school reports and 'exceeding expectations' ...or not

[flownthecoopkiwi]

so, got my DD report, she's in year 3. They can either not meet, meet or exceed expectations. She's doing well apparently, doing harder than year 3 maths work but not 'exceeding expectations'. Her report only had high level subjects like maths, english etc.
I have friends whose reports for the same year broke this down into small topics for each subject, and then judged progress against all of them.
Do standards of what exceeds expectations differ between schools? Is my DD doing ok or not brilliantly because she's not exceeding????

Give me a good old fashioned A or B or C any day!

The "expectations" are "age related" - they have been plucked abitrarily from the air devised by a fuckwit the government.

For example, the ARE for writing at the end of reception is "to be able to write a sentence that can be understood by someone who doesn't know the child".

There are billions of the bloody things.

Makes me glad I'm a secondary teacher where at least I only have to deal with a handful of made up expectations.

We have the school report which has the exceeding/working towards etc but not sure how that is assessed.
We also have the Welsh national tests so as it's score based the child's category can't be manipulated by the school, the categories are the same with an extra lower and higher one - considerably exceeding but it is in comparison to only children born in the same month as them. So this allows summer Borja for example to be compared with other summer borns and not with kids nearly a year older.

Also means you can't compare scores with friends e.g. DS is December and my friends DD is August to even though they may have got the same category it doesn't mean they got the same score as it depends on how well the bothered in thier month did.
Bit complicated and I pity the people that have to work it out but does seem like a good way to compare.

'Emerging', 'expected' and 'exceeded' - all very dependant on the school's interpretation. There is no actual guidance as to what each phrase 'looks like' in each subject of each year group so school's do a 'best fit'. It's very subjective and one school may moderate work and grade it entirely different to another school. The NC is only 3 years old and this time round there has been no official training or guidance on it's delivery or assessment procedures. I'm surprised any teacher 100% knows what they are doing or knows they are doing it right.

I hate assessments. My partner teachers marks too lenient (in my view) and she thinks I mark too harshly (in her view!)

At parents evening I always ask 'but what does it (bloody well) mean'? With regards to expected/exceeding etc but never get a straight answer.

Honestly if your child is meeting age related expectations at the end of year 3, they are doing well!

The 'expectations' they are talking about are not personal expectations, they are the expectations against the new 2014 curriculum, I would have thought anyway.

Certainly at the end of year 6 they are told they are below, at or exceeding age related expectations and that is definitely an objective assessment, not against progress but attainment.

That's why many people dislike the new system - 11 year olds being told 'you are not good enough'.

'Emerging', 'expected' and 'exceeded' - all very dependant on the school's interpretation. There is no actual guidance as to what each phrase 'looks like' in each subject of each year group so school's do a 'best fit'. It's very subjective and one school may moderate work and grade it entirely different to another school. The NC is only 3 years old and this time round there has been no official training or guidance on it's delivery or assessment procedures. I'm surprised any teacher 100% knows what they are doing or knows they are doing it right.

Yes, it's crazy isn't it. My county has released lots of highlighting sheets and guidance as to what ARE is for each year group, but our neighbouring county is doing it totally differently. I couldn't believe there was no national coherent guidance on it. And then when you add in the fact that teachers marking can be, ahem, subjective to say the least, it does make it difficult to ensure consistency across all schools.

I teach Year 3 and we have working towards, working at age expected and working at greater depth. Working at age expected means they have met all the requirements of the Y3 national curriculum, working towards means they haven't hit them all and deeper learning means they are taking their learning further and going into understanding concepts, rather than working at the expectations for older year groups if that makes sense.

I think it's all about box ticking though, they have to meet very specific "exceeding expectations" guidelines to get that grading, not just be doing well generally.
As an example, the dd of a close friend of mine in year 2 was a FANTASTIC reader, I mean she blew us away, expression, comprehension way beyond her years but she got "expected" because to get exceeding she would have needed to independently make links between different books she had read, so for example she'd have to say "oh Bob in this story reminds me of Tom in the book I read a while ago because they're both really naughty but everybody likes them"
She didn't do this so just missed out on exceeding.
Expecting is great though and really hard to get so she's doing well.

