To feel frustrated with the UK secondary system?

[flyingfoxes]

I'm from the US, and we moved here when DD was in preschool. Since she started school I've struggled with understanding how she's performing in school (one year we got a yearly report with "2a" or "2b" type grades to show how she was doing, which was helpful, but it was scrapped right after). The teachers always just said she was doing fine. She did well enough in the SATs but it was the first time we had hard evidence of how she was performing, and it was too late after the fact to help her with any specific areas, like maths, to give her a boost.

She's now in year 10. Since she started secondary, I've been given a number of progress reports that are essentially "work ethic" reports and an annual progress report that says whether or not she's meeting her own personalised targets. When I've asked to know what those targets are, the school got cagey and said they weren't allowed to tell me. What? Why? But I was assured that she's doing fine and once she started GCSEs that we'd finally find out her predicted grades.

So... we've finally gotten those, yay. Except... they're not nearly as high as they could be. And her predicted grades will determine what A levels she can take, which determine what university courses she can take, and I'm overwhelmed at the idea that at 14 her life choices are already being narrowed down so significantly... based on predicted grades for an exam she hasn't even sat yet.

I posted about this in the education section and was told not to even try a chemistry A level with a predicted grade of 5+ on the GCSEs. But... that's what she wants to do, is study chemistry. How can it already be decided so soon?!

When I was 14 in the US, I had no flipping clue what I wanted to do in life. I did okay (not as well as I could have done), but then excelled at university, came to the UK and got a masters with distinction from a Russell group university. If I had closed off that possibility at 14, my life would be very, very different than it is now.

Anyway, I'm just frustrated -- that I never knew how DD was performing, didn't help her sooner (I was told she was doing fine!), and now she's going to have to work extra hard to get to where she should be. I just wish we had better signposts here (a letter grade here and there would be nice!) or more flexible options for university age kids. Am I being massively unreasonable?

There is no British system. Scotland has a completely different education system.

I'm so sorry to hear of other people having the same frustrations -- while I'm glad it's not just me, it's still an awful position to be in.

Until the predicted grades came out I only had two other data points, her SATs and CAT results. With the SATs, it was the first year they had the new test and the media was full of (what I consider now unhelpful) stories about how the tests were so hard when English professors couldn't pass the English section, etc. So when she did well above a pass I thought that was good. Then in year 7 they took the CAT -- they didn't tell the parents but DD told me. I asked the school for her results and they said it wasn't policy to let parents know (I'm still not sure why, I saw on mumsnet at the time that schools in other areas were sending them out to parents). I had to beg and plead and got them in the end, and she was in the 98th percentile so I thought, again, she was fine.

I have contacted the school so many times. I've become that parent. I've been placated and reassured. She's been in top sets for her courses until this year, when she was demoted in science to second set. She barely missed the needed marks for triple science, and she was gutted -- at this point her teacher told me she would have gotten it if she'd tried harder (wish I would have known that before it was too late also).

To the poster who said test results come back with no idea of whether they're good or not: the first time DD got something like a 42% on an exam, I flipped, only for her teacher to tell me it was actually a really good result. ??? So there's definitely an element of being a foreigner to all of this -- that's just not how my education functioned when I was in school (to be fair, when I got a 70% on my first masters essay I cried until my husband told me it was a good mark. I didn't get it then, and I don't get it now).

*Academies not academics.
Also worth noting most routes end to uni nowadays. Btec if anything is easier route for ks5(16 -18). I didn't realise this until recently, as a mother, my son did a levels, friend did btec. Both same destination of uni course. Btec in this case was easier than 3 hard a levels.

YABU to call it the UK system when you mean the English system.

The situation you describe is not UK wide.

But YANBU to feel frustrated by the system you are in.

I think the trouble is that this cohort (yr 10) were some of the first through the current SATs programme and use of those to predict and carry through expected grades. I think the schools are poor at understanding how to communicate student performance to parents and we are expected to coast along and leave them to it - they are shutting parents out of education in my view.

DD is this yr and we only had a discussion yesterday around where she sat in gradings and also where she was coming in at - I have had no feedback this year at all yet except via DD. The showmyhomework ap is not used by most teachers so thats no use either.

She is a bright kid and pushed a little will go far, need to work on her confidence and ability to speak in front of other people (that she doesn't know) but when you know her she is happy to debate politics, books, film etc. My fear is she is a silent member of class and is slipping under the radar.

She was predicted mainly 5s but is already beyond that in most areas apparently according to regular tests she is doing - where is this information why do I not have it - frustrating

If 46% is the top of the class (often as they havent covered the other material yet,) then it's a good result.

Her predicted grades won’t limit her Alevel place unless every Alevel provider is full. They only make final decisions after results day and there is always loads of movement- students changing course choice, dropping out because of lower than expected grades, signing up because they did better than expected.

Exams towards the end of y10 give some indication of final grades and mocks in yr11 a firmer idea.

What did she get in her SATS?

With regards to Chem A level my sister teaches this - she says its not that hard the kids just need to focus and apply themselves....she is a tough task master I reckon.

