To be stressed about GCSE 'flight path'

[Judetheobscurio]

My daughter is in year 9, and we have only just begun to receive progress reports which detail her 'flight path', as in year 7 and 8 all reports focused on 'effort' and whether she was 'meeting expectations'. What these expectations were was not stated, and I only finally received the 'flight path' at the start of year 9 when I requested it (although now it is given in the reports as 'target' grades for GCSE, along with current level, and an indication of what would be expected at this stage for someone with these 'target grades').

I was somewhat shocked at the flight path she has been given, which is mainly 5s and 6s. Maybe naively, I had understood throughout primary school and years 7 and 8 that she is a bright child and is doing well, although she has never been pushed by us or had tutors - we live in an area with good local secondary schools so no need to prepare for 11 plus etc. I have subsequently realised this entire flight path (for all subjects, including DT, Art, PE!) has been based on SATS results - for context she didn't do SATS due to covid, although prior to this, when it was expected they would, primary school very much pushed the view that SATS were to test the school not the child and would have no bearing on her future education (subsequently I feel this information was erroneous). Despite not doing SATS, the 'results' submitted for her were based on one practice paper done in January of year 6 - several months before she would normally have sat these, and without the preparation that would usually have occurred. I have no idea if other local schools (she went to a small village primary) have 'estimated' their results in the same way.

She has recently been diagnosed with dyslexia (my concerns about an academic performance below what I would have expected led me to reflect on a few issues which had been in the back of my mind for a while and have her assessed) so this is likely to have had an impact on her attaining her potential and hopefully she can now be supported with this. My worry is the craziness of basing an entire predicted academic attainment across a wide range of subjects on two English and maths papers age 11. Reassuringly the recent progress report (which comes with limited explanation and took me a while to interpret) seems to indicate she is currently achieving above what would be expected for her 'target grades', even without her dyslexia having been recognised and supported.

My worry is that teachers are just going to work towards people achieving these arbitrary 'targets' and think that's fine, when from my point of view it isn't and I would
like her to be supported to aim higher than this. I'd really appreciate advice from any teachers as to whether this is the case or whether we can just ignore these predictions and support her to work towards achieving the best possible grades. Also from anyone who has experience of dc being given 'target grades' which turned out to be inacccurate. It feels to me like some kind of fate has been set aged 11 without us being properly informed, and with potentially damaging consequences.
Apologies for long post for anyone who has got this far!

It is in the school’s interest for the target grades to be as low as possible, so if the child achieves higher grades it shows in the school’s added value scores, which are increasingly looked at.

The problem will arise if the school puts on extra classes as they will be aimed at the pupils who are missing their target grades. You will have to hire tutors if you want additional help.

Her flight path predictions do not define her in the teachers eyes and it is extremely common for pupils to achieve well above their flight path if they are self motivated to work hard. And it is also common for pupils not to achieve their flight path grades, because obviously pupils do change a lot as they grow older and some lose motivation in doing well at school.

It’s great that she is currently working at a grade or 2 above her flight path in most subjects. Hopefully she will be be able to make even better progress now she has a diagnosis with the extra support that brings.

@jeanne16 that is exactly the kind of thing I mean and seems really unfair! I have already got her tutors for maths and English as felt had no option really.

That is actually nonsense because the flight path grades come from the assessment done before they start secondary school, so how could the secondary school keep the grades as low as possible?

They have to be able to measure where they started, usually SATs and then measure where they ended up and if they achieve higher than the predicted flight path then the school gets good Progress 8 scores which is what matters most.

Progress is not linear. Yes my child was predicted a flight path but decided that his predicted grades would not define him. He put in a bit of extra effort and his maths grade went from a predicted 6 to a 9, same with English, a 5 to an 8. Teachers want children to do well, they will support and encourage them and will not teach to their grade. Real predictions don't come in until year 11 really. They usually have end of year 10 mocks which are GCSE papers on the topics they have covered. You have plenty of time to get the support in from SENCo and encourage your DD to go beyond just homework.

"The problem will arise if the school puts on extra classes as they will be aimed at the pupils who are missing their target grades. You will have to hire tutors if you want additional help."

Absolutely not the case in the school my children attended. Ds2 was predicted pretty much 8s and 9s across the board including never getting below 95% on any maths paper and he still had to attend all the compulsory revision sessions. These were aimed at all children to ensure they achieved their personal grades. They were divided into different groups to cover the wide range of year 11 grades. This is a state school, no tutors required. The sheer amount of revision guides and YouTube videos from actual teachers is immense.

