Students who complete homework on CENTURY make at least a grade of progress in just half an academic year

“We’re only halfway through year 10, so to be increasing by an entire grade in half a year is incredibly impressive. It’s definitely not something I’ve seen in my data before.”

We spoke to Kirsty Lewery, Head of Geography at The Holy Trinity Church of England Secondary School about how CENTURY can help to solve the unique challenges around teaching a non-core subject. The school uses CENTURY across English, maths, science, geography and PE and has already answered an incredible 2.3 million questions on the platform this academic year.

What initially prompted you to choose CENTURY for your school?

We didn’t have a specific homework policy, so I was asked to trial CENTURY with Key Stage 4. Instantly the feedback from classes was that they really liked it and it was really helpful. We’ve really integrated theories of metacognition across the school and how we learn into our curriculum. So CENTURY’s references to these worked really well for our students, who are instantly able to identify why the platform is good for their learning.

How did you roll out CENTURY successfully? 

I am the only full-time subject specialist teacher and manage 14 other members of staff. As a result, I set a unified homework approach across the year groups, with clear expectations for completion. Being able to set homework very rapidly is really important to ensure that every student across the year group receives the same information, even if they’re not being taught by a subject specialist. My teachers are asked to set achievement and behaviour points every week. They base these on whether students have completed the work on CENTURY, which is really easy to check. 

How do you use CENTURY? 

I primarily use CENTURY for revision purposes, setting 2-3 nuggets per week for Key Stage 3 and 5 nuggets per week for Key Stage 4. CENTURY is now also the go-to for all of my cover lessons. The process of setting cover work on CENTURY takes me about three to four minutes to set up an entire hour’s worth of work for that class to do. It’s so quick and easy to use and very intuitive. 

What impact have you seen with CENTURY?

We run a two and a half year GCSE here. Our students start after May half term in Year 9 in their GCSE groups. Two weeks into Year 10, students sit their first summative assessment. They then sit another just before Christmas and another in mid-February. 

I conducted my own analysis, calculating an average grade per student across all three assessments. I then compared this against the amount of time students had spent on CENTURY since September.

Students who have completed at least 50% of the recommended homework on CENTURY are only on average, one and a half grades below their Year 11 target, which is a great position to be in in Year 10.

The students who had spent less than 50% of the recommended time on CENTURY are on average 2.4 grades down on their end of Year 11 target.

I also looked at how many students had made a grade of progress from their first assessment to the most recent one. 44% of students who have engaged with at least 50% of the recommended homework on CENTURY have increased by at least an entire grade since September. On the other hand, of those students who have engaged with less than 50% of the recommended homework on CENTURY, only 15% have increased by an entire grade.

We’re only halfway through year 10, so to be increasing by an entire grade in half a year is incredibly impressive. It’s definitely not something I’ve seen in my data before. 

Have you seen any impact in terms of student engagement? 

What has been great is that I have been to show the data analysis to all of my Year 10 classes. I can show them evidence of the impact of studying on CENTURY. Now, having seen that data, some of my Year 10s who weren’t engaging are starting to make an effort to engage with their homework.

What are the benefits of implementing CENTURY with a whole-school approach? 

In general, students are really used to the platform since we’re using CENTURY in English, maths, science and PE as well. They know that they need to do CENTURY every week, so there’s consistency across the board. And it’s been really, really positive.

Has CENTURY reduced teacher workload or saved time?

Every half term I go ahead and set all of the homework for every single year group. All my teachers have to do is set up the homework task in advance on Class Charts with the instructions to complete this week’s CENTURY. The main feedback I’ve had from my teachers is that they appreciate the consistency of approach across the year group. 

Do you have a student success story?

A really challenging student who has historically struggled with school is currently eighth on my leaderboard out of 92 students because of the time he’s put in. I was able to send a really positive email home to his family and got a really positive response back thanking me. So it’s been a really nice opportunity for students to enjoy success when they might not otherwise have done so.

What are your plans for going forward with CENTURY?

We have cross-departmental meetings to share best practice and I am planning on using CENTURY more within lessons as starters or plenaries to do quick checks of what they’ve learned that day. The English department has already been doing this as their starter every single lesson, with great success.

If you would like to learn more about embedding CENTURY into your geography department, book a demo here. If you are already a CENTURY customer and would like to know more about adding geography to your subscription, speak to your account manager or email support@century.tech.