NC levels in year 7- I am turning into one of ^those^ parents.......!!!

I hate NC levels as a teacher. Hate them and like someone said upthread they're not supposed to be applied to a single piece of work. The thing I really detest is the phrase "X is a level 4" as if the child is just a number! It's awful.

I never mention levels to my class at all. I put them on progress reports because I have to but they're largely meaningless to me. Instead I base my assessment of achievement on knowing students well (I see them three times a weeks so plenty of time to suss them out) and provide feedback through proper written comments on pieces of work. However, this takes longer and it does mean sometimes a class might go a few weeks when it looks as though they've had nothing marked (but I was marking extended writing pieces which take ages, or gave verbal feedback in lessons).

One of my Year 7, when asked in their first lesson what they felt they were good at in English at primary, told me they were good at "uplevelling sentences". Ye gods. I wanted to cry.

Dd's targets were 6A for all her subjects (including pe and dance??) and she left primary on 5A (no level 6 paper). Very good at maths so she got 7A in assessments. Got 7's for some others too. She surpassed her targets very early on so when she got her school report it said that she wasn't making progress as she hadn't gained enough levels?? Total rubbish. Year 8 was the same. She was getting level 7A and 8's for subjects (not pe and dance) and her report still looked like she wasn't doing well because of the progress. She couldn't get any higher. Form teacher said to ignore it but dd takes everything to heart and thought she was useless. She's not. And this year - year 9 - the marks are GCSE grades as they are doing GCSE work. SEEKER, don't panic like i did. I was worried to death about these stupid levels and was getting dd's books out and checking all the marks like a weirdo. I don't even bother now unless dd shows or tells me. I know she is doing well. Thats all you can wish for. Good luck and best wishes to all your children. Hope they all do well.

Choccy, FFT targets and teacher expectations are not the same thing at all. Yes, certain groups on average achieve lower grades as a group than other groups, that's just statistics. However, a teacher wouldn't hold a child back because of this - if anything, a child who can achieve a better grade than their target would suggest is bloody marvellous for the school and so they would be pushed to reach their potential and not simply their target.

Although I hadn't considered that as Gove has now removed the context from contextual value added for the league tables, whether that would mean that FFT are doing the same thing with their targets.

Removing context is great for my school, we have an intake that statistically does very well in exams. If they are now simply expected to do as well as an average intake, we are going to find that piss-easy to manage. We will look brilliant in comparison to schools that do excellent work with a much more disadvantaged intake who can't keep up with the wealthy and tutored lot.

TFM - we use FFT and are nagged about levels of progress. It's never ending...

Agree that sub-levels are ridiculous. I teach a subject which doesn't appear in the national curriculum, so the levels are made up anyway, let alone the sub-levels.

choccy my DCs are mixed race. It made absolutely no difference to their levels at all, why would it?

@maureen I so don't give a tinker's cuss (and being the child of a 'tinker' I know how to do that (or, not do that))

No,it won't affect expectations. Or it shouldn't. A target is a figure generated by an outside body.Teachers teach children. The only way the figures become maddening is when you have a lazy child with a high target. X is mean to get a B. Or an A. Yes, but X won't hand in his homework and never has a pen.

they wont expect less at ALL
but his fft will be lower.
i had a kid with a D - she got an A*

Not in my school. We don't use FFT. Levels of progress are what matter, completely decontextualised.

Maureen you mean they will expect less of DS because of his ethnicity etc?
That is so out of order, and this whole area deserves to be highlighted much more.

I get p'd off with those who take levels so seriously at times, but the reality is that people who work in schools have to take them seriously whether they like it or not.

mordio - no criticism at all

just if you could see the ahem.. thought .. that goes into them you so wouldnt give a tinkers cuss

Having just had my SEF meeting Maureen, levels are looming large in my mind...

choccy they WILL be

@maureen I'm a little about a lot of things on MN, I seem to be the laxest mother in creation when compared to some of the things people write on here yet my children are all doing very well indeed at school (despite their various SEN conditions) and I think most of the other parents and teachers I know at the 3 schools our kids attend, think if anything I'm more a bit more full on than them.

