade boundaries**
You may wish to adapt the default grade boundaries by clicking on **grading scheme** and adjusting accordingly.
#### **Selecting the appropriate assessment outputs in the marksheet/markbook/student page**
You can determine where the grade, marks and/or percentages for this test should be output:
1. These checkboxes control whether values should be under these headings on the subject markbook overview page
2. This toggle determines whether the overview for the marksheet in the detailed view of the progress table on the student page is displaying the total marks, percentage or grade achieved:
3. These checkboxes control whether values should be viewed in the final columns of the open marksheet
4. This toggle determines whether the overview for the marksheet in the markbook view is displaying the total marks, percentage or grade achieved
5. The sheet option allows you to delete the sheet altogether should you need to.
#### **Visibility of assessments to students and parents**
The default setting is to show assessments within marksheets to students but not parents, but you may want to adjust this. It is worth checking whether they are hidden from students, and whether you wish this level of detail to be visible to parents.
It is also possible to hide individual marksheets from parents and students by marking them as ‘Private’:
Once completed the marksheet will appear as below:
#### **Using subject explorers to view QLA data**
You can access the subject explorer either via the **tools** link in the markbook, or via the link at the top of the subject page:
Once in the explorer you will need to select **Add/remove columns**, and then select:
Marksheet data \> Assessments \> The title of your markbook (in this example ‘QLA July 2018) \> Select the second option for each question to display the marks gained (the first option will display the marks for the question converted to a grade).
You may also find it beneficial to select the teaching group (in order to apply a filter), and to delete some of the default columns that are not required for this purpose.
You will then be able to view the data as below:
*Note: You can view average marks achieved for that group of students in the heading. The values will also be in the csv download.*
#### **Sorting to identify students for targeted intervention**
You may wish to apply a sort to any of the columns to view the student that achieved the highest grade in any particular question, or those who achieved the lowest. You could use this functionality to draw up targeted intervention groups.
#### **Saving the explorer**
You are able to save this explorer to return to at a later date:
There is also the functionality allowing you to save the current sort settings and to share the explorer with others:
#### **Using ‘postcard’ view to generate a Smith proforma**
By selecting **Student postcard view** in the top right-hand corner of the explorer you will be able to view a summary which can be printed off and provided to students for them to reply to the feedback provided. There is a tick-box provided should you wish to remove the photos prior to printing:
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#### **Downloading to a CSV**
Alternatively, you can download the explorer in CSV format, and then save as a workbook should you wish to apply conditional formatting before printing off for students.
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