Y7 reports - GCSE numbers?

We have received DD's target GCSE grades this week too which are based of a combination of SATS, CATS and baseline assessments and half termly testing. The report shows whether she is on track to achieve, working towards achieving , of working ahead of targets. Our school don't predict anything above a 7 at this stage but if they think they they the potential to get higher than a 7 they put 7+ (presumably an 8) or a 7++ (presumably a 9). They don't yet predict the 'soft' subjects like Art, DT, Music and Drama

Not sure how accurate any of it really is but gives us an idea of how she has been doing. (she got exceeding in all her sats and all her predicted grades are a 7+.

I'm not thrilled at the format of reports we've been given.
there's no reference to a predicted GCSE grade (that bit is fine by me), or indeed any objective measure of attainment (that bit no so much). We've been given one of four colour codings for each subject area - progress above expectations, progress in line with expectations, progress below expectations and progress significantly below expectations. Just the colour.

So my year 7 child got" significantly below expected progress" in science (she was assessed as greater depth in SATs), but we have no information about where she is now and what she needs to be achieving next to help her to do whatever it is that the school requires.
If I don't have the information I need to support my child better, I'm not hugely sure what the point of the exercise is.

Because the government (specifically Michael Gove) scrapped national curriculum levels which were used to measure attainment at KS3 and replaced them with .... nothing. Schools were told they would still need to report on pupil progress but they’d have to make up their own systems for doing so.

Schools have neither the time nor the resources to create a reasonable system and so most have latched onto GCSE grades as something that will do.

It won’t do though, it’s crap. And Ofsted in their latest curriculum review document have said that they’ll be looking for schools who do it and it will impact their inspection.

I'm utterly baffled by this. I have been given 'results' after first term of Y7, but no reference point. So he is getting a 3 in French, mostly 5s in everything else, and a couple of 6s. But it means nothing to me. I don't understand why its not relating to Y7 work. Why is it relating to GCSE work?

DD’s school seem to set grades of 1-3 for Y7 with sub-categories of A-C with A the highest, so in PE dD got a 2A which means she is just on the top of expected. The school seems to see 2 as the norm for Y7 at this point.

In her history essay she scored a 4-5 and her language grade seems to be just letters.

I gave up.

It is difficult enough to predict how a student will do in a GCSE that they are currently sitting. To do some kind of magical prediction of how a year 7 student will do in 4 years time on a course they have not even started yet is complete nonsense.

Why can't we just report on how they are doing now? Why can't the work they do now have value- why does it all have to be about the end of year 11?

Ask the school to explain their system. Our students are given an expected grade (what we expect them to get in Y11 based on Ks2 data and on what nationally last year's Y11 got). Then for their reports, teachers give them a grade that they would expect them to achieve in Y11 if they continue working like this. Probably not the best explanation but it is pretty straightforward!

My dd has this also (y7). Luckily a friend with dc in the year above warned us of the system. So we knew that she’d be ‘failing’ even if she’d be the cleverest kid in the year. The ‘flightpath’ For dd includes sub grades, so 1+, 2- etc etc and the expectation is children will rise 3 subsets per year (one each term - have discussed with her that this is linear and not really realistic across all subjects etc). She’s already got a 4- for music - but of course how could she possibly have the depth of knowledge to achieve this?

At parent teacher evening staff were very friendly and telling us not to worry to much about the system and where she was behind ‘target’ saying that in lots of subjects they have a ceiling lower than expectation - just to confuse it more!

Its made up rubbish and OFSTED has called it as such.

Our report had a range of what the year had awarded. Most of the subjects were 1-4, a few were W (working towards) to 4, one went up to 5 and one (I think it was history) went up to 6.

I suspect all the going up to 6 means is that one of the history teachers marks generously But that might be me being cynical.

They do give a flightpath, but only looking at end of year 7, and combined with disclaimers about it being rough/average/only slightly better than sticking random pins in paper...

noble is correct. It’s a crock of shit.

All you can really comment on is how well a student is able to currently master the curriculum being taught.

My yr7 ds school has colour codes with the numbers, brown for below target, green for above, it’s pretty disheartening for him tbh, he got x3 greater depths in yr6 SATs and now he just sees brown, he’s expected to get mostly 3+ by the end of the year, in maths and science he’s already above that but others he’s only 1 & 2’s. they really ought to make it easier to read and if they insist on targets they should be for the assessment they’re being marked on so the kids know how they’re doing

My son’s year 7 report at our very good local comp was full of bizarre numbers and predictions - and no writing about him at all. Could have been anyone’s report and neither I nor my husband, who are fairly well educated, could work out what it was telling us.
I much prefer the old fashioned system, where they actually write a few pithy sentences about the child with their wonderful teacherly expertise about how (‘the laziest pupil I have seen for years’ etc etc).
But I suppose that takes a lot of time when teachers are already already spread thinly.