No one should determine a child's future ability at 11.

It really isn't worth worrying about the flight paths. As pp have said, it's in the school's interest for children to do better than their target grade as it boosts their progress 8 scores. As your DD is already doing better than her target they will continue at her current level. Ongoing assessment will be what determines the level she is taught at rather than flight paths established when she was still at primary.

I don’t consider it unfair that schools like mine run intervention sessions for pupils most at risk of not obtaining a GCSE pass (grade 4) in subjects like Maths & English. The pupils will have to give up something else in order to attend the intervention sessions, like they will lose a different GCSE subject to focus on the core subjects.
Parents of children who do not need to attend these intervention sessions should be pleased that their children are able to access all subjects and don’t need extra support to get a grade 4. If they choose to get private tutors to help their children achieve higher grades that is their prerogative. But their children are not losing out in school just because some others may attend intervention lessons in core subjects at the expense of giving up a language say or another subject. All pupils get the same amount of teacher time during school hours.

My DS had flight path of 4- to 5 in his subjects and recently achieved six 8s (couple of 9s, a 6 and a 7).
His flight path was based on SATs and baseline tests when he was in Year 7.

Subjects like History were given a flight path on his English SAT so a predicted 4 flight path turned into a 9 in his GCSE.

He underperformed at SATs in primary and struggled in Year 7 at his school.

The only disadvantage was his placement in lower sets as some disruptive behaviour from pupils.
He was put in the bottom set of 9 for science and I was so annoyed I made him watch Free Science lessons videos and revise for each end of topic tests and by Year 8 he moved up a couple then another in Year 9 and by Year 10 he had moved up through all the sets to the first set and was generally in the top 5-10 pupils there.

The main thing to look at is what is your DC achieving in unit tests they sit. Teacher predictions tended to even be a bit cautious from these I found as he exceeded these in his tests from Year 9 and in mocks then actual GCSEs.

It was thoroughly depressing to see the flight paths on every report, but they are just that and your dc may or not follow them depending on whether they improve as they progress.
His school didn't limit him in what he was taught but there was annoyance at him being in lower sets when he regularly achieved more for say Maths he was in set 3-4 all the way through (in an underperforming secondary) yet was getting 9/8 grades and there seemed to be little movement. My main concern was the pupil behaviour not the teaching though.

I'm pretty academic so just thought he wasn't from his flight paths but he just had a poor performance initially then started to realise he had to put in a bit of effort and in middle secondary and did well.
There's loads of online resources for GCSE if you dc is willing to do them.
I don't feel a flight path is particularly useful but can be prod to paying a bit more attention to how your dc is actually doing and are there any resources that may help them.

Did is also year 9. They did CAT assessments at the start of y7 and after a term at high school we were given her GCSE predictions!

She's slightly grumpy that expectations are high and that we nudge her to do a little more when reports indicate she's not at the expected standard! ”because, mum, the expected standard is really high". 😆

I do agree it’s problematic for pupils that are put in the bottom sets because of their performance in primary school assessments but who actually are more able than it appears from their SATS. As a TA I observe that the behaviour is noticeably worse in bottom set classes so the struggle is real to get them out of there. I feel the frustration when pupils I work with show their ability early on but are not moved up to a higher set until the next academic year. I personally think there should be greater fluidity in sets but that’s a different topic I guess!

Another thing is watch out for is if they put her in the lower science or maths papers. I forget the correct terminology but there's a higher and a regular/lower paper. If you sit the lower one you can only get a highest of a grade 6.
This may not be an issue but at least you need to be aware of this in case it's important for your child.

Might be best to book appointment at school to reassure you, you do need to trust them that they will get the best out of her, 6 is a good score, is B and will get them in to 6th form .

With Foundation level papers, the highest grade you can achieve is a 5.
However, in a decent school the majority of pupils will sit the higher paper.
As an example, in my school we have 5 maths sets. In sets 1-4 the teacher covers all the topics necessary for the higher paper. Only in set 5 ( which is a small class anyway) does the teacher except the pupils to all be sitting the foundation paper.

Thanks @Headunderthecovers that's really encouraging to hear. It is really demoralising I feel to have this flight path rigidly maintained on all reports - just to highlight that expectations of you are low..... I have told her that she needs to ignore the flight path anyway, as I don't feel
its accurate and it certainly isn't aspirational but it's still disconcerting to see...

