Flight paths in secondary are nonsense and demotivating for pupils SAY OFSTED

literally hours of teachers’ time is taken up with assessment purely for the sake of putting data into these tables, inputting it

In an ideal world, teachers would do their own assessment for their own purposes and use their own professional judgement to say whether or not a student is succeeding -

I think this is the crux of the issue. Whether it is good to have a standardised way of assessing progress or not, teachers don't like it because it means extra work load.

The thing is not all teachers are the same. My D.C. has had fantastic teachers and some not so good ones. The good ones, where I could see my D.C. visibly progressing and loving learning in front of my eyes were/are not opaque concerning describing progress. They would happily will discuss trajectories, how my D.C. performs in class, enthusiastically. The worst ones were evasive and only ever critical whilst at the same time saying any suggested solution was not part of their job.

0.5 isn't P8. P8 is a level for 'pre-National Curriculum' levels (before levels were scrapped) and is used for children with Special Needs to differentiate their attainment instead of simply giving them a 'W' for working towards (old) level 1.

The levels DD2 are given are 'GCSE levels equivalents'. So a level 1 is a G, level 2 is a E/F, level 3 is a D/E, level 4 is a C/D, level 5 is a B/C, level 6 is a high B, level 7 & 8 is A and level 9 is A*.

It's not to keep SLT happy ultimately though is it? Unless you think a school being put into special measures, forced into a MAT chain is something to look forward to.

Maybe in some schools SLT are the enemy. Schools that I know this isn't the case. Heads and SLT hate it as much as the teachers but try justifying to Ofsted without having evidence, in a format that they deem acceptable, that your school is where it should be.

And yes, in an ideal world we would trust the judgement of teachers. But does anyone think that we are best serving pupils by having no checks or balances between yr 6 and yr 11?

And that’s the sensible thing to do, Sound, but the thing is literally hours of teachers’ time is taken up with assessment purely for the sake of putting data into these tables, inputting it (never found a system yet that wasn’t stupidly time-consuming and fiddly), analysing it at meetings and being berated for it not being what’s expected.

In an ideal world, teachers would do their own assessment for their own purposes and use their own professional judgement to say whether or not a student is succeeding - which is what actually happens, by the way, except they also have to spend hours and hours on this utter nonsense as well to keep SLT happy.

DS1's school has these, but when I attend parent teacher consultation nights, the teachers generally distance themselves from them, warn me that the results are derived from a formula rather than their own opinions of his capabilities and progress, and then get down to how he is really doing. I therefore pay little attention to the predictions, keep an eye on the attitude to learning figure and wait for a chance to talk to the actual teachers, who have generally been spot on.

Dd had a target of 6s based on sats. Her teachers seem amazed that she's exceeding her targets hugely. Surelycommon sense tells you that what a child gets in an exam at 10 isn't what defines them for life.

Surely a school can do all the monitoring of progress required and not communicate it to the DC unless it’s necessary?

Yet until recently (it might have changed now) Ofsted expected secondary students to be able to describe their current "working at" level plus their expected target grade.

This is the issue in my view - Ofsted historically demanding certain things from schools despite teachers voicing concerns. Schools had to do what Ofsted demanded or face loss of control by removing the head, replacing governors, forcing academisation, down grading schools which potentially leads to a decline in pupil numbers, yet then changing the goal posts constantly. So what they wanted last year, and measures of a good school last year, are suddenly thrown out and entirely new criteria brought in without warning.

Schools that had been concentrating on improving against Ofsteds previous criteria suddenly find the goal posts have shifted and again are caught on the back foot because they don't have evidence to prove their latest idea.

So my DD2 has a "target level" of 0.5 - 2 for all her subjects this year. Using the information we've had, they are expecting her to get GCSEs of level 4-6. Other pupils, who are expected to get 9s in their GCSEs will have much higher target levels.-*

It seems they’re using 0.5 as a sort of pre-1, not a P8 score. Anyway using P8 as a way to report to parents would also be ludicrous and not at all what it’s meant for.

My child is at a school that doesn't do flightlpahs and i can see exactky where hes not putting in the effort from what he says, what he does at home, what his report cards say and what his teachers say at parents evening. They know he needs to step it up, I know he needs to step it up and, in year 9, nothing is off the table for gcses because no-one is telling him yet that he will only gets 4s and 5s. If they were, I think he would. Now, he might get 6s and 7s because he doesnt yet feel.like its a lost cause. I think a fllightpath would do that to him.

I hate the flight paths. My DC predicted gcse grades (A ridiculous thing to give them in year 7) were based upon the SATs. So dd has a target of 6 for all subjects based on English and maths tests she did at age 11. In fact she is much more able and tends to do better but often she'll compare her grades to those targets. I tell her to ignore them but I'm not sure she does all the time.

The example above of a student getting a “0.5” is just proof of how ludicrous it is. That is an utterly, utterly meaningless grade created purely to fit into a spreadsheet.

I'm reading the 0.5 as a P8 score. That is how they are expressed. Anything above 0 is positive in that expected, or greater than expected progress has been made. A - score means less than expected progress. We have schools around here making -0.1 and such like or +1.2 for example.

