Overview
In this article, we’ll discuss how to use your scores as a meaningful rating tool to help teams understand what you saw in their performance! Having a rubric or key to help you determine how to award points to each team is HUGE in doing the best job you can as a judge!
The Rubric
Think back to our discussion about the three basic levels of drill: Developing, Proficient, & Performance-Grade. Those three tiers of teams form the basis for our scoring rubric! With a wide variety of scoresheets with categories of varying total points, we’ve assembled this quick guide for you below:
Essentially, what we’ve done is taken whatever point range is available and divided into thirds. The BOTTOM third of points represents the lowest level of achievement/design/etc. a team can achieve while the HIGHEST third of points represents the highest level. Pretty straight forward. So let’s get a little more clear about what each of these descriptors really means!
Not Competition-Ready
“Not Competition-Ready” means catastrophic failure. This could look like completely unsynchronized performance (as in the example above) or even breaking military bearing to look around excessively, laugh, or even curse (yes, we’ve heard our fair share of f-bombs dropped on the drill floor, sadly…). You should use these lowest scores to denote performance that should maybe not have appeared in public quite yet. 😅
Needs Improvement
While still in the bottom third, teams who should earn “Needs Improvement” range scores are still clearly struggling with achieving a basic level of cohesive performance on the deck. While not quite in catastrophic failure land, these groups still have a long way to go to present a basic level of proficiency.
FOR REGULATION-BASED EVENTS THIS IS ALSO THE HIGHEST SCORING RANGE A TEAM CAN EARN IF THEY ARE EGREGIOUSLY OUTSIDE THE WORDS, SPIRIT, AND/OR INTENT OF THEIR STATED DRILL MANUALS! For example, no matter how sharp and well-dressed a color guard’s wheeling movement, stomping the feet loudly on the ground automatically caps their max score at this range.
Excellent
Top-performing JROTC drill teams exist in this “excellent” range when their drill is both highly-synchronized, well-polished, and approaching a professional-caliber of execution a la the example of the Radio City Rockettes performing their Toy Solider Christmas display. You may very well see teams who display an almost-professional level of achievement and this scoring range is for them!
Sets New Standards
Ok, we don’t have a video example for this because, just as the name implies, teams who are capable of earning “perfect” or “nearly perfect” scores haven’t been seen yet. Though rare, every year drill teams rise to new heights and elevate what we think of as being possible in the drill team activity. These scores are reserved for those groups.
You will NEVER award a “Sets New Standards” score at any meet that fits the following criteria:
- NO drill team is setting any new standards before the LATE SPRING TIME of a given school year simply because no school has reached the pinnacle of their potential until the end of their season.
- NO drill team is setting new standards at a LOCAL/REGIONAL level drill competition simply because these performances occur before the end of the potential length of the season.
So, yeah. You can basically ignore this top range of points in 99% of judging cases. BUT. There is ONE exception:
Scoresheets that ask you to judge concrete PREPARATION items (i.e. inspection sheets asking about uniforms, hygiene, etc.) MAY use these top scores since, for example, preparing a uniform to a level that “sets new standards” IS completely possible at any time.
But wait…whoa! What happened to the middle? Well, the middle is more easily defined by the end-caps on both sides because…
Proficient
…”proficient” drill is that which occurs between these two extremes. Like anything else in life, achievement in drill team is a bell-curve: the majority of drill teams in competition will fall somewhere in the middle. Encountering a team that rates a score in this larger range of points becomes an exercise in determining whether their proficiency leans down or up based on your understanding of the other ranges. Teams who are stronger rate higher scores in this range while teams who are weaker rate lower ones! This range is the largest of all to provide the most flexibility to you in rating the performances you’ll see!
Let’s Practice
COMING SOON
This module is part of The Definitive Guide to Judging Drill Meets!