Year 7 report with y11 target grades!

[bourgeoisfishwife]

We received a report today for our y7 dc. For every subject they have given grades for current attainment and effort alongside a gcse target grade, based on their ks2 SAT scores.

Is this standard practice at all schools? It feels very wrong giving them gcse predicted grades in year 7. A lot can change in that time and it puts unnecessary pressure on them right from the start. Plus SAT scores at many schools (including the juniors dc went to) are often inflated so the target grades are unlikely to even be accurate. AIBU?!

When we first got the FFT target grades one of my Maths group was estimated A or A* in everything, including Sports Studies, he laughed because he was the most unsporty person ever. Ignore them, schools do, I'm surprised they're still going.

I was a bit pissed off with this because they're encouraged to read their own reports, which I really don't mind but dd has autism and didn't really understand it. She thought the discrepancy between her current level and predicted grade meant it was a bad report. I really had to convince her that the fact that she had excellent and exceeding for effort in every single subject was the thing to be looking at and proud of.

My Ds is year 10 and has had minimum expected grades on his reports since year 7. They were formulated by the fischer family trust. Ds did well at KS2 so his minimum grades are high. He can perform really well and his reports can still look average because their expectations of him are so high. He hates reports, he once said he wanted to just throw it away.

Unfortunately the FTT does not take into consideration what might happen to children in their secondary school years. Ds has possible ASD and the last year has not been good as he waits for assessment. Thankfully he is still managing to pretty much keep up, but we all hate the MEGs in our house. I'm far more concerned about his well being at the moment than I am about his grades.

Makes me cross. My primary spent ages coaching the kids, before school, after school, lunch times, PE, History music et al were cancelled for maths and English. This ended up with DS getting predicted As, this was no achievable with other subjects he just isn't that capable

Academy trust data manager here.

Year 7 students should not be getting Y11 expected/Target grades.

The KS2 assessment changed 3 years ago the DfE have not given any guidance as to how this translates to gcses.

It is numberwang and should be disregarded.

FFT are working on estimates, at best.

They do not have a crystal ball.

Not all schools do this and glad ours doesn’t Agree with you op. So much time to develop.

DS was given his flight path and GCSE predicted grades on his first day of year 7!

Same here and we don't mind because all his MEG are around a 5 but he's achieving 6 or 7 in most. It means we never get a letter home saying he's not trying :-)

It’s standard, not sure why you would be angry. It’s just predicted, doesnt mean he will get those grades

Dd is also predicted 9-7 in every subject and therefore cannot exceed either. It seems a little pressurised tbh but dd is largely ignoring it.

I think that what is also as bad are those middle attainers predicted a 4/5/6 who are on target but because they are on target don’t get the extra help to get a 7 for example, whereas those predicted a 9-8 if they start to drift get the kitchen sink chucked at them so they attain their predictions. Yes, it’s tremendous stress with those predicted high grades but let’s not forget the rest!

DS1 was in the higher level group for maths and english and did really well in his SATs. So when he moved to secondary school his teachers seemed to be on at him constantly that , because of his excellent SAT results he should be getting this grade and that grade etc.
He really struggled and we even asked his maths teacher on parent's evening if he could be moved to a lower level class. They refused, he continued to struggle and found the whole school experience very stressful.
His sister was also in the higher level maths and english groups at primary school.
She is a year younger and both me and DS1 "advised" her to not try too hard in her SATs as she would probably find herself in the same stressful position as DS1.
She heeded the warning, luckily, and is actually enjoying being in the middle group. She doesn't feel pressured, understands the work and participates in parent's evenings quite happily as she knows she won't be getting the "not achieving the standard we expected from SAT results" malarky.

Yes, dd is predicted 8 in every subject in GCSE due to her SATS scores - from art to PE to maths and English. She’s in y7. We do pretty much ignore these. The scores 1-7 also have a + and - and they are expected to move 3 sub scores per year. I’ve explained how progress is not linear and also individual teachers did really seem to be less concerned about the actual number when talking about them in real life at parents evening.

The scores 1-7 also have a + and - and they are expected to move 3 sub scores per year.

This is the definition of total nonsense. Absolute, unmitigated rubbish. I would love to know what a subscore of progress means, I suspect the school would really struggle to explain it if you asked.