@coconuttelegraph Yes and no -- students are conditionally offered a place based on predicted grades (which I'm now hopeful might go up in the next year), but cannot take up the place unless they actually achieve the needed results. Without high enough predicted grades, she will not be able to apply to take chemistry, but can apply for other courses and then request to switch if she gets a high enough science GCSE (they said it wasn't a guarantee they would allow her, though).

Well although the system may be flawed, if she is in year 10 you have got plenty of time to make sure she is at the level she needs to get to by the end of year 11. 5+ sounds a bit like a very vague, on track for a good pass target and may not mean they don’t expect her to do better, but regardless, targets are incredibly rough guesses, which rarely correlate particularly well with what actually happens and if you both now focus on pushing her grades up, you can make a huge difference before GCSEs.

You should find it much easier to understand how she is doing now, as it will all be done in terms of GCSE grades and lots of mock exams, but even if you don’t feel school are giving you the information, you can buy the revision guides, download the past papers and work out yourselves how she’s doing and how to get her where she needs to be. All is not lost in year 10!!

@RB68 This sounds like my DD almost exactly. Very bright but needs to be pushed, and I've rarely known when and where to push.

@behindthescenes and others, thank you! I feel much more optimistic that this is just a much needed wake up call for DD (and not the end of the world!). 😊

A levels here are picked and then confirmed once your GCSE grades are out so predicted grades are an influence on your choice but not a limiter,

Surely your dd knows what set she is in, assuming they set ? Even if not you can get an idea of how she is getting on by her grade for effort, if that's high then you can't ask any more

Also apologies to everyone, I realise now it's not a UK-wide phenomenon!

It sounds like OP's school allocates A level places based on predicted grades - that is definitely not the case everywhere. Our local 6th form allocates only on results - if you get lower than required, you can and will lose your place. If you exceed, there is a lot of flexibility to swap around. There isn't a lot of 6th form provision around in our area and so there is a lot of movement with people coming in from other secondaries in the area.

Then once you have started Yr12 it isn't at all unusual to drop an A level and change it for another one by Christmas - two of DD2's friends have done this.

School does demand 7s for science A levels though, and 6/7 in English lang or lit for humanities A levels.

the first time DD got something like a 42% on an exam

This is because it is not about percentages but about grade boundaries. For example, this could indicate a grade 6 or 7 for some subjects.
Equally, you will not be applying for Sixth Form until Year 11 anyway and by then, a more concrete grade will have been produced by her sitting up to two more sets of exams.

It’s okay not to fully understand a system and to be fair, it changes with every government anyway but it is a little unfair to slate it completely. There are flaws with the US system too.

I would start by just making sure that your DD is doing her work needed, keeping on top of homework (which you can also look at and read the feedback) and make sure she is working as hard as she can be by putting in the required effort.

It is frustrating. I have adopted policy of asking what the other kids got in tests - they all tell each other so if Fred, known to be the cleverest in class, got 60%, I'm happy if DS got 58%. Of course if Fred got 99% I'm not happy if DS got 58.

@ChloeDecker fair, and I'm just frustrated at the moment. In a lot of other ways I much prefer the school system here to the US system. My DH would love to move back home but I'm not keen, largely because of the schools (particularly the safety aspect, but the educational standards are higher, too).

YANBU it sucks! Specialisation happens way too soon. I'd much prefer the Scottish system. I think schools are way too big here.

@flyingfoxes - A friend of ours switched from Cambridge to MIT for his PhD in maths after he was effectively headhunted and offered a full scholarship at MIT - in his first paper there he got a 76% or something and was delighted with himself and couldn't understand why his classmates were looking at him in disbelief for NOT bursting into tears!

The early specialism works for those (like me, and I suspect my oldest) who have very strong strengths and weaknesses. As we went through secondary school, I went from poorly performing on average, to middling at GCSE to acing things at A level.
I totally understand its drawbacks for those (the majority?) who dont show great strengths and weaknesses aged 13, but for some of us it is a blessing.

Having been educated in the Irish system, I agree that the English one is weird. Objectively, I can't understand why any decision-making is based on predicted achievement rather than actual achievement. Surely that's not how you would design a system if you were starting from scratch.

What @downthedirtroad said ... She got to Yr10 without any assessment from you as to how well you thought she was doing? Did you just assume the school does 100% of education?

Get her a tutor and crack on fgs.

This is all about the ENGLISH system, not the British one, or the UK one. Things happen differently in the separate parts of the UK. SATs, GCSE and 11 plus do not happen in Scotland.

lack of relative position/grades up to now YANBU

Worrying about predicted GCSE grades impacting where she ends up for university, YABU.

Predicted grades are just that. The teacher's current best guess. Hard work and uncovering hidden aptitude can turn low predictions into higher actual grades.

Whether she can do a specific A level should/will be based on actual grade achieved, not prediction (unless predicted higher and there were mitigating circumstances for not achieving it). (If a school is deciding based on predictions then change schools).

That said, if my y10 reaches her current predictions I'll be over the moon.