Is 74% a good result for a yr 8 mths exam ?

[ronnieandmrman]

Or is it quite poor? I detest maths so I would have been proud of myself but just wanted other opinions

( I'm very proud of my son either way I'm just seeking options)

Setting encourages him to work harder and compete. If he was "at risk" he'd up his game.

Well, yes, but that's so that children are learning in the correct set and not being over or under challenged? So, if your child is in the top set but consistently doing less well than peers, it is to your child's advantage to drop a set so that they are learning with their actual peers, not their aspirational peers.

But no university in the history of the world ever asked, 'what set were you in for maths'

I was in the top set for science because in my timetabled science slot, it as top set or bottom set with all the middle set classes happening at different times. But I can tell you, being the very bottom of the class for every single science test, every single lesson was exhausting and sometimes they definitely moved too fast for me and I missed things.

Still doesn't matter....

Top set, middle or bottom... Someone has to be in them.

If your child is expected at Grade 5 and is working at Grade 6, the. They're doing well, but still might be in the bottom set.

You could have 100 bright kids all predicted 9s, and ⅓ of them will still be in bottom set if they're working at Grade 8 and ⅔ working at Grade 9...

If your child is doing well for themselves, that's all that matters.

All the grade boundaries are about, is making sure the grades are fairly distributed. Not everyone should be able to attain A grade. Otherwise something is wrong with the test.

If the maths test was particularly easy and
everyone got between 90% and 100% in 2022 - they'd have to distribute the grades in a bell curve, and perhaps only award A grades to those who got 99%+.

However if in 2023, everyone got between 50% and 85% then an A grade would be awarded perhaps for those that got 80+%.

So an A grade boundary changes year in year. You're still the "best" at maths if you got A in 2022 or A in 2023.

I'm sure it does encourage him. Even though it shouldn't. He should only be in competition with himself and his own ability, not everyone else.

But at the end of the day, if everyone else is doing better than him and he's getting 90% in tests, but everyone else is getting 95%, he'll still be in the bottom 10% and be in the lowest set.

Okay, so the way they're defining A grades is different to my day, fine. Still a bit weird though - I went to a very academic school and we consistently had more A grades than other schools. I guess when averaged over the entire school district, that makes sense, but all those As were still getting As in class too. But that's a separate issue.

In this case, 74 is still 74 in my world. It might well be that this was an easier test and next test will be harder and so the percentage will drop. But for this test, OPs DS got 74% of the answers right.

What @Onionsmadeofglass says re test setting makes sense.

Well, yes, your school might have got lots of As, but they were doing it the same way in your public exams. They have been moderated for decades, this isn't new.

74% is 74% yes.

But whether that's a "good" result is subjective.

If a 12 year old get 74% in a test of number bonds to 10. That's a poor result. We would hope that every 12 year old knows how to add two numbers to get to 10.

However , if a 12 year old gets 74% on an A-level further maths paper, that's an excellent result.

Context is everything. Which is why the OPs question of "is 74% good?" Is just as answerable as "is blue a good colour?"

If you were assuming that everyone was working as hard as they could then I would agree with you.
However, some people do compete with others, and might study a bit harder if it was important to them not to drop a set.
I always had rivalries at school - Mary did better than me last time, I'm going to do better next time. We both worked harder and benefitted.
Working alone in isolation "doing your best" is not easy for all 12 year olds.