She is very conscientious as school and gets top effort grades (for what that's worth) though so far this does not extend much to academic interest our of school - I went a bit overboard at beginning of term when all this came to light, making her watch bbc bite size videos with me and going through science workbooks over lunch (in cafes, at her insistence...) at weekends - this has dropped off a bit as she has quite a lot of extracurricular activities and a full social life preferable to sitting with her mum in Starbucks studying circuits... but I think I need to start encouraging it again.

I am a bit in two minds about the tutors - she's not very happy about it (although engaging), it's online and I wonder if I should be looking for something more dyslexia specific. We have only done about a month, so I guess I will see how it goes but don't want to waste time and money on this if it isn't helpful.

I'm aware some of it will have to come from her, and at this point she doesn't really know what she wants to do so doesn't have that impetus to strive for good grades in particular subjects. On the plus side, she is talented and motivated in creative subjects like art, and she is quite happy in herself and popular - things I know I should be very grateful for (and am!)

Yes, good points about the science and maths sets - I think that in her school most sit the higher papers (maybe unless really struggling) but will find out soon as they are having options meetings.
She is in 'set 1' for the setted subjects - but this is misleading as it is set 1 in the band she is in which is a mixed achievement band (they have one 'high' achievement band and two other bands, though the school actually communicate none of this to parents). However, I guess the sets she is in are working at a reasonable level and there aren't any behaviour problems, which is good.

Teacher here, please try not to worry about these target grades. If your daughter missed the SATs then the target grade couldn't be generated using that. When that happens in my school we are asked to give the student a target grade. We always err on the side of caution because as teachers we are measured on how students do against these grades. The target grade won't affect what your daughter achieves, it is a blunt tool to help teachers identify students who are underperforming and your daughters teachers know her and will be able to give you a clear idea of what grade she is performing at as the gcse course progresses. Right now they are cautious because she hasn't sat a gcse style exam.

As you have said previously that she is getting marks for effort and she's conscientious at school that is the best quality to have.
She has special measures in place because of her dyslexia and she's trying her best.
Those grades are still good grades!
Lower grade papers the highest you can get is a 5 so she'll be doing the higher paper.
I feel really sorry for your daughter as all my parents cared about is if I tried my best and worked hard. I got 5 Bs and 4 Cs in my GCSEs. I didn't get the same grades as my sister who is more academic than me.
I really struggle in exam settings.
My parents were/still proud of meAcademia isn't everything. I'm now a nurse practitioner with lots of life experience and knowledge behind me.

I would be worried as she will not receive any intervention support unless she falls below these predictions.

In your shoes, and as a former English teacher, I would get in touch with SENCo and meet to discuss support with her dyslexia. Teachers and tutors need to be knowledgeable about dyslexia and how to support her with, e.g. structuring her writing and note-taking; reading strategies such as highlighting key words. Will she qualify for a laptop and extra time for exams? If so, those practices need to be put in place now so she gets her typing speed up and assessments should
be done with the extra time to give a true indication of where she is achieving. For your information, this is standard practice in private schools.

I’d support her with homework and organising her notes so she will be able to revise from them later. I’d ask for regular feedback from teachers about what she is achieving and how things are going with the dyslexia strategies so you and she can find what works for her. Things like what tier papers she’ll sit are crucial and you need to have those conversations early.

@Runaway1 thanks, that's really useful information I will take it on board.

@Cantbebotheredwithchores my daughter does not need anyone feeling sorry for her thank you - as I've indicated in my previous posts I am really proud of the qualities she has, including her attitude, her personality, her social skills (far superior to mine at that age) and her creative talents. She also is talented at sports. She receives a huge amount of positive feedback on all this, and this is reflected in her robust levels of self esteem and generally being at ease with herself and others. I have also emphasised how well she has done in the context of undiagnosed dyslexia.

Of course I am aware that I don't want her to feel criticised. At the same time I want her to achieve her best, as all good parents do, and I intend to do whatever necessary to
support that.

Gosh ignore SAT scores - they are for the school and government to manage something. My son got 120 for both english and maths in his SAT scores and 118 for reading - it just meant he was predicted high scores on his flight path but he was not on track to achieve these so his scores have been down graded. He did not get any extra support to help him achieve this predicted grades - in fact we have just worked out in year 11 he has inattentive ADHD which would explain in part why he is no longer going to get very high scores. He's on track to get anything from an 8 to a 5 and hes at a grammar school. Worth googling inattentive ADHD as dyslexia can have another neurodiversity with it.

