When Are Predicted Grades Given - GCSE

We used to have tick boxes in handwritten report days. Took me years to realise some people were deliberately ticking to the left or right of the box! Meant nothing when I ticked ! Just sloppy presentation!

But that’s fine, Teen because the tick is based on actual attainment within the year group so relates to something meaningful rather than a made up grade. If the tick slid to the left of the middle box then in my school with a year group of 240, that would be a significant enough drop in attainment to be worthy of note. And surely we want to communicate significant drops in attainment? I said they shouldn’t be measureable with a ruler so not that accurate.

Some schools provide rank order within the year which is similar but probably a bit too fine tuned.

I understand the whole issue of ‘below expected’ not being fine tuned enough, but to the left of the bottom quartile would be pretty clear that there were serious issues. Parents evenings could be used to convey more detail.

I'm not sure how much that would really help noble (I'm the usual Teen poster, with name change due to eldest's birthday). Surely you'll still get parents saying 'but last year the tick was in the middle of the box, this year it is a bit to the left side, why is she not making progress?'

As a parent of a lower achiever, I was sad when primary levels went, because being told you are 'below expected' doesn't give an idea whether that is 3 months or 3 years below.

There clearly is no easy answer because:

• teachers have different levels of experience
• children aren't predictable
• parents want different info / involvement
• some idiotic parents seem to assume a prediction is a virtual promise
• GCSE results are graded on a curve (or whatever it's called)

I shall quietly go on being happy with the GCSE grade range given my my DD's school whilst simultaneously knowing I don't expect it to be accurate. (is this an example of cognitive dissonance? )

How would you be reporting progress to parents?

The mistake is thinking that progress can be quantified.

My kids’ primary school do something interesting (IMO!) on their end of year reports, they have three boxes for each subject, one for below expectations, one for meets expectations and one for above expectations and they put a tick in the appropriate box BUT the tick can be anywhere in the box. A kid who is amazing at maths could have the tick to the far right of the above expectations box, a kid who is struggling a bit in reading could have a tick to the left of the meets expectations box. Or it could be a bit to the left of centre.

It’s the not nailing it to a number that I like. The teacher isn’t pondering the difference between 8- and 7+.

I don’t know. I’d like box and whisker diagrams of the end of year test results across the whole year group but that might be hard to explain to parents. Maybe that data could be transferred to the ‘below expected’ for the lower quartile, the middle 50% would be ‘expected’ and the upper quartile ‘above expected’. (This would be for KS3 where every pupil takes it so that data distribution would be roughly normal). A tick in the middle of the ‘expected’ box would be around the median for the year group and the tick could be shifted as appropriate (NOT measured with a ruler though!).

No you’re not getting any sort of national comparison, but then neither are you with schools making up ‘working at’ GCSE grades because they’re bobbins.

That's not possible noble but we moderate samples regularly.
I'm not saying it's a perfect system, it's not, but in the absence of a system that is perfect or close to it departments have to do what they can.

Out of interest, what would be your solution that's workable in schools at the moment in the current climate? I've read some really interesting work from schools that don't do any written marking, but they haven't said how they keep parents in the loop. How would you be reporting progress to parents? Genuine questions because I see the problems in what we currently do, but I've asked around and every school i've spoken to has similar challenges.

Much as I'd love to be able to say that everyone would make accurate judgements, we know that's not the case.

So do you moderate every bit of marking that’s graded?

I never do intervention either, although I spent a bit of time with 3 students going through something after school they didn’t get. But that’s it.

That would stress me out piggy.

For all our assesment system at ks4 isn't perfect, it's a level of flawed with reasonable intentions and an openness to the flaws that I'm happy to accept given the other freedom we have not to do tike consuming box ticking intervention, reasonable timings on text coverage etc.

Purposeful, reasonable support is the aim of the game.

We need a better term than prediction.

DS's school uses 'aspirational grade' and it's explained that's ducks in a row & has a good day.