Yes this is correct , set 1 is the highest ability set and my child’s end of year target was a 3 + to a 4+ depending on the subjects . I think this was the highest in her class though. She said others had targets of 4s x

noble I remember giving up when even the school said to ignore WNA grades because they fluctuate with tests! The targets were pretty meaningless for the reasons you give.

there's always methods to predict grades

Oh I agree there are statistical methods of setting GCSE targets in Y7 from KS2 data, but you do realise that those computer-generated targets change every year your child goes up the school? Each time there is a fresh set of Y11 data, that gets plugged into the system and the computer churns out a new set of numbers for each pupil, that may be different to the old set of numbers. What does that do to the graph? In addition, these computer generated targets are averages and should only be applied to a cohort of children, not to an individual child. It’s nonsense what schools are doing, saying a kid is failing if they’re not meeting a target, or doing well if they’re exceeding, when that will always happen because they’re average targets for a cohort.

And how on earth do you think that a test of the sort taken every 6 weeks (so not very comprehensive at all) could possibly be plotted with any sort of accuracy on a graph which is based on GCSE grades?

It’s all made up.

My dss' school has a grade 1-9 system for KS3 and then a different grade 1-9 system for KS4. The former supposedly relates to how well staff think they are doing within the ks3 syllabus and the latter relates to their expected GCSE result, so a child could get, say, an 8 at the end of ks3, but won't be an 8 still at the start of ks4, as the syllabus and exams they are being measured against has changed. It is not therefore a good idea to assume that a 2 or 3 in one school means the same thing as a 2 or 3 in another, given that some schools clearly use one continuous numbering system from y7 all the way through to year 11 and others separate out ks3 and ks4. Either way, in all honesty, I don't set much store by the numbers, unless they are miles apart from what the school said it was expecting, in which case it must mean something!

Ds2's school uses this system. I think their average for Y7 is a 2. They put in a Y9 prediction as well. By the end of Y8, DS2 was hitting some of his Y9 predictions so I suspect those will be tweaked in the next report! Sometimes the grades are explained so a particular grade equates to what you can do in MFL, which is helpful, but the rest of the time it's not clear at all.

I disagree

I'm a teacher - though not secondary and there's always methods to predict grades and of course progress is never linear but based on assumptions and predictions - in same way year 2-6 sats are predicted

In some ways it's pretty important in terms of teacher expectations eg my DD is in year 6. She aced her year 2 sats but made little progress in year 3/4/5 (crap Ofsted report picked this up). Anyway teacher was happy to see her coast in year 6 until I reminded her of her year 2 sats. Suddenly she's had all sorts extra support - even though she's in top 30 out of 60 and above expected. She's just not progressed enough compared to year 2. This is why I think the graphs good - because teachers seems to go by it

This was shown on a 5 year graph

Buttercup, I’m afraid you’re being fed a pile of crap masquerading as science.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3306170-End-of-year-reminder-Flightpaths-are-bollocks-schools-giving-working-at-9-1-GCSE-grades-to-KS3-kids-are-bullshitting

Our school gave us 'these are the scores we would expect from a really high achieving student' list. It was all over the place as maths and English they were around a 4-5 whereas MFL they were only around a 1-2. It might be worth asking them what a high achieving child might get. If your child is top set and not struggling then you can probably assume that they are close to that high achieving theoretical child.

I guess the question is whether they would be achieving more in a different school. For maths I think that you need to discount much of the repetition, it seems fairly standard to spend the first term revising prior topics from junior school because if they have missed any bits then it can be hard to build on that shakey foundation. In history if you didn't fully understand the causes of the second world war in yr6 it won't affect your understanding of the rise of the Roman empire in yr7. In maths if you don't understand Algebra then you will not get quadratic equations.

Sorry not finished - when their test is marked, it will be returned with DD score along with detsils of the lowest,average and highest score in class

Ours are very clearly tracked. At start of year 7, They were given target gcse grade based on year 6 sats. This was shown on a 5 year graph

The end of year 7 expected target grade was based on what she'd need if she progressed linear. She was also given a challenge target. She's assessed every 6 weeks and her results are plotted on the chart for us to see.

Each test at 6 weeks they're given a grade

Dd was year 7 last year and top sets for all. Her end of yr7 targets were 4d for all subjects except new ones like German which she'd never done before - her target for that was a 1s and that was top set.

Most teachers will have seen him twice a week (MFL, history, geography) or more eg maths, english, so that's at least 20+ lessons, unless he is very quiet and under the radar they will have some idea IME. I left my old school in December but I could have told you lots about the year 7s I had only seen since Sept.