To be disappointed about UK school reports

My dd repeatedly told me she was struggling and the school repeatedly told me not to worry she's one of the top in the class in top set etc etc. Refusing to help with dd emotional distress. Anyway SATS come around and she's 'working towards' so is in fact below the national average- it's just a shit school so she's one of the top students ffs. Anyway I got her a tutor and she improved then I realised she's learning nothing in school and getting anxiety from being forced to attend. I now home educate her and she's doing brilliantly.

My son has an EHCP and I never get any information on him either. I only know he's so significantly behind because I now know to supplement school learning at home

It's not right for hat it's so hard to get information out of schools about our children. They are OUR children we have parental responsibility not the school and yet they feel it's ok to gov us off.

Surely if your daughter is in Year 9 she should be able to tell you how she did on a test (which as there's no national exams in Yrs 7-9 these will just be school specific internal tests).
She must know if she's done ok or not. The teacher would say something to the class if they were all "failing" in a test (wouldn't they 🤔)
Does she find the work easy or hard? Is she struggling?
If her score was "54" and the class average was "47" then she has done better than average. So that's good. But what does "54" actually mean? That's what you need to know.
Does the school have a parents Facebook/WhatsApp? You could ask on there if people know what it actually means.

Knowing your child is bottom out of 200 is meaningless though, unless you have an idea as to what is expected especially if a child has SEN. Being bottom of the year group doesn't tell you if they've made progress, or how far away they are from the expected level. They could have made huge steps forward and still be bottom of the year, or they might have made only a little progress, or none at all. Impossible to tell from a position relative to others.

If she has an EHCP, there should be a review each year, to which you are invited. It depends what the EHCP has as the SEN need too.

Some children with an EHCP have a global learning delay, some have emotional and behavioural issues, some qualify because of ADHD or ASD, so it will depend on how your child is affected and what progress she is expected to make.

Assuming she’s in a mainstream school, she’ll be selecting options for GCSE, probably in the spring term, unless the school has a three year GCSE course. Some exams are foundation or higher tier, depending on the ability of the child.

I’d ask for a meeting to find out in more detail what your expectations of forthcoming exams should be and whether they’re realistic. Ask advice about tutoring too.

If DD has an EHCP, the provision she requires should be in there. If it isn’t, you should request an early review. On their website, IPSEA has a model letter you can use. Once the support is detailed, specified and quantified in the EHCP it must be provided.

The AR process should be more than just a tick box exercise. The advice and information to feed into the review process should be circulated at least 2 weeks before the review meeting. Then you have the meeting. Then there is a report circulated within 2 weeks of the meeting.

EHCPs contain outcomes, not targets.

They're completely pointless other than mock exam results.

Yet it's a method still used in a majority of countries in the world and has been for decades if not centuries. Not ridiculous at all.

You get you child's score for a subject, the class high and the class low. It's very useful particularly for parents not familiar with the curriculum for example those who come from abroad.

So yes, schools and classes are different but people know that. You know that top of the class from x school is going to be class average from y school. But it's still a helpful benchmark.

And yes, it's more useful for the high performers who deserve a good education too. It helps to know that they're maybe getting good results but that those could be better, v they're top of the class in every subject and maybe there's merit to what they say when they complain of boredom.

Our secondary does give grades 1-9.

My DDs reports give their current level, and what that would translate to on their current trajectory at the end of Yr11.
I have no interest in how their friends are doing. Obviously I hope they are doing well, but thats of no relevance to how shes doing. I need to know shes doing well in Maths,but struggling in English, so I can get her extra help if she needs it.

We also get effort grades. They tell me shes trying her best.

Incidentally, her KS2 Sats showed she was "below expectations" in some areas. But I knew this already... and was amazed how much progress she made.

Why do you hate it? Unless your kid is one of the bottom ones. I had class placements at peep school for every subject. Was most perturbed not being told where my own kids were in relation to the others.

There is no point knowing your child's progress vs others, but there is a point in understanding her progress.
My daughter took a similar (same level different questions) maths test every term to evaluate her progress. Her scores were 36%, 45% and 92%, so we could see clear progress through the year, and that the extra support the school gave her after test 2 was really worthwhile. Does your school do anything similar?

Why hideous? Do you also think GCSEs A levels etc are hideous?

I don't know what a score of 1 to 10 would mean, how is that scale being determined and how does it relate to expected performance? Also agree with PP that position within the class is fairly meaningless.

Do you get reports with data, or just a comment? You should be getting at least a "below expected level, at expected level, higher than expected level" for each subject. The secondary school my child attends also has specific codes for the "below" level that indicates why and what they can do to improve. The explanation of that comes with the report.

If you really aren't getting that info from the school then I would ask for an after school meeting with the head of year and ask for an explanation as to what their report shows and how it's meant to inform you of progress.

Completely agree. I am only interested in my DD’s progress against her capabilities.

They didn’t set in years 7 or 8 so the differentiation in her class was quite extreme and she came out many levels above the expected target for those years. Which meant they thought she was doing fine but she was bored and unengaged and her ND needs got ignored making her very resistant to talk about anything school related.

Hopefully year 9, with sets will support her better. 🤞

My dc had written reports 3 x a year at secondary or you could just check their results online for individual tests

I would expect that this year you will start to get more of a steer on progress and targets as your DD will need to select her GCSE options.

FWIW, my DCs' school includes end-of-year test results and class averages in its reports, so this obviously varies school to school

Completely unreasonable to ask for results in relation to other class members, their results are confidential and no other parents cannot access them. One of the most ridiculous requests I've read. Let teachers teach, they will contact you if there is a problem.

A report stating how your child is progressing relative to their cohort is of limited usefulness. It's more useful, particularly where SEN is involved, to compare them to their own starting point.

For example, it would be unhelpful to tell me that DS2 is still performing in the bottom of the bottom centile for his age group as in teh comment about Wales. It's also unhelpful to compare him to the other 5 kids in his class who are all in vastly different places academically and socially.

I’ve always got an average score for the cohort in each subject and a mark for my child. This is a report 3x a year. State secondary. Sometimes the average is given per set even.

Have you tried though? Not every school would ignore you asking to talk to the teacher in more depth. Yes, the 5 minute conversations (which we have twice a year) are usually enough for a child that has no problems. At our school parents with children with SEN are offered an additional appointment with the SEN teacher, and also the opportunity to have longer appointments with their teacher if needed. At our school, if the teacher had concerns about a child's progress, they would contact the parents well before parents evening to discuss. So if we don't hear from them, its generally because there are no concerns.

We then get an end of year report that isn't general - it tells us for each subject where our child is in relation to what is expected for their year group. But its the end of the year, so by that time you should know if your child is falling behind or not.

I think if you feel you're not getting that information, you should at least try and ask!

They also have ks2 sats at the end of primary. 100 is expected so anything below 100 shows your child is behind. Above 110 or so is exceeding and ahead.

Hideous.

No state school will tell you were your child is in relation to others. It doesn’t reall matter because one class, in one school in one area is not representative of the rest of the country.

In Wales we get a report telling us our child’s position in relation to all children in that year based on national tests.

I HATE IT.