Mail merge after a maths mock

large-keyboardI handed out a mail-merged letter to my year 11 class today, based on their performance in a maths mock exam we held a week ago. This is how it read:

Monday 2nd December,

Dear R……….,

In the maths mock exam that you took a week ago, you achieved B3, compared to C2 back in June. You were 1 mark away from getting B2. Well done!

In terms of the score out of 175, last week you got 90 compared to 62/175 in June. This is a change of 28 marks – if you repeat this at the next mock, you will achieve A3.

The next maths mock is on Tuesday 4th March approximately 50 maths lessons away. If you were to gain an extra 50 marks between now and the exam (roughly 1 mark per lesson), then you would get A1*.

Keep in mind that your target for the real maths GCSE exam next June is A3, so an extra 50 marks by March would be a very useful step.

Congratulations on your result this time round and, remember, there is a lot to do if you are going to meet your target. Let’s begin…

Warm regards,

Mr Reddy

* Assuming the grade boundaries don’t change that is.

Notes
Text in bold is pulled from a spreadsheet.
We subdivide GCSE grades into 3, e.g. A*1, A*2, A*3, A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, etc.

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4 Replies to “Mail merge after a maths mock”

    1. The spreadsheet had:

      • their name
      • their results as a score and as a grade from their exam in June of year 10
      • their results as a score and as a grade from their exam in June of year 10
      • the difference in their two scores (from June of year 10 to November of year 11)
      • the grade they would get if they got another 50 marks
      • the grade they would get if they made the same improvement again by March as they have since June
      • their target grade for the end of year 11
      • the number of marks they needed to get to the next subgrade (so they could see how close they were)

      And then in Word, I just set up a mail merge with each of those fields. Hope that helps.

  1. Such a good idea that I have used it with my class. As a result, the rest of my department are using a similar one with their classes and it has been flagged up by SLT as an example of good practice. Before reading this post, I’d only ever used Access to set up a mail merge. As I use Excel so much more this has transformed how I’ll provide feedback to pupils. I’m considering doing something similar with progress at the end of each year with all of my classes. Thank you for such an informative and easily accessible resource.

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