Can someone help me decipher dds yr5 school report.

[Callmegeoff]

Dds s school has finally done away with levels.

In her last report she hadn't made any progress from the end of year 4 remaining at levels 3a/3b in all subjects.

Her new report is just assessing her at maths and English, with a number of tick boxes, most of her ticks are in the competent level, a few apprentice and none in the expert level. Would competent translate to level 4? Does any one else have this style of report?

Her teacher says she has progressed do I trust that she has?

Dd does have a mild learning difficulty -dyslexia. I'm wondering whether to get a tutor over the school holidays.

[mrz]

No it wouldn't translate to any level (as they don't exist) competent would suggest that she is working at the standard expected for a child in her year group

[Discworld101]

It's almost impossible to say as the content of the curriculum has moved to different year groups - as a whole it is more challenging now.
I would trust your teacher.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Every school is going to assess differently but I'd take a guess that competent probably means that she meets the standard required for her year group at a particular level. But you will have to ask the school if the report doesn't explain that.

If that's the case then given she is competent against most standards then it is likely she has made progress from year 4.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Sorry. That was meant to be 'standard required for her year group for a particular objective.'

[PastSellByDate]

Hi Callmegeoff

Our primary reports use working towardsl/working within/ working above expected level for all subjects and has a few statements in a table against which this is recorded.

So for example in English these levels were scored against READING/ WRITING/ SPEAKING/ LISTENING and they use this same scale for overall effort in English as a subject.

In PE they scored using these 3 levels of ability against statements:

Ability to swim a range of strokes effectively
Ability to swim a stroke for 25 m or more
Appying skills of sending/ receiving/ travelling to a range of games
Make appropriate choices for targets
Decision making during team play
performance of running/ jumping/ throwing skills


I suspect your school's apprentice level = our school's working towards expected level

your school's competent = our school's working within expected level (where a child that age would be expected to be performing)

your school's expert = our school's working above expected level

I have to say I perfered the rough NC Level and then ticks against a parent-friendly APP list for those areas where your child was observed performing that ability at least 3x by a teacher. We now have something like a novel with big tables with statements and then columns for the 3 levels of ability (below/ at/ exceeding expected level) and little paragraphs on our little DC's work in that subject this year - all of which strikes me as more work.

However given the government is removing NC Levels and is gradually rolling out performance descriptors for KS1/KS2: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/368298/KS1-KS2_Performance_descriptors_consultation.pdf - I fear we're stuck with this. The government have also only stated they are removing NC Levels they have not specified what they are to be replaced with & in fact have left it up to each school to determine how they want to report progress to parents.

Hertfordshire grid for learning suggests this: www.hertsforlearning.co.uk/sites/default/files/user_uploads/00_news/documents/developing_a_new_approach_to_tracking_pupil_progress_sept2014.pdf

Interestingly how KS2 SATs (the standardised tests at the end of Year 6) are scored is also changing - moving away from NC Levels (just level/ no sub-level given) to straight percentages and information to parents on how your child performed against other children nationally: www.theschoolrun.com/key-stage-2-SATs-2016

So although this is frustrating - I think we parents do have to take on board that the changes are being issued from the government and that unfortunately our children are going through primary/ secondary when everything is changing - GCSEs also are changing to 1-9 levels instead of A-G: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/377768/2014-09-12-grading-the-new-gcses-in.pdf

The good news as a parent is that these changes mean more ambitious academic aspirations for our children (which probably is a good thing) and Progress 8 is coming www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/415486/Progress_8_school_performance_measure.pdf - which for secondary means that schools are judged against the progress made for every child on performance tables rather than the proportion of pupil's achieving C or better on 5 GCSEs including English/ Maths. [In essence it is as important to get the student on track for a B to an A as it is to get the student on track for a D to a C - and should stop the skewing of Y10/11 to D/C boudary pupils].

Well at least that's what I've managed to work out is going on over this year - but I hasten to add I'm just a parent and it may be that teachers out there can provide clearer/ more detailed info on all this.

[mrz]

A key point about performance descriptors is that they are only for the end of each Key Stage

[Callmegeoff]

Thank-you for the replies. Lots of reading to do pastsellbydate

[mrz]

Callmegeoff unless you live in Herefordshire none of those links are relevant to your child

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Even in Hertfordshire it might not be that much use if your school is an academy or decides not to follow LA guidance.