My daughter did GCSE's last year and her results weren't really true to her flight path in younger years. She did much better than predicted in many of them

My DDs are older and did do SATs. They had flight paths which were on display at every parents' evening, in a graph that sat alongside where they actually were. Every single teacher at that school worked towards maximising their achievement, not just meeting flight path targets - this was in an ordinary state school. If yours is a good school, they will do the same.

In Yr11 our school laid on support sessions in tiers, and that included sessions for those capable of hitting grades 7 - 9 so that people sitting at a 7 got their best shot at making that an 8 or a 9.

Both my DDs looked to be around the 5-6 mark if you checked their flight paths. They vastly exceeded that. Your DD will too, if her school is good and she works hard.

The way secondary school accountability works is the average of the reading and maths KS2 SATs scores are taken and nationally after GCSEs are taken the government use that information to show what the average GCSE outcome was for each KS2 starting point.

There is a very lengthy document explaining all this here:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1112046/Secondary_accountability_measures_2022_guide.pdf

Page 67 shows what I am talking about.

So for example a child with a KS2 average of 110 in 2017 achieved 61.45 Attainment 8 points at GCSE on average in 2022. This forms the basis of the Progress 8 measure and each child's score is compared to their relevant average all this positive and negative figures are brought together and an overall Progress 8 score is produced for the school.

Progress 8 remains the main measure of secondary school accountabilty, for example if you look at the performance tables this is what they they headline with.

So back to my example if the average nationally for a child with 110 is 61.45 then they will most likely be given a GCSE target by the school of a grade 7. This would give them a attainment 8 score of 70 - if a grade 7 was achieved in all subjects (English and maths are doubled in the calculations so essentially it is 10 scores (this is why schools focus on Eng and Maths more)) also of course these are government priorities. So again in this example the child would score roughly 9 points above their attainment 8 target and because it is effectively made of 10 components this is an average of +0.9. It is these scores that are added up so when you see a school that has a progress 8 of +0.5 it means that on average the cohort have achieved half a grade higher per subject than schools with similar cohorts nationally.

I know this is all background blurb but it does explain why schools focus in the way that they do.

So.... schools are ingrained in this way of working however, it doesn't work for every child, at best it is a loose guide.

Why does this exist? Well before progress measures the main headline measures on which schools were judged was things like % 5+A*-C grades including English and maths. This unfortunately created a massive focus on the C/D grade borderline and the focus that undoubtedly happened would be that a lot of the effort and resource would go into these groups to get C grades. This potentially was at the detriment of those who were comfortably a B grade for example or an A, they weren't pushed as much to achieve higher.

Under progress 8, whilst it is mostly data nonsense it does mean that there is incentive to try to improve every grade for every student.

HOWEVER, as you rightly say, your child has no official SATS due to the pandemic. So all of the above doesn't apply. The government haven't yet said what they will do about this, but what can they do? Progress accountability measures only work when there is a start and end point. Therefore it is likely that for these cohorts we will be back to the attainment only measures and potentially the grade boundary cliff faces they present. Nonetheless the school will be sticking to what they know in terms of flight paths and targets (I'm not saying any of these things are right but they do provide a framework for the school to see who needs more support). The next problem is that they have no SATS so the school has made them up. They should have an assessment policy on exactly how they have made them up but common ways are either to get a prediction from the primary school on what they would/could have achieved at KS2 or they will have done their own round of tests in Year 7, either SATS or CATS and tried to convert them to give each child a starting point. Across a whole cohort this is possibly OK but at individual child level it is very problematic.

Therefore whilst all this exists because it is the crutch by which schools work, the teachers SHOULD know some of the above and that it is all nonsense really at individual level and they will be pushing each child to be the best they can be. Teachers of course are professionals and they should be trusted to do this. Only if you feel the school policy is interfering with teacher professional capabilities then this is an issue.

Again you could challenge the arbitrary starting point for your child with whoever is in charge of assessment at the school because there is no basis in fact for it, the school can't be judged on it (for your year group) so really they have the power to adjust it if they feel it is relevant.

Sorry for massive post and good luck.

It’s a pity that schools aren’t more open about the importance of SATS and CATs assessments. Appreciate your child didn’t do a SATs but no one seems to talk about this. It takes proactive parents who do research themselves (mumsnet was invaluable) to realise that really pushing your child on SATs and CATs is important for how they are viewed by their new secondary. The amount of time I’ve heard that SATs are pointless and only for the school, I think it’s really misleading.