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?

What were her actual results for the CATs?

Her predicted grades in year ten don’t mean anything yet when it comes to entrance to sixth forms. You won’t be applying until you’ve got at least a set of mocks done.

If you want to support your daughter, I’d recommend ensuring you’re going over the lesson content at home (use free science lessons on YouTube to help- they’re good) and focus on that.

Fretting over sixth form options now is futile, you need to just focus on your daughter.

Posters criticising the OP for not being aware of her daughter’s progress or achievement are being a bit unfair, I think. I’m from the US and I’m a secondary teacher in England, and it’s hard enough for me to effectively convey progress. On our reports for KS3 students, parents are told if their children are essentially beneath the expected standard, on target for the expected standard, exceeding or exceptional. But it isn’t made clear to them how that equates to grades and what that might mean for GCSEs and future prospects. It is very, very different from the US system, where at any time a teacher could tell me a letter grade based on the average percentage I had achieved so far.

OP, I also share your frustrations at how early children are expected to make decisions about their future path. I finished high school and did two years at a liberal arts university, studying everything from dance to psychology to Spanish to sculpture and then really focused on my degree subject in my final two years. I really value the range of education provided in the US, even though it’s not a perfect system by any measure.

I did chemistry A level and it is definitely one of the harder A levels. However, if your dd wants to do this A level she should be given the opportunity to do so.
The problem is that some schools / colleges will only allow you to do A level Chemistry if you are predicted a 7 or above.
Op, if I were you, I would hire a good tutor to help your dd

I don't understand why you didn't get a full report each year, we also got half termly breakdowns of test results etc

We found the progress reports very good!

Your daughter is in the first cohort of students sitting new GCSEs with the new KS2 grades.

There's no guidance from DfE as to what you might expect in terms of predicted grades from your child's scaled score.

Your child's school are doing their best, but they don't know what your child might get, it's educated guesswork, which is why the answers you're getting are so vague - no one knows anything for certain.

It's unfortunate, but due to recent changes in statutory assessment your child is sitting between two stools and lots of things are unknown. She's at the start of year 10, this is not the time to panic and put pressure on your child. You both will have a much better idea of where she sits when they do a mock exam, probably at the end of this academic year.

It's a shame that she just missed out on the score for triple science but maths and science learning is not linear. Kids can make great leaps forward just by understanding a small thing that makes lots of other parts fall into place.
DD2's school has 5 tracks and the students are assigned a track overall. This does not mean that all their GCSE results will be in that track's range of grades but it does give a broad sense of progress especially if a child falls a track level. The school also has procedures for students they think are not attaining their potential and the effort grades are being published every term.

If she is having difficulty with science, I would ask the school if they have a subscription to SAM learning www.samlearning.com/sam-learning-go/ because we have found it really useful for science practice in particular.

I would suggest you look at private tutoring/school if you have the option. State schools aren’t really a full education here.

We arrived from the US when Dd started year 5, she is now year 10 also.
I feel your pain, I haven't got a flamin clue either.
She has reports showing predicted grades of a lot of 7's and a 6. I had no idea what that was. So think you to the person who posted the comparison to letter grades.
She too wants to do Chemistry A level, along with Biology and RE. Even this seems to be restricted to me.
Our older boys went through the US system to 12th grade and one through University there. I only needed it explained to me one time there and I got it.
I went through high school and college in the UK and still don't get it.
You are not alone in your confusion, even the locals seem to not get it.

If the school has a cut off for triple science, what proportion of the school are they allowing to take it? Is it very high flyers only, or is it half the year group? That should give you some idea of where she is working (or at least, was working when they made that decision).

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.

Was she 98th percentile or did she score 98? In CATs a score 100 is the middle. So, if she scored 98, she would be considered about average for that test, and scoring 5s at GCSE would be about right.

But, and this is important, raw predicted grades being used for individual students is statistically unforgivable. CATs, SATs and predicted grades are only suitable for measuring the overall progress of a large number of students. When that is applied to individual students in can become wildly inaccurate.

Which is why my current school doesn't inform individual students and parents of their CAT scores unless pushed. We tend to use them as a basis for an initial "best guess" prediction at the start of year 7, but then they are refined and adjusted by teachers and heads of department as the progress, work ethic and aptitude of a student becomes better known over the 5 years.

The recommendation / requirement for only studying some subjects (usually chemistry, physics and maths) if a students gets a 7 or above is done in the best interest of the student. Those who get less than a 7 are unlikely to have the baseline knowledge of the subject required for a level study.

However, a 5 is a decent grade and you shouldn't be too disappointed if your DD don't manage to get a 7 in chemistry. Only 21% of grades awarded at GCSE are grade 7 or above, and they are likely to cluster (eg a student getting an 7+ in maths is likely to get a 7+ in physics). This means that less than 21% of students will achieve any grade 7s.

Finally, I tutor my subject (physics) and the success (measured in grade improvement) can vary wildly and ime depends on why the student needs tutoring in addition to their school learning. If your child has worked well in lessons and has decent teachers then tutoring is unlikely to make more than 1 grade difference.

Sorry, that was epic!

I do agree that all this "flight path" business is ok up to a point, but there are some absolutes that do relate to objective attainment levels. The difference at my DC's school is that while the assessment policy and reports are strictly effort/behavior/flight path, teachers have been more than happy to discuss attainment levels at parents' evenings.

