school progress feedback - AIBU

[harkthegeraldangels]

DD is in yr 8. We had a behaviour and acadmic progress report in Dec Yr 7 - fine. We did not receive anything else until the end of this term when we had another behaviour report.

Firstly, is this normal for secondary schools during a pandemic? I wasn't too worried in the summer as understood it would be hard to asses progress when they are at home but would be good to know if this lack of feedback for nearly a year is normal.

Secondly, our report this term does not include any academic progress. Having spoken to the tutor, assessments have been done but not shared with parents. We were given a very quick verybal indication that DD is doing ok but from the examples shared, the progress is not in line with predicted pathway. Again, I get that we're in a pandemic, totally understand that teachers are completely swamped, but is this lack of feedback normal? I'd really rather know where DD is, however unpalatable, so we do our best to help her.

As an example - we do two tests a year - a "mid Year" and "end of year" which parents will get feedback.

Mid years are in Jan/Feb time and report goes home after.

Then most data will go home in the summer which obviously it wouldn't have this year.

If you want to know how your child is doing academically the best thing to do is to e-mail their teachers and/or look at what sets they are in.

e.g. If in set 1 out of 5 and they are "lower end of the group" then they are still well above.

If in set 4/5 and struggling then you might need to do something

Unfortunately with tests not until Year 11 any academic feedback for you is tough to quantify - best thing to do is to look at their KS2 scores which will give you an indication of their ability then ask their teachers how they are working.

We have just had progress reports.
Each subject has a grade A* and down that is predicted if keep up the same level of progress
Then each subject has 3 categories - attitude to learning, effort to learning and effort in homeschooling/homework. It’s a number systems so 1 is excellent and 4 terrible.
Gives a good idea as eg DS1 is rubbish at art and got a C (whereas everything else is A*/A) but his effort and attitude to art is all 1s so I can see he is putting in the effort so his C in a subject he’s not going to take at GCSE isn’t as much a concern than if it was a C in maths and his effort was all 3/4s

I think you need to give them a break on this one. You have a verbal update, they’re probably waiting to be able to give you more details.

Firstly, is this normal for secondary schools during a pandemic?

I don't know- how many pandemics do you think the school staff have lived through?

@BrieAndChilli - this is the kind of thing I was expecting.

@Haskell - of course, but there are plenty of parents with secondary school age kids that might be able to tell me what their school has been able to share with them over the past year. I've got nothing to compare it too - I was expecting more but if what I've got is standard for 'these times' or even 'any times' then that's good to know.

We have no academic report this year, just behaviour/effort.

We are in the process of getting (school have posted them) y7 reports which include gradings for effort and any behaviour concerns are raised. We have told assessment gradings will be with us by Feb due to Covid

My DD is in year 8 too. We got two reports last year (one in Jan and one in May) and have just received a Dec report. All three included progress. I'd be disappointed with what you describe.

The 2 different secondary schools that my children go to usually issue a termly progress report for terms 1 and 2 and a longer, full report in term 3 (summer). Y11 get the longer report in term 2 so before GCSEs.
Neither school reported for terms 2 or 3 last year as education was effectively suspended at that time so it was impossible to assess and grade work.
Both schools have issued progress reports this term (term 1).