Surely a school can do all the monitoring of progress required and not communicate it to the DC unless it’s necessary? I never had predictions for my DC. They didn’t have predictions. They were told what they needed to do to improve and encouraged. No doubt the school did have targets but they were not a burden on my DC. My DCs just did their best!

The example above of a student getting a “0.5” is just proof of how ludicrous it is. That is an utterly, utterly meaningless grade created purely to fit into a spreadsheet.

I've never heard the term 'flight paths' so they can't be popular around here. But I tutor GCSE pupils and have so many land on me in a panic at this time of year - a few weeks before GCSEs because they had a 'predicted grade' and now suddenly they are 'not meeting their target' which is the school's way of saying, we let you think you could get a 6 for 18 months but you've failed us. Now we know you'll get a 4. It's not our fault.'

I agree with noble on most things, but I like flightpaths if sensibly used.

Without some indication of where my child is headed (=7) how the hell would I know:

• what to guide them towards for GCSEs options
• whether I need (if I want) to pay for extra tuition in any subject
• whether progress has massively dropped off
• what I should be discussing for post GCSE options

I totally agree that trying to say someone is heading towards a 6.3 is ridiculous, but parents need some guidance as to where their child is heading. I refuse to believe that reasonably experienced teachers (and there should be some in every department to guide less experienced ones) do not have an idea as to who is likely to do well and who is struggling.

The trouble with flight paths is that they are essentially the death to ambition. I've seen a case recently where an able child with SEN tested badly on admission to secondary school for reasons which were all to do with late recognition of his SEN, totally inadequate support in primary school, and the stresses of moving to the new school. His graph therefore showed a low trajectory which he could achieve in his sleep. The secondary school though he must be absolutely fine because he was achieving in line with his graph and put in no support, whilst he became ever more bored and frustrated. He was taken out and put in a school that didn't operate this system and was interested in supporting him fully, and suddenly everyone realised just how able he was, and how short-changed he had been. The results he obtained showed exactly how stupid the flight path had been.

children's past shouldn't dictate their future.

No they shouldn't. But all secondary schools are graded on progress 8 scores. That is progress relative to the scores achieved in ks2 SATS. Unless Ofsted and the government plan to now do away with this style of monitoring then schools will measure current student progress against their prior achievement.

Consistently failing to show better than expected progress is a sure fire way to end up in special measures, an IEB installed and a school's leadership team being removed.

Are they planning to reform entirely the format of Ofsted inspections in light of this?

children's past shouldn't dictate their future.

Of course. But without knowing the direction they are going in how would they know whether they needed to make a serious effort to improve?

Ive always wondered about this. Everyone I know, myself included, either did much better than expected/predicted at GCSE, with a few much worse due to individual circumstances. So what is the point of them? I dont thibk they take into account the last minute cramming that (most) people do for exams.

I agree re. Flight paths. At our school they use a formula involving SATs results, number of previous schools attended, deprivation index, etc., to predict a level for GCSEs - all GCSEs, which they don't reveal to parents. Then they step that level back through the span of time at the school, so they derive a 'target level' for each year, which is revealed to parents.

So my DD2 has a "target level" of 0.5 - 2 for all her subjects this year. Using the information we've had, they are expecting her to get GCSEs of level 4-6. Other pupils, who are expected to get 9s in their GCSEs will have much higher target levels.

But it's a nonsense. In her first term, DD2 is getting level 2 or beyond in some subjects, which means she'll well overshoot her targets. In other subjects, she's on 0.5 which means she'll meet target, at least, but I know she's struggling with them.

Learning isn't linear. Children's past shouldn't dictate their future. If a teacher sees she's meeting target in term one, are they going to stop bothering with her? I hope not.

The flight paths are nonsensical and just create pressure and stress for pupils and teachers alike.

My child has found them quite motivating.

How can schools monitor where students are at, in relation to where they need to be by the end of yr 11? Students shouldn't be made to slavishly follow the flight path but surely it gives a general idea of amount of progress needed each year in order to achieve a +p8 score?

I'm not sure that they are very useful but I think they are helpful to track progress in a visual way to explain to parents and students where the student roughly sits now in relation to where they want to end up.

I'd also quite like to see how Ofsted want schools to evidence progress and the making of better than satisfactory progress if they don't use these. After all, the actual flight path is just a visual plotting of the data that has been collected. If Ofsted still want the data collected the only thing that they are doing away with is the final step of plotting the graph. How does that benefit anyone?

 Who says they can't? 'Amelia seems to be struggling with fractions'. If the teacher had previously said 'Amelia is around a 3c' you're telling that would have got your support more than the first one?

Standards are needed to put that statement into context. One teachers struggling is another's doing ok. It is meaningless especially regarding the non linear nature of progress.

Why bother having grades? Because they’re where your child is at, now.

How can we understand new grading systems which report where a child is at, now before completion of a course without any context to place them against?

if teachers cannot report back to parents how a child is doing how on earth can they expect parental support?

Who says they can't? 'Amelia seems to be struggling with fractions'. If the teacher had previously said 'Amelia is around a 3c' you're telling that would have got your support more than the first one?