to think GCSE targets of 9 is not right in year 7

[setingscats4]

My son has just had his targets issued in year 7 based on CATS4 testing. He has targets of 9. In previous years schools in our academy trust only ever gave targets of 8 even if kids achieved 120 in all their SATS exams.

It feels wrong to target children with 9s as they can never exceed their target especially with the amount of mental health issues in kids due to pandemic. Our school say they have no choice as it was decided by the trust and they have to follow it.

Targets matter in his school as they have them written in all their exercise books and every test is logged against the target plus each terms school report highlights the subject in red if you havent achieved your target.

I'd challenge it. When I was at high school we had a similar system brought in when I was in year 10. We got our predicted grades and a traffic light system. We had to get 80% percent of our grades green and the rest amber. Any reds we had to see our head of year. I was set A as my target for all my subjects apart from maths who gave me an A as a target. Therefore I could never achieve anything above 1 green (and an A in maths wasn't ever going to happen). I was consistently pulled in front of the head of year for not achieving 8 subjects green even though it was actually impossible and when I start getting multiple reds for achieving As I was pulled infront of the head teacher! It totally knocked my confidence and the pressure meant I didn't achieve the grades I actually should have got. In the long term it doesn't matter, I switched school for my A levels went to uni, got my PhD etc but I still remember how completely unfair it was and the pressure to perform well 20 years later!

@Crunchytoastandbutter

I am new to all this as have a DC starting school in secondary next year who is behind in all subjects. Does that mean that in Year 7 they will be told that they are likely to only get a 1-3 or whatever the marks might be? Surely not - I can't think of anything more damaging to a child's already self esteem. So you can work as hard as you like but are unlikely to get above a certain mark - how despressing! And agree - also very stressful for an able child expected to get top marks.

YANBU, sometimes I think some schools, or more often trusts, don't entirely get that making it look like on paper that they've all these students 'expected' to get 9s doesn't actually help much.

I think having a 4-8+ range or even having 7+ as the top, particularly at Y7, has more benefits and fewer risks & really, I think shows a better understanding of the system on how their end grades will depend somewhat on other people's marks (for better ot for worse).

@Crunchytoastandbutter Depends on the school or trust's policy - this all varies so widely, but the ones I know have a minimum of 4 as their target or expected grade and not to list below that unless there is a very exceptional circumstance (as in, it's listed as a possibility in policy paperwork, but I've not seen it done. IME, it's would be more expected to reduce the number of GCSEs a child does if there is a major concern still closer to KS4).

DC is Y7 at a grammar. School haven't told us results of the CATS (as yet). End of term report covers their behaviour in class, engagement with learning and organisation/homework. It says that next term there will be information on progress and attainment.

My child is on an excelling 8/9 flight path. I have told her that she can ignore it. As long as she feels she's mostly working hard then that's enough.

It's annoying for her because she lives for praise and she can never get better than 'at expected level' because expected level is excelling. Whereas if she was on a lower flightpath she could exceed expectations.

Also - the flight path covers the whole curriculum so her bit rubbish subjects like PE come up as 'Below expected level' even when the effort grade is ' Very good' which is very demoralising.

@Dalalalada

I couldn't agree more. What a load of head fuckery bollocks.

This, with bells on.

We used to have the red colouring on the reports and tbh it was really disheartening. DS1 was given a pathway of 6/7 in yr 11 and even though he was making good progress the report with red all over it was awful.

Thankfully they have now changed it and don't use colours just say whether the child is above, at or below their expected progress.

DS2 has just started secondary and is predicted 9's, however although he was getting 3/4's on his report he was still below target as his targets are so high!

DS had targets of 9 for everything in Year 7. It’s seems ridiculous to give him a target for subjects he’s never done before based on how well he did at maths and English in primary school. He was always below target in things like art and drama because they weren’t his thing. He also never got any teacher recognition awards because even when he got a 9 at the end of the year, he was still only on target. There was loads of treats and rewards for exceeding target except for the set 1 kids with 9 targets.

They revised a lot of them down in year 8, obviously good at maths doesn’t translate to good at drama.

Also - the flight path covers the whole curriculum so her bit rubbish subjects like PE come up as 'Below expected level' even when the effort grade is ' Very good' which is very demoralising.

Yes, this drives me bonkers too - I've tried to talk to some places about this, and all I've got so far is how hard it to get data for things like PE or art to make predictions on (or for subjects they've never done before...), but that doesn't make using their English and maths scores or similar academic testing a good idea! Schools seem stuck having to make some sort of prediction for inspectors or trusts when it makes no sense...

I don't know how it's done now but when I was working we were sent a grade predictions for Year 7 pupils based on their SATs scores and they covered every subject. I recall showing these to some of my Year 10s, they were sent retrospectively for older pupils, they had hysterics! One was preducted A*s across the board, including Sports Studies, a subject he was as good at as I am a tight-rope walker.
It was a statistical exercise.

@FruitToast

I'd challenge it. When I was at high school we had a similar system brought in when I was in year 10. We got our predicted grades and a traffic light system. We had to get 80% percent of our grades green and the rest amber. Any reds we had to see our head of year. I was set A as my target for all my subjects apart from maths who gave me an A as a target. Therefore I could never achieve anything above 1 green (and an A in maths wasn't ever going to happen). I was consistently pulled in front of the head of year for not achieving 8 subjects green even though it was actually impossible and when I start getting multiple reds for achieving As I was pulled infront of the head teacher! It totally knocked my confidence and the pressure meant I didn't achieve the grades I actually should have got. In the long term it doesn't matter, I switched school for my A levels went to uni, got my PhD etc but I still remember how completely unfair it was and the pressure to perform well 20 years later!

Utterly appalling... And completely unhelpful in terms of attainment... Re confidence /optimism and effort....

This blanket approach is idiotic

I think that set 9 is high because my sis said is low only set 2 and 3is high

I decided that they were ridiculous in Year 7 - my son got a decent 11+ score, so was flight pathed as a 7/8 in all subjects - including things like Art (which he is terrible at) and French (which he was even worse at).

But, even things like science, which weren't examined - it made no sense at all.

I wrote to school and told them my thoughts, their response was equally as daft and I made it very clear that I thought it was a load of rubbish!