Predicted grades are a load of balls

[YoureAllABunchOfBastards]

Seriously.

There are so many posters getting upset because their DC was predicted an 8 and got a 6, predicted a 5 and got a 4 etc etc

Predicted grades are, at best, educated guesswork. The new system of numbers is so new that any teacher who claims to be confident in predicting an outcome is either over-confident or lying. The FFT predictions that are used are based on SATS and not reliable in individual cases.

There is not a large enough statistical dataset to make predictions, especially for those students who did the new KS2 (Marks out of 120) - this cohort have not done new GCSEs yet so we cannot correlate 115 in English at age 11 to a GCSE number grade.

Teachers predict because they are told to. It's an estimate only. 25+ years of teaching and I can't say for certain what grade someone will get. My estimates are usually close, but not watertight.

[clary]

Yes I agree. And it doesn't help that teachers have had the rug pulled from under them with the new GCSEs. A year ago I recall being asked by a student what grade their mark of 66% was,and I really had very little idea. 6? 7 maybe? Surely better than a 5 but errr? I felt really de skilled.

[clary]

Their mock mark of 66% I meant btw.

[Owensarmadillo]

Dds school seemed to predict the higher grades fairly accurately. I think it maybe because the kids who got those marks tended to be consistent with mark’s throughout the last few years. Her friends who were predicted middling grades in some subjects seemed more hit and miss.. maybe because there is more of an element of “ if s/he’s having a good day/ the wind is blowing in the right direction/ if he doesn’t panic” type scenarios?

[poolblack]

I don't know how it works in England but a few years ago DD failed all but one of her prelims (mocks) and was predicted to scrape a D in half her subjects if she pulled her finger out. She went on to get 2 A's, 4 B's and a C in her Nat5's (GCSE equiv). I have ignored the predicted grades and prelim results ever since for both her highers and her siblings coming through school behind her!

[pointythings]

The old SATs were useless as a predictor of GCSE grades. Are we really expecting the new ones to be any better? FWIW both my DDs did better than their SATs scores would suggest by a considerable margin so it goes both ways - because you can't predict ho a child will change and mature between 11 and 16, you can't predict what life events will affect them and how. It's all a gigantic gamble and all this stuff with predictions and flight paths needs to be binned.

My DDs' teachers made it clear at parent evenings where they thought my DDs might end up, as opposed to their flight paths, and those calls were far, far more accurate.