National levels at the end of year 8?

I agree too. I know at the end of year 9 my daughter and friends were aiming for level 7's in all but maths when they were hoping to get level 8. I guess cos they were then on track for A/A*. I also think English on that link is a bit unrealistic.

That makes sense, DSy9 is aiming for Bs and he's getting L6s.

As far as I understand it from my DCs' schools, broadly speaking Level 7 at the end of year 9 would mean an A at GCSE in year 11, and a C at GCSE if you took it at the end of year 9. This applies in most subjects as far as I know.

End of Yr 9 GCSE predicted
Level 4 ......... D
Level 5 ......... C
Level 6 ......... B
Level 7 ......... A or A*

I found this school's web page helpful for explaining this - I think I found it through Mumsnet.

I am not sure that I agree with how this school have calculated it for English though. I really don't think many year 9s in my DS's school get Level 8s but I do think some get As at GCSE. A friend's DS finished Year 9 with a Level 4 and was told he was thus predicted a D at GCSE, so that school seems to follow my rough guide above.

Rather different, though: there had been a ten year pilot for the GCSEs
must have been a bit more than 10 years, I did 16+ Biology exam in 1977 so started the course 1975. (It was a bit rubbish compared to the O-levels for the other subjects TBH)

Lots of schools ran (and are still running) the linked pair pilot for maths, so I don't think recruitment was a major issue there. Thing is, it looked like a decent qualification with benefits for the schools that ran it and kids that sat it.

The new GCSE, not so much.

Pilots are essential and I'm afraid that if I were a year 8 parent, I would be concerned about being the guinea pig year.

Although in 2013, I suspect some/many parents are rather less willing to believe in the "man in Whitehall knows best" air of pilots than my parents were in 1978. Certainly if my kids' school told me that they were going to teach an experimental syllabus leading to a new qualification as a pilot for the rest of the country, I'd ask some very searching questions about what's in it for my children. A new syllabus (ie, limited resources and less well prepared teachers) leading to a new exam (tricky for grade boundaries and equivalent outcomes) with a new name (tricky for consumers of the qualification like universities and employers)? Rather like most experiments, it's easy to say "pilots are necessary", but rather less easy to convince yourself that it should be you participating.

Yes, not only is there not a ten year pilot for these new GCSEs, there isn't any pilot. Which is ridiculous, they have absolutely no idea what will happen when kids are faced with these new papers. No chance for any errors to be ironed out or decisions rethought.

There was supposed to be a double GCSE introduced for maths back before Gove stuck his oar in, that pilot had been running for years. One of my Y9 classes sat a pilot for a functional maths exam that all kids were supposed to take in 2009, after the pilot the entire exam was scrapped and rethought. Single level SATs papers went the same way.

Pilots are essential and I'm afraid that if I were a year 8 parent, I would be concerned about being the guinea pig year. I'm concerned for my classes!

These seem to be levels actually achieved though rather than predictions for the end of the year, but it suppose it will give you some idea as to where certain levels might end up with work.

Hi, don't know how helpful this is but it is my only guide. These are my 19 year old daughters year 8 November levels and in brackets are the GCSEs she later achieved, although for some subjects she did not go on to take the GCSE.

Art level 4, DT Food level 3, Drama no level given (B), DT level 3, English level 6 (an A and a B), French level 3 (started in year 7), Geography level 4, History level 5 (B), I.T. level 5 (A), Maths level 6 (A a year early), Music level 6 (A), P.E. Level 4, R.E. no level given (A), Science level 6 (A & A), Spanish level 2 (started in year 8) (A*).

Her levels for practical subjects were, no doubt, not particularly high and I don't suppose PE was either, since they weren't strong points!

And yes, he will be the guinea pig year - as I was for the "new" GCSE in 1988!