There are about as many ways of assessing under the new system as there are LAs. And probably as few more. Without speaking to the school I'm not sure you are going to get an answer to your question. You might be able to find a guide to something your LA has published online and see if that fits what the school is using.

[proudmama2772]

Not sure why the links only pertain to Herefordshire. One of them is a March 2015 DFE guide for academies, free schools and maintained schools.

Callmegeoff, as a parent, I need to see the test. I need to see it for myself. I think the old levels and the new NC Year objectives are great for organizing the curriculum into steps but they are absolute crap for assessment.

I don't trust teacher assessment as it is not objective and it is an individual defining their own performance measures - completely asinine the system relies so heavily on them. The school reports are nice but the written descriptions are a bit of a waste of time.

In year 5 my school uses the SATs and I take how much progress has been made as to how much ds's score has improved.

[mrz]

Only one of the links pertains to Herefordshire and might be relevant if the OP lives in Herefordshire ... The other links aren't relevant in anyway to the OP

[mrz]

The March 2015 link applies to secondary schools

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

But it isn't relevant to the OP's child now because it's an end of key stage 2 descriptor and she's only in year 5. It won't answer the question of whether she's made progress over the last year because all it will tell her is that her child probably isn't at the standard expected at the end odf year 6. I don't even know if that's the final version.

The other two government documents are about GCSEs which are definitely not relevant at the moment. Given the rate of change of GCSEs over the last decade, there'll probably be at least another 2 changes to GCSEs by the time her DD gets there!

[CharlesRyder]

Come now, everyone knows levels were very misleading and confusing for parents.

This new system where every school does whatever the f*ck they can think up in time develops a system of assessment that suits their children is much clearer for everyone.

Expressing opinions to the contrary is dissent and you will be shot means you have not looked at this solution in terms of it's awe inspiring capacity to bring our standards into line with Singapore and Hong Kong.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

It's a stroke of sheer brilliance though. Why replace one widely interpreted system with another one when you can replace it with hundreds? Especially if the new systems are just the same as the old system but with different labels.

It's so brilliant that even the people responsible for holding schools accountable for attainment and progress have no idea what normal progress is going to look like in any given school.

[Callmegeoff]

Dd1 is year 7 secondary so I found that link useful. I am on the Isle Wight.

proudmama sats in year 5 ?

I'll speak to her teacher who will no doubt tell me she has made progress. End of year parents evening is more informal this year with a 2 hour time slot and a free for all. Poor man is going to be mobbed!

[mrz]

It won't stop them finding we are "coasting" and acadamising the lot of us!

[Feenie]

It's also a brilliant reason to bring in straight testing for 6-7 year olds - there are no levels, so let's have none of this how they work day to day thorough teacher assessment malarkey over time, let's just see a narrow snapshot of small part of the curriculum in a rigorous test situation instead.

We should have seen this coming!

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

There is that. But you're all being academised anyway eventually. Doesn't really matter what reason they give.

It's almost like they haven't noticed the Swedish free school system was an utter failure and that Finland is moving back to a more centrally led curriculum because the more they moved towards giving schools autonomy the worse their results were becoming.

[mrz]

Have you seen the latest sample tests Feenie? www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-curriculum-assessments-2016-sample-materials

[Feenie]

I have. I worry about the length of them for some six/seven year olds' concentration span.

[Feenie]

Spans

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Saw those this morning. The ks2 maths test looks slightly easier than the sample they originally gave. There's nothing even close to being as hard as the pie chart question.

I don't think the ks1 tests are too horrendous. The maths seemed Ok. The second reading paper looks tricky. That text seems a lot more difficult than some of the older level 2 papers. Do they have to take both? Could trip up some of the middling/weaker readers badly.

Obviously it'll depend on where they set the pass mark. I only scanned it but I couldn't see any indication of what sort of percentage you'd need to demonstrate meeting the standard or mastery.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Actually, does every child gave to take those papers, or are there tasks for lower attaining children? Because all of those papers are bloody awful for a lower attaining child who's going to be faced with paper after paper of stuff they can't access. What a message to send to them at 6 years old.

[Feenie]

Every child, afaik