My job depends on data. But shit, meaningless data is worse than no data.

Sorry, not 1-7, 1-9 like GCSE. There is also a whole subset of letters under the 1-9 because quite naturally year 7 children shouldn’t be measured against the 1-9 scale! Like I said, we largely ignore it and in some subjects she’s done more than 3 sub scores, in others, none, because it is all based on SATS.

My dc will generally get along with this system as they are quite academic. However, two also have ASD and I am concerned about the pressure it will cause.

Abso-blooming-lutely!

The only thing that is important about your child at school is..and will always be..their exam grades: and don’t you forget it !!!

SAT scores are inflated?
SATs aren't moderated?
Seven years of primary mis-education?

I don't agree with how KS4 results are based on KS2 results. Basing a prediction for Food Technology / PE / Art etc on Maths and English scores is ridiculous.

But let's not peddle the above rubbish.

It's not a prediction, it's a target. The next time they get externally assessed is GCSE so it makes sense to treat KS3 amd KS4 as a 5 year course. The government scrapped KS3 levels 3 years ago so there's no point assessing them using anything other than GCSE grades really.
Don't feel pressured, just think of it as a piece of information - something against which progress can be measured. Progress is what matters at this stage.

It's worse for the teachers who get paid based on which students meet these targets.
Not taking into consideration the multitude or things that can change in 5 years of a child's life.
Our school also "expected" students who were below average on entry to all obtain C grades and we aren't allowed to give targets below a C. However the school didn't pur any measures in place to help teachers make this huge jump in progress, but withheld pay progression if they didn't manage it.

I'm a secondary teacher. My advice would be ignore, ignore, ignore. It's all just nonsense. Really, it is. The gold standard of progress 8 is a score of 1.0. Our very good school would be over the move if they achieved a 0.7 overall. But some of the "aspirational" target grades for some of my kids, translate into a progress 8 score of 3.0, for that child. Absolute tosh. Bad for kids and bad for teachers.

My son is in y7 and luckily we don’t have anything like this. His reports focus more on effort actually, and it’s the effort marks they are rewarded for.

Seems crazy that schools give targets for all subjects based on English and maths tests. Very odd.

Hi,

My son up till Year was on path to be getting A* and A according to his SATs. Needless to say he only got one A and not in a core subject.
I would look how they are doing currently.

Regards,

Louise

I’m ignoring it all. (Providing there’s nothing to be alarmed about).

They targets didn’t reflect with any accuracy what DS1 achieved.

I teach secondary and right now I’m gathering my evidence for the students I teach who won’t make those grades. The reason some kids won’t? Firstly, the target grades are utter rubbish and conjured up from meaningless nonsense. I might as well be justifying why kids haven’t matched the grades we set by throwing darts at a target. Some of my Y11s are three grades over, down under. It’s absolute bollocks; not to mention I have only taught these kids for Y11 but regardless, my performance management will depend on what they do in those two exam papers on the day.

Also, some of them won’t make the target because they suffered family bereavement, developed a serious mental health issue, missed months of school with glandular fever, don’t care about my subject, have an apprenticeship sorted for next year that doesn’t require a particular exam grade, can’t be arsed, have a target grade that is way out of reach for them and are utterly demoralised at the end of five years being told they’re failing for not reaching it.

So, I’m screen shotting attendance data, emails, notes from Parents’ Evening, information from behaviour logs, all of my intervention eg every time I changed my seating plan to give that particular kid priority, the extra work I provided them, the after school sessions I ran with them. If I don’t have all of this evidence, how can I justify that this student only got a 6 when they were targeted a 7 based on tests they sat five years ago...?

Hours and hours of my time wasted documenting the minutiae of my job, pointless data gathering all to justify something totally made up in the first place. My stress translates to the students sometimes, it probably gets them more stressed. To have your performance management rest on whether or not a 15 year old boy you see two hours a week actually revises or not...To spend all of this time on recording and logging every little thing. All based on these nonsensical flight paths. It’s absurd for students and it’s absurd for staff.

It all about hold teachers accountable for progress, but reduces children to a number! Believe it or not we have the same in primary school. I have targets that year two children should reach based on their EYFS scores, and targets for year six based on the year two results. Then we get grilled on why, for example, five year twos didn't get "expected" in reading when they did in reception by the LA.