To think DD's school report is meaningless?

[Twowrongsdontmakearight]

Got DD's 'dashboard' for the end of term. Rather than levels the school are using A (above expected progress) E (expected progress) and B (below). DD has entirely Es.

So, she is progressing as expected. But from that we can't tell which subjects she's good at - "she's brilliant at this subject and is doing really well which is just what we expected" OR "well she really struggles but is trying hard and making slow progress as is expected".

AIBU to think this is a bit lazy on the part of the school and is a pointless exercise as it tell us nothing?

That letter is wrong, Bertrand! 9 will be the top 20% of students achieving a 7 or above, which is roughly the top 3% of the whole cohort (for maths at least). Not the top 3% of those getting an A*, that would be hardly anyone!

This is one of the biggest fuck ups in education at the moment. Take away a system (which to be fair wasn't great) and let each school to sort out their own system.
This means there is no clear correlation between schools.
Our school have spent hours sorting this out, as has each school, we have grouped with other schools but everyone has their own idea of what is best!
Currently I report on an 80- 190 scale at KS3, 1-9 in year 9 and A*-G for years 10 & 11!! It's hard enough getting my head around it, let alone students and parents understanding.
You should ask your school to explain their system, because it should be explained to parents. Also complain to your MP, this is such a crazy situation that the government have created.
I love my job, but it is exhausting reinventing the wheel with every new government initiative.

Bertrand thanks for sharing your letter.
My DS is also year 10, but I have never heard about an overall score based on the best 8 subjects!
As it happens, he is doing History and French as 2 of his options, but he might easily not have done either.......
Also his school offers a broad range of stuff, so he is doing Engineering Btech level 2 in place of one GCSE. Anyone know how that would be counted......?

Many thanks to everyone contributing to this thread - it's really helpful (I am still confused though)

Ds1 started school in 2003 and none of his reports ever told me anything.

Ds2 started school in 2009 and I've never been able to understand any of his reports either. I have had absolutely no idea of how either of them were doing it was all very secretive and noncommittal. They both appeared to be able to read and write, so that's all I had to go on.

Confusing grading system and bland, generic comments

Secondary school has been a better experience.

I was looking at mums school reports from the1950s. Position in the class from from 1 to 30 and a rather blunt comment. No ambiguity at all. This was from a grammar school which had streaming so you would know exactly how you were doing compared to others. My mum was bright so probably didn't mind but must have been horrid being number 32 in class D.

DD's just got her first secondary school end of term report today (primary school was text plus grade but only twice a year). Today's is just a list of numbers (grades for tests and overall grade for each subject) and a comment at the bottom saying that if she continues to get these grades she will be allowed to progress into the next school year

Her best friend's comment said that if she continues to get these grades she will not be able to continue to the next year (abroad - they have to repeat the year or move to a different type of school if they get 2 or more grade 5s (Es) or one grade F as an overall grade for the year. )

Blunt but you do know where you stand! We've already had a parents evening which was equally honest but more detailed (and varied wildly by subject in DD's case).

The brightest children don't ever seem to get their needs met, they seem to be used as extra teachers as they are always paired with the children with SEN or lower ability children. My son is doing OK with his literacy and has been given a challenging target, he complained yesterday that he never gets time to work on this target because he is often working with somebody off the lowest table and is expected to help them. I have had words.

"The brightest children don't ever seem to get their needs met,"

Oh that great Mumsnet wail.......

Although the French with everything out of 20 and a pretty blunt comment is better, it's still not great. When I worked in France, it was almost impossible to gain a 20/20. And what was the difficulty of the test? Designed for weaker, middle or top kids....?

OP we had similar, complete waste of time and effort. It was progress and effort for us, not related to actual level. It was graded as excellent good and requires improvement. Good for everything including attendance which is interesting as she hasnt missed a day since starting the school in 2013.

The new non-system is ridiculous. For my year 7s they were graded above expected, expected, or below expected based on a baseline level assessment done in oct compared to their ks2 english (not even my subject) SAT.