A few posters on this thread have said it's a mark against the expectation the school have of that particular child.
If that is the case, that would be absolute nonsense. Surely even this government couldn't be that stupid?
So child A in year 3 learns how to add 1+1 by the end of the year, and gets 'exceeding' as they didn't think he could.
Child B, also year 3, multiplies 3456 x 5568 in his head but gets marked 'below expectation' as they thought he could multiply 466899x123566.
That would be absurd, wouldn't it?

I'd always assumed it meant compared to the national average.

No it's against govt specified age related targets. (which are arbitrary and not designed by teachers or anyone who knows about education it seems.)

I got my sons sats results today. All his normal school report was meeting expectations but sats say maths meeting, English also meeting but his spelling grammar etc came out exceeding expectations. I find it all a bit confusing tbh. It was just levels when I was at school waves walking stick in the air

No it's against govt specified age related targets. (which are arbitrary and not designed by teachers or anyone who knows about education it seems.)

Couldn't agree more, compare the "age related expectations" with any other developmental milestone chart and there is very little similarity. Bonkers!!

Arethere- didn't exceeding used to mean making more than 3 sublevels of progress in 2 years?

We have; beginning, beginning + (both defined as "working below the level expected for a child their age") developing, developing +, meeting and exceeding.

One year I had a meeting two weeks before the reports came out and school told me DS1 was two years ahead in literacy. (Absolute bollocks, and only said to get me to stop asking for support for him)

His report said he was "beginning +".

School claim this is because of the 'changes in criteria'

I find it useful in only way. As the school now have to assess against external criteria, it forces them to admit, in writing, he is behind in certain areas.
They are still claiming he is ahead and it's just the 'criteria's' fault!
He is definitely behind in those areas, btw. It's blatant, but admitting that would mean having to offer him support.

I don't understand the need to hide where the children are. Parents can take A, B, C or 5/10, 8/10. Ideally in primary more than three categories.

Nobody has 3 hours a day to devote to home learning support across all subjects. "At expected level" does not help. "Only just scraped expected level" in writing, but "expected level overall, way ahead in some areas" in maths would mean I concentrate on writing with them.

So please tell me 8/10 maths and 6/10 writing and I know what to do.

Yes pax. Exactly what I think and worry about too. I think I'm going to have to find out where in 'expected' mine are or else I'll fret all summer.

YANBU to be confused.

I think that perhaps we should be campaigning for the return to National Curriculum levels, at least we all knew where we stood with those, and the lower level achievers wouldn't have to have 'working towards' on every report, they'd at least be able to see they're making progress.

Can I just say that a lot of what has been said on this thread is inaccurate.

The Age Related Expectation (ARE) is in the National Curriculum and is a standard you can read on-line.
SATs at year 2 and 6 are sat against this standard and you will be marked at expected level or at Greater Depth ie you are doing better than expected.

BUT the schools are allowed to report on progress as they see fit, which means in practice you cannot compare from school to school as one school will give you a report with
emerging, expected and exceeding and anothe report will give you
meeting, exceeding and surpassing etc and two schools using the same language may mean different things by it.

The standard they are working to though are the same, ARE as set by government.

I think it would be safe to say that most schools use meeting or expected to mean they are meeting their age related expectation.

The new curriculum doesn't allow them to jump ahead in the same way, so a bright year 2 doesn't end up on a year 3 curriculum, they are asked to work deeper and broader on the same subjects.

there are specific criteria to meet to be classified as working at greater depth, and plenty of bright above average children won't get it.

The thing that really annoys me about the new system is this:
Little Johnny is working towards standard in year 2, he doesn't achieve it by the end of year 2, he enters year 3, he is now working towards year 3.

It leaves nowhere to tell you that Little Johnny can't actually read CAT or add 1 +1, he is working towards year 3, so that is alright then!

Hate the new system. I have a year 3 boy who is in the bottom set at maths and met expectations, great but surely lots in the top set did and there is a huge difference between abilities. It just doesn't provide enough information.

At my school children who are graded at exceeding expectations are those who consistently work at a level that is at least a year ahead. I teach Year four, I have around 4 -5 kids in my class who I graded as exceeding at the end of this year.