Maybe this really is just an exceptional (as in, very different, not better) part of England than anywhere else that Mumsnetters live.

noblegiraffe. Yes. In the face of the madnes of my place, it's good to see that other teachers have the same issues.

Mind you, we've not even been given our yr 7 SATsresults yet, so working fairly blind - apart from initial diagnostic pieces.

The other problem we have is that primary schools cram and cram and cram kids to pass SATs; so they do. They pass well, too. Then they come to high school where it's not English all day, sorry, 'Literacy', and their marks appear to drop.

We also have the problem where we need to give an overall level eachg half term, but English isn't like this: you can be at ahigh level in reading, but low in writing.

noblegiraffeSat 13-Oct-12 11:22:20
Target levels are usually generated by an outside company, e.g. Fischer Family Trust. They would take the KS2 data and a whole host of other factors including post code, ethnicity and free school meal status to generate a target for the end of KS3. This is based on what the average student with a similar set of KS2 results and a similar profile to your child achieves at the end of KS3.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will be furious if my DS targets are one iota less than his friend's with the same SAT/CAT scores, just because DS happens to be mixed race, FSM and in a single parent family. Possibly fair enough to base an overall target for the school on these sort of averages, but not for him as an individual.

One of the biggest indicators of children's success is teachers' expectations, and I believe that these predictions provide schools with an excuse for poor outcomes and let many children down.

i am a little bit worried you lot take levels so seriously

We don't do FFT, because they are contextual and context is out. We use levels of progress. And our end of year targets assume a completely linear progression from, for example, a 4b to a C.

Yes it's a load of rubbish. My year 7s are doing a test this week. From this we will give them a level. However, we have been doing one topic with them. Next half term we will move on to another topic. Would we expect them to "progress" to a higher level, if demonstrate that they can produce work of am equivalent standard in the next topic?

For ourselves, we divide our assessments into skills (data handling, explaining, planning etc) and knowledge. We plot progress in both. But parents want one number. It's a shame, because it is imposing a very limited 2 dimensional scale in what is a considerably more complex situation.

oh sod it, I typed that wrong - 4c at the end of year 6 means a 4a would be expected at the end of year 7. 4c means they have just started working in that level, 4b means they are secure in that level and 4a means they are at the top of the level.

At 14 (so during year 9) they are expected to be at level 5 or 6. What is more accurate is looking at their level in year 6, they are expected to progress by two sub levels in a year so if they were a level 4c at the end of year 6 then you'd expect a 5b at the end of year 7 if they are the "average" child.
What really matters is that they are happy and doing their best.

I know DS is in the top set for Maths, and he got a level 7.
He got a 4B in science.

Everything else I am not really sure about, and neither is he. We dont even get a parents evening until the summer term, instead the form tutor gets reports from all the teachers and we get an appointment with him/her to discuss it.

i wouldnt ask in a level based manner though.
Id be pleased if a parent said " Oi mo, how will channelle improve in Physics then?"

i will say " she can shut up and do her homework" or something more charming

NB i am kidding

Seeker You were concerned, in your original post, about turning into 'one of those parents'. IMO going through your kids school books either with them or by yourself is well over the line into 'those parents' territory already. It's not an invasion of privacy, really, because the books aren't private, teachers look at them, etc. But it's an invasion - or, maybe, a usurping, of responsibility and autonomy. If kids ask for help and/or advice they should be given it immediately. If there is an external indicator (ie word from the school) that there is an issue then you should work with the kids to help them resolve it, again, immediately. But poking around looking for problems (or looking to be reassured) before there is even any indication of an issue? How can kids ever start to take responsibility for their own lives if at every turn they are being mollycoddled like that? Plus many kids would find that intensely irritating.

But as for your original question - my opinion as already stated is do ask about targets there's nothing wrong with that at all.

what giraffe said

iu totally concur
sub levels are made up - the whole system is subjective nonsense