My DS got maths (6), science (5) literacy (4c) and reading (4) at the end of KS2. His predicted level for the very subject at GCSE is a 6 (old style B). This is taken from his average point score from his sats results.
I'm still struggling to understand how that works becaus he had a scribe for literacy (doesn't now!) and clearly he isn't the same ability across the board for each subject - especially the core ones.
He's now apparently better at English than all the humanities and arts and languages despite him having a SpLD right the way through primary.
I'm wondering if it's the system or the school? (They don't do and won't do support )

Actually BertrandRussell my ds IS above average in an above average school. I WILL NOT be beaten down for the effort he and us as a family put into his schooling. I am sick of saying to people which school he goes to locally and people making that "ohhh that's a tough school to be in" noise. I WANT to know what level he is at especially in year 7, I WANT to know what areas we can help with. I don't want a wishy washy he is doing ok at this and that. Thank goodness the school also agree with levels and pushing them to their full potential with fantastis pastoral care as well. It can be done.

Thanks for the thread, at least I understand better now why there's no point in trying to understand .

DD is due to finish art, history & french GCSE in June 2017, will she be graded with numbers or letters? Will her other GCSEs finished in June 2018 all be in numbers?

Thx.

It sounds like both the old and the new systems are really complicated and unhelpful. We left the UK when our children were KS2, and apart from the totally incomprehensible reception report (some weird set of government demanded stats full of levels which made zero sense to me) reports were pretty straightforward, an effort and an achievement grade (letters I think) and more importantly a comment (generally 'dd is a star in every way possible' and 'ds is a hard to manage PITA but we love him anyway').

None of their reports predicted their future, fairly impossible for 7 and 8 year olds anyway surely? ds has gone from having learning difficulties that stopped him reading at 7 to G&T range at 16, while dd who always overachieved has started to struggle in a few areas.

Anyway now we live in Canada and we get their grade point average for each subject plus a set of effort grades. Oh and a very short comment per grade, plus a 'well done' from the principle. The grade point average is used for university applications so it's all very simple. The only issue is that there is virtually no external assessment (in secondary they have five government exams, three in year 10 and then one in years 11 and 12) so if they fail to impress/don't get on with a teacher it can have a big impact. On the plus side everything they do gets assessed so it's easy to track their progress through the year (not good if you have a weak start though).

Mu children's reports tell us whether they are exceeding, meeting or working towards the 'expected standard' for their age group. I and most other parents just asked "so which level would they be at if we were still using them?"

"DD is due to finish art, history & french GCSE in June 2017, will she be graded with numbers or letters? Will her other GCSEs finished in June 2018 all be in numbers?"

2017- only English and maths in numbers.
2018- all numbers.

She can not be above the expected level because it doesn't exist.

We have this exact issue now with our DD. At recent parents evening her teacher gave us a pile of bumf to read about the govt pov on this and how the school is interpreting it, and basically told us that no child will be marked as hitting their expected target until the end of the school year.

DD is the oldest child in Yr6 and was hitting Level 5b and c in all subjects at the end of the summer term. She appears to have spent most of this term attending school council meetings, showing round prospective parents and generally being steered away from actual academic work as much as possible which rather makes me wonder what the school is trying to achieve .

I totally agree the new system without levels is meaningless. We had an information evening where the head told us schools have to make up their own assessment system BUT it must be comparable with other schools. Er what?

Dd1 has always been in top groups for reading and writing and middle of the class in maths, on the old levels she was always a couple ahead of expected for age. Her latest report says she is at expected level for reading, working towards it for writing and below expected in maths. She came out in tears because it sounded awful. BUT it also says she is making good progress (on a scale that runs through very good, good, adequate, unsatisfactory.) So how can that be true if according to the expected thing she is well when she always been okay? I conclude its a box ticking exercise and she has yet to tick a particular box. I told her the only bit I was interested in was the effort grade where she got A for everything. I said if she's trying hard that's all she can do. But its rubbish that she is getting demoralized by a report that is so uninformative.

Tobysmum, on the attendance thing dd's report said number of days absent 0, attendance percentage 98.4. Maybe I shouldn't be worried about HER maths abilities. Dd2s report said absent 0, attendance 100%..... Hmmm

Did she miss a half day jolly?

Why do the govt have to keep messing with education like this? Nnnrgh.

It's more likely to be one lesson absence, probably caused by being late to lesson or somewhere else in school.

1.6% absence over the course of a 15 week term is 6 hours of absence - so if there is no full day absence then it's two AM/PM absences.

Thanks @ Bertrand.