Mumsnet Talk

Yr 7 son report. He hasn't done languages before.
french - working at 3a target end of year 7 is 5a (Blimey)
German - working at 3b target end of year 7 is 5b.
Hope that helps.

I was hauled into school at the end of year 7 to discuss why my son was below target in some subjects. After several minutes lecture by his form tutor expressing disappointment in his efforts, I asked how the targets had been set and was told they were all based on KS2 SATs results, as he was level 5 across the board in KS2, they expected him to achieve A's in all subjects at the end of year 7-which was fair enough, he is a bright boy.
EXCEPT, they had given him targets of A for Art, PE and DT and he had "only" achieved B/C's-which was why I had been summonsed. I explained carefully that, as he had severe dyspraxia, he was lucky to be able to hold a pen, let alone achieve an A in art!
I ignored targets after that!

Seeker... Ds2 has just had his 1st yr 7report as well..
For German, his current grade is 3b, and his target for end of key stage, 6b.they finish ks3 end of yr 8 here though. Is that any help?

Seeker - From memory, DD1 (now yr11) had a yr7 MFL target of 4a, which she reached. But was only at 2a by end Iof first term.

In yr8 and 9 she hit her end of year target by the second term but stayed at that level for the remainder of the year. This was because she had hit the target in French, but not yet in German (or vice versa) due to the way MFL was taught.

At dd's school they don't give projected grades, just the level they're currently working at and whether or not that's above/at/below what the teachers expect of them.

I have heard it said that all teachers are control freaks...as I work in the education sector I am saying nothing!

There is no cohesiveness across the country, each school works as a mini dictatorship.

Loops, at DD's school they don't start at level 1, they assess them and then base their targets on that.
Should be the same system across the country really.

Sounds as if different departments are setting targets differently to me. MFL prob end KS3, rest end of year and I think a lot of teachers make them up in any case. Throw in a few typos and they may as well just randomly generate them.

To be fair, often the staff are confused - it could well be a mix.

My school used to give targets for Y9 and has now decided to switch to end of year targets, so it's probably quite confusing for all involved.

I would think they are targets for yr9. That is how my sons high school reports have been done.

But worth clarifying, we always get a little leaflet that explains about the levels and the targets and key stages etc.

seeker, what are the other levels?

(Sorry, that was to Dizzy)

No, it really isn't.

The levels I gave as examples are assuming most primary pupils have done the MFL since year 3. Not that it makes any difference, they will still start at level 1 in y7.

Loops, I agree. DD has only started French properly this year.

My DD had a target of a level 6 for the end of year 7, but round here they start learning French when they are 7/8 so have done it for 4 years by then. She hadn't done so (moved from neighbouring county) but caught up so it is do-able.

end of key stage 3 I expect.

No way will y7 MFL end of year be 6, sorry.

DD has just finished first term of Y7, her targets are for the end of the year.
French, she's working at 3C, eoy target is 6C. In fact all her targets are 6C except English which is higher and science which is lower.
Her current results are split pretty equally between level 4 & 5, with a 3 in French, and a 6 in science.

To be honest, I think the end of term results prob reflect where she is at now. And as long as they improve over the year then I will be happy. I very much doubt she will hit all these predicted 6s though. HTH

5a does seem ambitious for the end of Y7 if it's a language he has only started learning in September. I think I would email the school at the beginning of next term to query this.

Thank you, loops, that's very helpful. But it does indicate that these targets are for end of KS3- his Spanish target is 5a. Which makes the others odd!

You know, I didn't think of a typo!

I wonder if that could explain the random 4 (unsatisfactory) among his 1s for homework handing in? Maybe I'll reinstate Christmas

Our targets were changed mid year from FFT to levels of progress. Without warning. I was filling in in my reports, and did a double take.

Typo? In my school we are endlessly copying data and targets from one system to another, (mainly Excel to SIMs), I'm sure mistakes are made all the time.

And once the report software was accidentally programmed to print MFL targets in the maths column, that was confusing.