Rather different, though: there had been a ten year pilot for the GCSEs. I took the "16+", which was the GCSE pilot (with coursework, a single curriculum and exam for the whole ability range, etc) in 1981, for Chemistry and History, teaching for it having started in 1979. And I certainly wasn't the first cohort. It means I was awarded both an O Level and a CSE 1, which was how they handled the spectrum of outcomes. A ten year run-up is rather different to the big bang of Gove's reforms.

Atari- I have a year 8 too- and I understand your need for benchmarks. I don't think his SATS in year 6 were inflated- he got mid level 5s. We haven't had any formal monitoring this year yet, but his targets for the end of year 7 were very undemanding for the core subjects. He finished last year on 6C for English, Maths and Science. We should get new targets and monitoring soon. Happy to share when I do. Oh, and yes it is normal to have much lower targets and attainment for new subjects- but progress should theoretically be faster.

Anecdotally in my own experience there was no dip for my own child in fact the opposite

But on a macro level across years of new year 7s there is definitely a dip in the first term and big gaps in knowledge to be made up - we still show annual progress across all strands of ability through year 7

I have to say that I work in an inner city area of mass deprivation and our intake last year was from just over 30 primaries

Excuse me if I take OFSTED and theoretical articles with a mighty pinch of salt - I have a big issue with the focus on high attainers and low to be honest - cuts out huge middle doing average /ok

both at schools => at both schools :(

Five years ago (read what John Dunford said):

Don't let first years take a dip
www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=362791

And a fun take on OFSTED this year (I like the "Berlin Wall" part):

The Anatomy of High Expectations
headguruteacher.com/2013/06/17/the-anatomy-of-high-expectations/

Again I think there's something in it, but there's also some significant secondary displacement in primary "teach-to-test" and "summer slide".

My DD is in Y6 and both at schools we went to look at (the realistic one and a top 100 "window shop") the maths HoDs admitted Y7 would be mostly be "consolidation", with one wearily muttering about the difficulties caused by different feeders having taught different curriculum areas better or worse than others etc.

You may think its a game, but year on year I've seen it happen and we plan for it because it would be short sighted not to

Why do we play this game i.e. it's all primary teach-to-test blah blah?

Some doubtless is but Y7 was being criticised for being a teensy bit inefficient and independently responsible for quite a lot of 'dip' five years ago and we even had a 'mea culpa, but does it matter?". OfSTED have pretty much said the same again in their "most able" report this year.

59.3% of students last year got English and maths above a C grade

Lljkk - pleased for your DD, its not a rule the dip in autumn of year 7 but a trend

( Quiet Whisper: DD is getting higher assessment ratings in y7 than she had in y6 SATs. Didn't spend y6 doing practice papers, either. )

I think somewhere around 6c-6a at end of y8 to be on an likely trajectory towards A at GCSE, OP. Average attained would be much lower than that (because C is close to avg mark at GCSE).

You need to know that sublevels don't officially exist and are made up in different ways which varies from subject to subject. You might think that he has made good progress or no progress or whatever, but you're relying on a system to do this which is pretty subjective. An end of year exam might give a reasonable idea of a level, anything midyear is dodgy. And with the expected two sublevels progress expected in a year but reporting three times a year, that's at least one report where it looks like no progress has been made.

Steps back on soapbox

Key stage 2 SATs are less than meaningful at secondary school, primaries teach to test in a narrow field and then summer comes and students start year 7 generally lower than their SATs scores so we re-test them and use CAT scores and basically ignore SATS (until we need to do KS2-4 progress measures of course)

It is normal for students to time a term to reach their previous SAT score but this is

There is no average really - depends on the cohort - but it's a curve of different attainment levels by subject

I also have a year 8 guinea pig - they will be fine

I have now bored myself (sorry)

National expectation is not the same as average - it's where the majority are expected to be.

I'd also comment that progress is never linear eg its not a straight line of say 2 sublevels progress each year but rather goes in fits and starts, also some secondaries assess by module so the grades in termly reports can go up and down through the year and may exceed year end targets so I wouldn't worry unduly if grades go up and down over the tems