I didn’t do any after school revision or intervention with my top set this year, they didn’t need it.

However next year I’m going to have a group of 3/4 borderline kids and while I might say ‘they should have been taught better (or more likely worked harder) further down the school’ that’s not going to get them over the line so I’ll be throwing everything at them that I can.

That's what I'd like. We are made to finish in February! which I ignore

While the English teachers are here! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3679262-English-isn-t-a-Real-Subject

Oh but I hate the word intervention. Massive contributor to teacher workload, almost impossible to prove its efficacy.
Just teach and teach well!
Time and a place for appropriate support to me. E.g. using departmental float time to support GCSE students is probably useful, but expecting staff to do hours of revision and catch-up is silly. // Giving someone with weak literacy some additional input from someone trained in literacy support is probably helpful, but creating a sink group who've dropped MFL in march of y11 is a waste of time.

Teach and teach well is spot on though. What I don't get is people who rush the course and material and then spend ages revising and recapping. I moved to slowing down with less revision time a few years ago and it was such a good move.

Colleague A is a plonker. I find when thinking about things it helps to think about unintended consequences. Much as I'd love to be able to say that everyone would make accurate judgements, we know that's not the case.

I like the range idea, but would want that coupled with moderation of classwork and quality assurance (much to people like A's dislike). I'd hate for someone weak in English have someone like A say they're on track to get 4/5 when the reality is they're unlikely to get it, but also wouldn't want a situation where staff are judged by comparing predictions to real outcomes because we all know there's a farce in some places with marking. Equally I worked with a colleague who used to brag about getting lots of A/A* but would put the class under awful pressure and always under mark them so they'd panic and revise his subject more. It seemed quite cruel to me

For me, there is a place for assessed and moderated classwork as it gives some form of coherent language between staff.

Oh but I hate the word intervention. Massive contributor to teacher workload, almost impossible to prove its efficacy. Just teach and teach well!

I did zero intervention with my GCSE class and the results from the particular subject were the third best in the school...

Also, my predictions were spot in, and this is the subject where data guy doesn't interfere!

I think we can agree that Colleague A is a plonker!

The intervention thresholds and the sixth form application process is certainly difficult I agree.

I think predicting within a narrow band is probably the fairest way.

cauliflowersqueeze
I probably wasn't clear, sorry. I think there is an overlap in my opinion between teaching and reporting progress.

E.g. Using GCSE materials to mark and grade for indicative progress isnt perfect (and many of us on this thread know the issues with it), but whilst it's not perfect, it's probably a better way to judging where a student is at currently than asking staff to pluck a figure out the air based on what they think a child might get.

Hypothetical example, I might draw my prediction from information I know about bell curves, allocation of grades, question level breakdowns, where I think individuals will lose marks, what I know my students are doing Vs what I've seen other schools awarding similar marks to in teaching forums, discussion with colleagues in different regions where we've compared the contradictory advice from examiners leading training (whole other issue there) and think "Child X is most likely going to be in the top __% of a national cohort so overall a grade Y would be realistic".
Meanwhile colleague A (who has form for downplaying demands of exams, pretending that KS2 hasn't actually taught skills that have been taught, who talks about progress in terms of self esteem e.g. I can't give a 3 because that'll dent their confidence/ it's not fair to say Danny isn't making enough progress because he was on holiday for a fortnight so couldn't make progress and it would be mean to penalise him, he couldn't help it etc) is much more likely to make their predictions based on what they think will make them look better as a teacher and what they think will make students feel good.

