Can I ask your opinions on my daughters mock results please

[Birdbox181]

She's in year 11. Wants to do a levels. As a side note, her Geography mock results were poor as the teacher hadn't covered the topics in the exam yet. Her minimum grades as all 7. This is based on year 6 Sats which her primary school did a great job of prepping them for, she hasn't achieved straight 7s since.

Just after some general opinions/thoughts please.

Op I'd get tutors for English and maths

I agree with the above, my DS's results looked a bit like that, a bit higher with core subjects but a 3 in Spanish. He didn't revise one bit, t h he barely revised for the real thing but he's now predicted 2A* 1 A in his 'A' levels and has 2 offers for RG universities. He is a big reader though and is passionate about his subjects at A level, he goes beyond what is required so that helps.

She's doing higher tier. They don't want her to do foundation, particularly maths but I'll bring this up at parents evening next week.

Hey OP,

Hopefully parents evening will help, and they will be able to reassure you with a plan in place.

We have had similar recently, mocks were in November… they did not go as planned!

DC is hoping for 7-9s in his subjects apart from German where he’s aiming for a 6 on a good day. He needs 7 for one A level and ideally 8+ for the other two (they’ll take them on a 7, but advise they’d do best if they get an 8+/ only just miss an 8 and get a 7. If they are just scraping a 7, they’ll likely struggle).

Some of his exams he got 7s in… others were a disaster, eg 5 and 4 in geography and drama. Both teachers said not to worry, they felt it was exam technique/knowing how to tackle the question which they will be focussing on, and are also arranging extra sessions.

They won't be generated from SATs for this year and next because there weren't any due to Covid.

The MEGs will have been generated from in school assessment- most likely CATs - and then they've got a MEG from somebody like FFT where they've chosen the aspirational targets of the FFT 5% (what the top 5% of schools have kids with those CAT averages attain).

It's nonsense really. It's based on her SATS results from year 6. It's the minimum grade she should get based on those results. She did very well in her SATS but her primary school did a lot of prep for them and it was obvious from year 7 onwards that she's not a straight A student.

Ah yes, you're right! I'd forgotten that the SATS didn't happen in the end. She did do SATS at one point in primary school though and I remember there being a lot of prep for them, even after school and breakfast clubs.

I presume she dropped off the bottom of the higher paper in Spanish.

Looks fine ish to me. Not at panicking levels anyway.

In my school students make an average of a grade's progress between mocks and the real thing. Especially if a student has not revised for mocks, there will be a lot of revision in class and past papers etc which makes a difference in the real thing.

If she is doing the maths higher paper then the 4 is a very narrow band and she nearly dropped off into a U (you can't get 3 2 1 on higher). I'd maybe look at that as you don't want her getting a U. That could lead to sixth form refusing entry.

What subjects is she looking at for a levels? Presumably not Spanish or maths, but business and English look ok.

I love how the teaching of good study habits and focused intervention is seen as revision and exam technique at secondary/GCSE yet "over-prepping" at primary/SATs. 🙄Given the outcomes of research into the area, it's quite possible that a change in performance has come from the children not being a priority from Y7 to Y9.

Besides, this cohort doesn't have any SATs data because they didn't sit them so their Y6 data hasn't influenced the GCSE expectations at all.

I think it's widely known that some schools spend a lot of Year 6 going over and over SATS questions to the detriment of all else. I took OP's comment to mean that her daughter's school was one such, in which case, without that level of support in Year 7 onwards, she might well have failed to sustain those levels.

OP mentioned her daughter taking SATS. It didn't occur to me to check that she was right :)

Ignore the SATs predictions, waste of time. The High School I taught in did their own testing in year 7 and based predictions on those. A lot of feeder schools hothouse year six, and teach to the sats.

I wouldn’t be too concerned about these results. Their mock mocks. Teachers will use these to identify gaps and which areas students dipped in, to focus teaching for the final mocks.

Wouldn’t think about private tutoring yet, see what the next mocks throw up.

Our school does core subjects after school compulsory revision from Easter onwards, does DDs do similar?

Drop Spanish is another idea.