to think that seocndary school grading is almost entirely uncomprehensible

[Elsiegrote]

I have a masters degree and professional qualification which requires a high level of analytical skills and numeracy but when I look at my DS end of year 8 report my eyes glaze over and quite frankly I have no idea how he is doing.

I looked at secondary school talk boards and got even more confused. What is level 7/8/ 9 or 10. Is a better than b .......

Do other parents who are not teachers feel the same?

By the way - I can spell too but obvs not seocandary as that is mainly a level 6 b recurring word

No, not really. It's no different to primary school grades. You leave primary with a level, let's say it a 4b which is the national average and are expected to move up two sub levels per year. So by the end of year seven you'd get a 5c and year eight a 5a.

I always felt the same reading my dd's reports. Or MOPs, as they were called. So I paid more attention to the difference (if there was one) between her current level and her target, and to the teacher's comments. Until they called her by an entirely different name and I had to admit defeat and phone them.

C&P and universal software has a lot to answer for...

I don't understand any of the school gradings in English schools. No idea what level is supposed to be reached and when. Have asked several times but never received a satisfactory answer.

I had the same issue, never had the faintest idea what the levels meant. I'm now working in education and getting my head around them, just as they are being removed and schools can each use their own system.

7/8/9? Ours are all a/b/c with 1/2/3 eg A1, B3. Never sure if B3 is better than B1 & the explanatory notes that come with the report are anything but.

My daughter has just finished year 8 with levels being mostly 6a/7c/7b. I don't understand what the 8/9/10 levels are that you are getting. However, our school is clearly still reporting in SATs levels, which have been scrapped.

Well these levels have now been scrapped but did you not notice them in year 7, or as has been pointed out all the way through primary school. your ridiculously clever but you've only just noticed how schools report NC levels that will have been reported the same way since year one of primary school.

Also have you missed the numerous threads on here about NC levels?!

The OP never said she was ridiculously clever. Personally, I wouldn't say a batchelors and a masters is "ridiculously clever" either. I think she was just pointing out that she was an educated person yet still found the system confusing - which it is. Also, she mentions 7/8/9/10, which isn't the normal SATs grading system.

What I find baffling is that the levels for the core subjects follow on from primary school and I can clearly see the progression. The new subjects however (such as French for example) began from a lower starting point so everyone's levels in those are lower. This means that ds's report makes it look like he is doing well at some things and really not well at others. There is nothing to explain the levels either (that we still get at the dds' primary school).

If your school is still using the old NC levels- and many are- then it's easy to find out what they mean.

If the school has started using its own methods, then there should be something on the wensure.

Usually reports have target grades and current attainment grades- easy to see if there's a gap one way or the other. And something about attitude to work.

Is there no rubric at the top of the report explaining?

"This means that ds's report makes it look like he is doing well at some things and really not well at others"

But isn't that just common sense? If you go into secondary school with a 4b in Maths, say, then you would expect to end year 7 on a sublevel or 2 higher than that. But if you go in on what amounts to Level 0 in Spanish, you're unlikely to be a level 5 after one year......

In old national curriculum levels a 7 is higher then a 6. 6c means they are just starting to working a 6, 6b they can do most of the work at level 6, 6a is when they can do all of the work at a level six.

The government has scrapped levels and told schools not to use the but not said what to use instead. Some schools are still using levels, others have their own individual systems while most are waiting for the new GCSE spec to have come out in all subjects and to see how the new GCSE grading (1 to 10, 10 being the highest) will work out.

You don't say what year that's for, Yep.

Oh, , sorry, yes you do. End of KS 3. So year 9.

In my subject RE, exceptional performance is above level 8. A level 5a, is a child you can achieve all the performance of indicators of a level 5 so they will move onto level 6 class work but that does not mean they are working at a level 6 yet as they can't achieve the indicators.

If you child has started some GCSE course they may have mixture of number for the new style GCSE, letter grades for the old style GCSE and level for those subjects they are not doing a GCSE in yet.

I think that level 9, 10 May be predictions for the new gcse grades? Aren't they going to be level 8,9,10, etc rather than A or B grades?

Dds school still does the NC levels of 6c, etc but some teachers also talk about grade 9 at parents evening.

I spot a stealth boast. Well actually not even stealthy.

"What is level 7/8/ 9 or 10. Is a better than b ......."

Disingenuous much?

OK, OP, I'll bite and answer.

YES OP, Level 7/8/9 or 10 is MUCH better than a B for a Year 8 child. So much better that levels 9 and 10 don't even exist!

I can confirm that your Year 8 child is vereeeeee clever.

But if you are talking about the new GCSE grading, then it's only 10 that doesn't exist.

English literature and maths will be taught in schools in England from September 2015, with students getting their results in August 2017.

The new GCSEs will be graded 1 to 9, with 9 being the top grade. Ofqual has consulted on proposals for how standards should be set for them, and how the grading scale should work.

From the gov website.

And if it's NC levels a 7a is better than a 7b. A 7b is better than a 7c and a 7c is better than a 6a.

"In my subject RE, exceptional performance is above level 8."

In year 8???? Where do you teach? The Einstein Acandemy for the Really Very Incredibly although normal for Mumsnet Clever?

This is why we need National Attainment Scales!!!

Old style National Curriculum levels 4a,4b,4c etc did mean that students/parents could see how students moved up as they changed schools.

Without them everyone is working on their own thing and parents don't understand how their child is doing.

Although my school is moving towards students being given a GCSE grade (the new 1-9 scale) from year 7 - I am still in two minds about this but too lowly to make much of an impact!