So under a teacher best fit prediction home to parents, my student could get told they're working at a 6 but likely to get a 7 in a year and they'll probably get the 7 because we've focused on progress and making as accurate a judgement as possible in a flawed system, whilst another student in colleague A's class could be told they're on a 4 currently but will get a 5 (when the reality is that they're currently on a mid 3, have regular attendance issues, aren't catching up on work so they're missing large sections of the content). The child who thinks they only need a 4 to get to college now thinks they're ok in our subject and will get to college and so directs their time and revision to maths more because they're on a 3 in maths. The school see that the child is on a 4 and on track to get a 5 so that child doesn't meet the threshold for some of the catch-up intervention. That child's parent have a limited amount of money to support a private tutor where they are really struggling, but English isn't a problem according to the report so they'll get a tutor for maths and science.

Colleague A's inaccurate judgement and focus on trying to boost esteem / avoid their predictions looking low probably limits that child's chances of getting the 5, puts the 4 in danger and the child falls through the net because the school has allowed personal opinion to triumph over some attempt to get a reasonable picture.

Ah but Lola you’re mixing monitoring of teaching with reporting on student progress.

I don't disagree with you on that front noble, but you and I both know that how some of us would like things to be ideally is a different world to the reality of working in many schools.

I do think there has to be a way of tracking or commenting on pupil progress though KS3/4. Life after levels has been a mess in many respects, issues with GCSEs mean we can approximate but that's it. I don't think it's unreasonable for parents to want to know if their child is doing ok.

Even under the current format, I have picked students up where teacher A has much lower standards than me (the sort of person who still argues there was nothing useful in the wasted years report and won't accept what is taught in y5/6). If left to them to tick a box saying all is good then they'd tick whatever they needed to for an easy life, whilst spending most of y11 priming the department with excuses about why they can't be expected to get various grades.

I haven't got a solution though.

Stuff that is done purely to feed the spreadsheet and because parents expect it, especially stuff that is of dubious validity should go in the bin. The DfE did seem to be suggesting that this should happen with their workload reduction suggestions.

My school definitely predicts 9s. I only predicted them for my slam-dunks though. Way more than that actually got a 9 - not sure if I’ll be pulled up for underpredicting even though I was told to err on the side of caution

noblegiraffe
We split down the questions so for example, we might do some work on non fiction and then do a couple of short questions from a past paper in class and then grade it. Or we might work on writing skills and then do a section B and that piece of work would get a grade. Neither are full mock papers but it gives us an idea where students are working at. These set pieces are collected internally and we use them as benchmarks for intervention etc. It's an alternative to what some schools do which is endless mock exams. We have y10 exams, y11 mocks and then the final exam and we don't do a full GCSE in any of the exams/mocks due to workload. Some schools I know get y10/11 to do multiple full mocks, which for English is 7 hours of exams per mock session.

I think as long as everyone is clear that this is indicative and are aware it's a system with flaws then sometimes you do what you have to do. I tend to find that being honest to students means they understand. I tell them openly how the boundaries are worked out after each exam, the bell curve, norm referencing and they are fine with it.

Piggy is right with the obsession with grades. I'd happily put no grades on any piece of work other than formal mock exams and would probably be happy to have the mocks feedback only with grades in my planner, but alas that's not the world we live in.I can't stand hearing on threads when people say their DC has been told they have a 9 (or worse they've been at a 9 for 2 years and came out with a 7). Every school I know only goes up to 8 in their internal data.

We also shouldn't be extrapolating grades out of one class assessed piece out of as little as 30 (even sometimes fewer!) marks, but we have become obsessed with assigning a grade to everything. Many exam boards don't even grade separate exam papers.

I'd agree with that noble. there's also lots of people on the GCSE thread saying their DCs were predicted 8s or 9s, say, in school for English and 'got 9s' in mocks as if these are concrete bits of evidence. I have tried gently to point out that the teacher may not have been marking 'accurately'. It really is a problem in English. But for teachers to tell parents this, runs the risk of making us look a bit shit.

If we do a June 2018 paper then there are grade boundaries for that paper.

Grades from past paper mocks sat in exam conditions is reasonable. But you were talking about pieces of classwork. Given the utter mess that is English GCSE marking, if trained examiners can’t even mark properly, how on earth can this be expected of teachers on classwork?