Sons End of Year 7 examination scores. Are they okay?

[xinfintgamingx]

Hi, My son just finished his end of year 7 exams, he has improved in most subjects but dropped in some of them as well. I will be comparing his Term 2 report to his examination scores

Report: Examination:
Mathematics: 6b Target: 7c Mathematics: 5a
Science: 5b Target: 5b Science: 6b
English: 5b Target: 5a English: 4a
History: 5c/5b Target: 5a History: 5a/6c
Geography: 6c Target: 6c Geography: 5c
Computing: 5c Target: 5b Computing: 5b
French: 4c Target: 4b French: 4a
Music: 5c Target: 5b Music: 6c

I am mostly concerned about maths since the teachers had told me he is a very bright student. When he first entered Year 7, on his first maths test he achieved a 6b. In the final examination he did get 5a but was 2 marks away from 6c. But Overall is his grades good?

[xinfintgamingx]

Sorry, it didn't put spaces

The first one is his term 2 report level , the second one was his target level and the third one is his examination level

[noblegiraffe]

What did he get in his KS2 SATs for maths?

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Somethings going on with his maths, English and geography. In everything else he's met or exceeded his target and made progress since term 2. In those three subjects he's actually gone backwards?

If the results are coming only from an exam, it might just be he had a bad day and the results don't reflect the level that he's working at in those subjects.

[Snowberry86]

His maths target is ridiculously high. The best he could have come in to the school on is a level 6 which is really only a 6C and so to set a target of a 7C by the end of the first year is very high!

[TeenAndTween]

Did he do any prep for the exams, or did he go in cold?
If he did no prep then he could have gone rusty on maths topics.

With English, I can see it would depend on whether the exam bore any resemblance to what they have been doing in class. (In our house we have experience of exam appearing to have no resemblance whatsoever).

[PiqueABoo]

@Snowberry86: The best he could have come in to the school on is a level 6 which is really only a 6C

In data-delusion world a KS2 L6 pass is treated as a 6B or 39 points. In maths (only) Y7 DD's comp aims for one whole level progress per year, so all the KS2 L6 passing children got an end-Y7 target of 7B.

--
@xinfintgamingx: If I were in your shoes geography could go hang, but I'd want to find out more about the maths and English e.g. ask the teacher. As above it could be a bad day or a bad exam. Or they hate who they sit next to in class. Or they hate the teacher. Or anything really.

[BertrandRussell]

Something's gone awry with his English and maths. I would email the teachers and ask them what they think.

[kgov1]

I thought levels were only being used for year 2 and 6 this year due to the introduction of the curriculum and as far as I am aware the new curriculum is more difficult. Therefore if the school is still using levels still but also the new curriculum then he may seem like he has dropped when he hasn't. I would definitely ask though!

[Finola1step]

I think the English levels would concern me the most. Email his head of year to discuss his overall progress. If you were comparing this term's results with his end of year 6, I would say don't worry. But you are comparing assessments from the same school, same teachers.

All schools are of course moving towards assessing without levels. So it would be worth enquiring how well your ds is doing within the curriculum for his year group. Is he achieving above or at expectations for example. Using the old national curriculum levels will get increasingly worthless.

[PiqueABoo]

There's little sign that Y7 DD's school want to replace NC levels and I suspect if they did, they'd try to use GCSE grades. It's difficult to believe the mastery below/at/above will work in KS3. [Or KS2 for that matter, but that's a debate for the primary forum.]

[noblegiraffe]

My school will still be using levels next year, there's nothing compelling to change to yet.

There was a rumour going around on Twitter earlier that the government was thinking of bringing them back!

[BertrandRussell]

Ds's school still uses levels to year 9 then GCSE grades.

[Snowberry86]

@piqueaboo a whole level progress in year 7 is ridiculous!

Going from doing numeracy 5 hours per week to only having maths 3 hours a week usually causes a dip in progress.

We don't have any level 6's in our school so wasn't aware it was classed as a 6b. How ridiculous, the content they need to know to get the level 6 at primary is a fraction of the secondary level 6 content.

[noblegiraffe]

Actually, a whole level progress in a year for a kid who is very good at maths (level 6) is entirely normal.

[PiqueABoo]

The progress you can genuinely expect depends on starting point. I haven't verified this, but the 2014 transition data apparently tells us that 73% of the SATS L5a children made five levels progress across the five years of KS3 & 4. It will be interesting to see the 2015 data which will be the first time we see children starting from L6.

"the content they need to know to get the level 6 at primary is a fraction of the secondary level 6 content."

At the start of the autumn term the Middling State Secondary (comp) confirmed DD's Y6 teacher assessment of 6A. That was entirely between DD and Middling State Primary i.e. we haven't taught maths at home because that would make the school lessons more repetitive and less fun.

More generally though the L6 SAT paper specification was a mix of both difficult L5 content and L6 content, with significant room to get some questions wrong. DD is very whizzy and aced her L6, but some children who scrape it may well be missing a substantial amount of L6 content.

[momtothree]

DD y6 6b, year 7 5a, as others have said its different in high school. More room for error, and they are marked on method and answers, junior school look for method. As for the criteria and where he falls short.

[noblegiraffe]

It's not that different that a child could go from a 6b at the end of Y6 to a 5a at the end of Y7. They might go backwards from the end of y6 to the start of Y7, but they should make progress after that!

[momtothree]

www.satsguide.co.uk/what_are_sats.htm.

[momtothree]

DD is tested at the end of each module .... so percentages, shape, fractions (whatever) and scores given. It is not the same as a comprehensive maths test.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

It's not even a 6b at the end of year 6, noble. He was 6b at Easter, so he's dropped 2 sublevels in just over half a term.

One of those levels is wrong, I suspect the 5a, but it's worth talking to the school to find out why.

[xinfintgamingx]

He got Level 4A. He also dropped in KS2 Sats. By the end of term 3 he was working on a Level 5c

[xinfintgamingx]

This is his KS2 Sats Scores!

Maths: Level 4A 78/100 (One or two from 5c)
Science: Level 5B 88/100
English Reading: 5C 37/50
English Writing: 5C
English Grammar: 5A 47/50 (there is no grammar test in year 7)

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Hmm, something's definitely up with those levels. Is the maths target definitely for year 7 or could it be an end of key stage target? It's definitely aspirational for a child who got 4a to be 7c by the end of yr 7.

Possibly they set it from the 6b test he sat at the beginning of yr 7. That would be 2 sublevels over the year, which is a reasonable target. Whatever that test was, I'd guess it wasn't very accurate. 5a at the year 7 from a 4a at ks2 is good progress and is much less worrying than the results in your OP suggested.