A share of every subject's final mark is decided across the year by the school, and most families only look at it once it is closed.
Updated 1 November 2026 · Great Home Tutor · Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon
In Classes 9 and 10 a portion of each subject's total is awarded by the school across the year rather than by the final paper. It is built from periodic tests, smaller assessments, the child's portfolio of work and subject enrichment activity. These marks are the easiest in the year to hold on to and the easiest to lose without anyone telling you.
| Applies to | Class 9 and Class 10, CBSE |
|---|---|
| Decided by | The school, across the whole session |
| Commonly lost to | Late submissions, missed tests, unmaintained notebooks |
| Tuition | At home in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon, or live online |
| Enquiries | +91 92121 42427 |
Where the other marks come from
Parents track the board paper because it is the visible event. Yet in Classes 9 and 10 the subject total is not made up of the written paper alone. A defined share is internal assessment, awarded by the school on the basis of work done from April onwards, and it is submitted to the board in the same way a paper is.
The practical consequence is simple and is worth saying plainly: a child can lose marks in November for a project handed in late and discover it in a result they read in May, with nothing to be done about it. Nothing about that process is hidden. It is just that nobody sends a parent a warning at the time.
The components, and what each one actually rewards
Schools follow the scheme laid down for them, and the broad shape is consistent even though the fine detail varies. Ask your own school for its written breakdown; what follows is the pattern most Delhi and Gurgaon schools use.
- Periodic tests. The short tests through the term. These are the component tuition most obviously helps with, and also the one families most often treat as unimportant practice.
- Multiple assessment. Quizzes, oral work, class response, small written tasks. This rewards a child who is present and participating, and quietly penalises the child who has decided a subject is not for them.
- Portfolio. The child's own record of work: notebooks, classwork, corrections done. A notebook that is up to date and corrected is worth real marks, and it is entirely within a family's control.
- Subject enrichment. Practical work in the sciences, activity work in mathematics, listening and speaking in the languages. It is the component parents understand least and it is not optional.
ICSE families should ask the same question of their school. The proportion and the naming differ, but the principle holds: a meaningful share of the subject mark is awarded internally, across the year, on work that has to be handed in on time.
Why these are the easiest marks to protect, and the easiest to lose
Board marks require a child to perform on one morning in a hall. Internal marks require them to hand things in and keep a notebook. The second is a far lower bar, which is why losing them is so avoidable and so frustrating.
The losses we see are almost never about ability. They are a science file submitted a fortnight after the deadline, a periodic test missed for a family trip and never made up, an English speaking assessment skipped because the child was too shy to volunteer, a maths notebook with three months of uncorrected classwork.
They are also cumulative and one-directional. A strong performance in February does not restore what was lost in August, because the two are separate components of a running total.
The thing most parents get wrong here. Treating the periodic tests as rehearsals. They are not only rehearsals; the marks count. A child who is told that a September test does not really matter learns exactly the wrong lesson, and the family finds out in the following summer that it mattered by a specific number.
What to ask the school, in writing
Three questions, asked once at the start of the session, prevent most of this. Ask them by email so there is a record you can return to.
- What is the internal assessment breakdown for each subject this year, and what is each component worth?
- What are the submission dates for practical files, projects and activity work, and what is the policy for a late submission?
- If a child misses a periodic test, is there a make-up test, and what has to be done to arrange it?
Put the answers on one page on the fridge. That page will do more for the final total than most of what families worry about in a board year.
What a tutor can and cannot do about this
We teach one to one at home across Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon, and live online anywhere. A tutor can prepare a child for periodic tests, can make sure a practical file is understood rather than copied, and can keep a notebook current by working in it rather than in a separate rough book. In Dwarka, where a good many of our Class 9 and 10 students are in schools running on similar term calendars, we generally set the tuition schedule around the periodic test dates rather than around the chapter sequence, because that is where the countable marks sit.
What a tutor cannot do is manufacture participation or hand things in on the child's behalf, and no tutor should be doing a project for a student. If a tuition arrangement is producing finished project work that the child cannot explain, the family is paying for marks that will not survive the viva and is teaching something they did not intend to teach.
Questions parents ask
Do these marks really appear in the final result?
Yes. The internal component and the written paper are added into one subject total, which is what appears on the certificate. That is precisely why losing them quietly matters.
Can internal marks be corrected later if there has been a mistake?
Once a school has finalised and submitted them, the window is effectively closed. If you believe there is an error, raise it with the school at the time the marks are shown to you, not months afterwards. Ask the school what its own correction window is.
My child was unwell for a periodic test. What should we do?
Ask about a make-up test immediately, in writing, and follow it up. Schools generally have a process, but it is usually the family that has to start it, and it becomes much harder to arrange once the term has moved on.
Is it worth paying someone to make the project or file?
No. Beyond the obvious, the child usually has to explain or present the work, and an outsourced file is transparent to any teacher who asks two questions about it. It also removes the only part of the assessment designed to teach something other than exam technique.
Does this apply in Class 9 too, or only the board year?
It applies in both. Class 9 is where the habit is formed, and a child who reaches Class 10 already used to handing work in on time has removed an entire category of risk from the board year.
Is the split the same in every school?
The framework is common, but schools set their own dates, their own task lists and their own internal rules. Do not rely on what another family tells you about a different school. Ask yours.
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