Emily

Sometimes. Although it's more useful for students to be given feedback rather than a letter (as this can distract students), students are often keen to have the grade and this is useful for them to compare their performance to their own previous work. However I don't believe this is useful when students use the grade to compare against each other.

Yes feedback is important for progress, but ultimately their finals and their target is a grade and they need to know how near or far they are from their target but more importantly how to get there.

yes, I agree, they ultimately do need to know their final grade in order to compare against their target grade and see far or close their are to achieving it.

My target based on this feedback is to add conclusions and link to 'the bigger picture'