I have always thought that we ( in England) ask children to specialise much too soon - making decisions about GCSEs very early that impact on which A levels they can take and then which impact on university choice. One of my DDs struggled with that.

Its origin lies in the past where fewer pupils stayed on past 16 to do A levels and even fewer then went on to University. My much older brother was within the very rigid system of science or classics ( which included arts and humanities ) for 6th form which could totally decide tertiary education options. And those in the old secondary modern schools took an entirely different exam which was difficult, though not impossible, to make progress in further education.

There has been a lot - so much- of tinkering, but now we have a leaving age of 18 and a universal exam structure I’m not sure I see the point of
public exams at 16 anymore.

I am with you, OP (also not British). There are many great things about the British school system, but this is exactly what I cannot understand as well.
I feel the window is closing even earlier. SATs at the end of primary determine the ability group they are placed in the secondary school, and they won't even be allowed even to try sitting "Higher" maths paper (as opposed to "Foundation") at GCSEs if they were placed in lower sets. So all your future life can be decided on one single day when you are 10. If you had a headache or a virus on the day, tough luck - unless your parents are able to buy you out from the system.
And the attitude is also quite weird. I was speaking to my DCs TA a couple of weeks ago about him being behind with reading, and she said - oh don't worry, well - unless they go on to read medicine or law they'll be fiiiine. The fact that at the age of 6 she has written my child off as someone who is not "on track" to do medicine or law is quite mind boggling.

We noticed it over our son's years at secondary. When he started, the reports etc were very clear - a clear grade for work done in the term and then a percentage mark for each end of year exam. Not only that, but they also included the class average percentage for the year end exam too, so it was very easy to see where he stood compared to the rest of the class, i.e. above average, average or below average. It really highlighted weak areas, i.e. if he was above average in most but below average in 1 or 2, that stood out and we could address it.

Now, he is in Upper Sixth, and over the years, that usefulness has been eroded. The first thing they did was stop giving the class average which was a shame. Then they stopped doing termly grades and the report became narrative only, i.e. "doing well, achieving target, etc". They even stopped giving year end percentage marks.

All far too "woolly" for us now and we're glad DS is nearly finished with it all. You really can't say "on target" without saying what that target is - it's completely meaningless.

SATs at the end of primary determine the ability group they are placed in the secondary school, and they won't even be allowed even to try sitting "Higher" maths paper (as opposed to "Foundation") at GCSEs if they were placed in lower sets. So all your future life can be decided on one single day when you are 10.

Which is exactly why the 11+ and grammar schools were scrapped in the 60s/70s. 50 years later and we're back to square one.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I'm curious about how it works these days when people are saying GCSE options close off future paths

I did English,Maths, 3 sciences, Geography, French, German, History - what paths does that close off, or would you not be allowed to choose those options now?

Objectively, I can't understand why any decision-making is based on predicted achievement rather than actual achievement.

It's because of OFSTED, data and league tables. Schools are ultimately judged on their results. Not allowing children to take exams unless the school is sure they will get a good result means they will generally get good results.

This is the problem in English state education; all about the data rather than the individual students.

SATs at the end of primary determine the ability group they are placed in the secondary school, and they won't even be allowed even to try sitting "Higher" maths paper (as opposed to "Foundation") at GCSEs if they were placed in lower sets. So all your future life can be decided on one single day when you are 10.

Only in a rubbish secondary school.

Any half decent secondary will teach in a manner that allows for movement between sets and will teach the child in front of them not a score.

Well I have had a few complaints about my sons' school but we get informed regularly about how our children are doing. We get a report at the end of each half term with the results of their learning for that block. Does nobody else have anything like this?

@TeenPlusTwenties
Maybe, I looked only on my local options, where it seems to be the case. They are ofsted "good", not sure how relevant or indicative this is. Children starting in lower sets are shown only the "foundation" curriculum, and there seem to be very little movement between the sets (all evidence anecdotal, of course). Moving "up" is not only a question of the student's ability, but also of whether there is a vacancy in the stream / set above their current.

Swan Anecdotally. Our local good comp:

• My DD1 moved up 1 set a year throughout secondary, even moving up between year 10 and y11.
• My y10 DD2 is in a 'crossover set' where some will take foundation and some higher dependent on how they get on with the harder topics.

Though there is no point trying to teach grade 8 stuff to pupils who can't do the grade 3/4 stuff.

Are you sure it's a predicted grade and not a 'currently working at' grade? If it's the latter she would probably get at least a 7.
What did she get in her year 6 SATs?

There has been a lot - so much- of tinkering, but now we have a leaving age of 18 and a universal exam structure I’m not sure I see the point of
public exams at 16 anymore

In England we don't have a leaving age of 18 and 000s of 16 year olds leave school every year to go on to do something else for which GCSEs are vital. Pretty much all vocational learning requires a certain level in GCSE English and Maths.

Wow at all the "did you not think to" responses. With the system in the US, where OP is from, children have marks and teachers tell you how they are performing in school. I agree with OP, it's all unnecessarily vague here. From what I can guess, it's because they don't want parents trying to push their children from an early age? I don't know, but it's bizarre. DS has autism and doesn't tell me anything about school beyond what interests him, so "don't you know what table he sits at?" or whatever is just ridiculous. Why on earth can the teacher not tell us these things? Why are we relying on children to convey the important bits? He's not in secondary yet but I guess none of this improves with the change of school.

Also,