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's important in a way but also there's a balance. I know all the above but I didn't push my child on KS2 SATs because I felt that if we revised and prepped etc. then it might be detrimental in that they get put on pathways they aren't suited for, this might create pressure in other ways, might really impact them negatively in the future. I literally just said, "try and do your best, don't worry about any questions you can't do, have a go or come back to them". That was the extent of our preparation from home, aside from ensuring they went to bed on time.

Que sera sera.

Thanks @BaconMassive, that's really informative - I had worked some of this out through googling but not in so much detail (common theme that school tell you nothing!) I can see the argument for it as opposed to the previous system of trying to get everyone a C. But also feel it puts people in boxes too early, and in the case of this cohort with covid the starting point feels even more arbitrary. My plan essentially is to ignore/ aim above the flight path and I really hope teachers are open to this not being set in stone.

@SafelySoftly yes I am a bit annoyed at our (otherwise lovely) primary school pushing the line that SATS are unimportant, when in fact this is totally untrue!

I think you are confusing "decent" with "very academic".

The majority of GCSE students do not sit the higher paper.

Roughly 40% to 50% of students do sit the higher tiered papers nationally.

support.ocr.org.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/360038360392-GCSE-Mathematics-What-proportion-of-students-take-each-tier-

DD did really well in English SATS.
Result was high predicted grades for English subjects, so she spent the whole of KS3 working "below expectations" despite doing amazingly well in most cases, because teachers couldn't predict that a KS3 child was working at the very high predictions.

Results - total demoralisation. I wish I'd told DD to aim to do averagely well and she could have spent KS3 exceeding expectations.

The best thing parents can do is ignore the flight path type predictions and just tell their child to do the best they can.
The only thing SATS are useful for is meaningless (to your child) school reporting.

If your school is basing sets (beyond very initial ones)/actual targets/the way they teach your child on their KS2 SATS then I'd frankly find another school.

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

Dont worry, these targets are possibly jotted down somewhere in my planner, but not in any way thought of as a ceiling or limit. In fact, totally irrelevant to day to day teaching and learning. After an exam I may compare target grade to achieved grade, and pick up on anyone seriously under achieving, that's all

Obviously there are some great teachers. There are also some who are demotivated and burnt out - much like many jobs in the public sector, so while on the whole I'm sure most teachers are doing the best they can they are not going to have my child's interests at heart the way I do.
Hence if she is 'bumping along her flight path' as someone said earlier, they are not going to bother trying to stretch her as they may be focused on the person who is achieving similarly but had a higher flight path to begin with as they are worried they won't meet targets.

Old money B I'd be ok. Old money C, quite honestly I would be disappointed and also concerned I had failed her.

@Nimbostratus100 thanks, that's helpful, hope that is a typical attitude as I don't like the idea of her being pigeonholed by teachers in a low achieving box.

Of course SATs are unimportant for individual pupils. Flight paths are essentially meaningless on an individual level and SATs, Progress 8 etc are statistical measures designed to asses how well a school has helped a cohort of children. We apply them to individual children only because far too many people in education have a very poor understanding of appropriate use of statistics. Where a school or teacher (or parent for that matter) is taking that seriously for an individual pupil they are doing the pupil a disservice. They may be useful as a rough guide before you know the child but I mostly find them more of a hinderance than a help.

Where schools have focussed intervention for GCSE it tends to be for those who are on the pass/fail borderline as failing in maths or English does limit your options pretty badly. And it tends to only start in year 11 anyway, so you’ve got a couple of years before you need to worry about that.

In year 9 you need to focus on work ethic, behaviour in lessons and practising revision techniques. With children who have (or may have) SEN, getting appropriate support in place early on is key. It sounds like you have all that under control. So the only thing to worry about now is making sure you don’t put her under pressure - I teach far too many children (particularly girls) who struggle with MH because they hate being less academic than their parents. If her getting a 5 will mean you feel like a failure that’s way too much pressure for a teenager. And don’t kid yourself, teenagers can tell.

My son is now yr11 and his target grades have changed several times in the years since yr9, they don't just keep the same one if subsequent test results show it to be wildly wrong. 6 is a B, that is a good result!

Honestly OP, these flight paths are such a load of rubbish and they often seem to restrict students from aiming high rather than facilitate it. Tell her to take it with a massive pinch of salt. Her SATS do NOT determine her potential.

@JemimaTiggywinkles you are making good points, and I take on board the potential adverse impact of feeling pressured due to being less academic than parents. I really don't want her to feel criticised, I do want to try to support her with the right study techniques and support with her dyslexia as I think that's probably key - but I'm not sure what these are myself
so will have to do some research!

I am ashamed to admit that I just assumed she would be fine academically, as I was very academic and so was her dad - she does present as bright, partly as she is very social and articulate and always has been, but I appreciate the point made above that primary schools are probably quite complimentary to many parents, making it seem like their child is amazing... which as parents we are very happy to accept is the case! Then in the
first 2 years of secondary school
the compliments continue but with very little information about actual achievement. So this year since September, realising she isn't doing as well as I assumed she would/ should be has been a shock.

@ChristmasTensions I have told her this exactly.

Please try not worry - it is all made up data. Made up sats scores, made up targets (there is no government model for target setting so schools set their own) and made up “flight paths”

it provides an indication for teachers about how the students rank within a class or year but it never a cap on achievement.

the government has already acknowledged that normal school progress measures will be defunct due to covid years on sats.

I would encourage you not to worry and to support your daughter. I would also add a grade 6 is a High B (in old money) this is a very respectable score. Around 20% of students nationally get 7+.

I would wait to see what her year 10 reports are saying about predictions before coming to any conclusions about her likely grade.

I think these threads come up fairly regularly.

People report being told SATS at end of primary are just for measuring school and have no impact on child. On one level that’s true, but it’s also the case that GCSE targets are based on them, and things like setting, deciding how many languages someone can do and if they can do triple or dual award science, can be fully or partly determined by them.

Actual expectations can adjust up and down in light of evidence of students (although often they don’t have that much work marked by the teacher) but the reality is that Progress 8 is a statistical measure and relates to cold hard data from SATS and not evidence CCG provided during secondary years.

If SATS results don’t exist and Covid has clearly impacted these, the blunt process is even blunter than usual.

What I would say, is continue talking to the school. Ask lots of questions by email, ask for a meeting to help you understand more if possible. Ask to understand exactly what data the flight oath has been based on, find out if CAT tests were sat and results and if not what else was used and ask for clarity in this impacts options, settings, foundation and lower papers. Ask for clarity and confirmation there won’t be limits set on her, if necessary, ask for further updates and the thinking behind them.

The reality is you often have to push a bit and ‘be that parent’ to ensure your child doesn’t vanish into the masses and gets that but if extra attention that means decisions are made based on actual performance and not just a massive bank of data.

I’ve seen it multiple times with parents, who thought everything could be left to the school and were happy enough with parents’ evening saying ‘all is going well’ without anything a bit more concrete, and then been disappointed later and realising they didn’t have all the info earlier….but they didn’t know what what to ask for. They realised schools will often be quite satisfied with mediocre and actually more targeted parental input or other input might be needed to get the best outcomes. Even middle class and savvy parents often don’t know quite what’s going on really or the steps through education and different assessment points and how they can feed into targets at the next level or beyond, and how these can influence opportunities. It really will be the case, that being in higher sets or being able to move up into higher sets will be more likely if the earlier data indicates higher ability, and because places in these sets are always limited and it’s harder to move people down, a low performer in previous official data will probably need to over from better to get moved up than someone who had been a low performer.

For anyone with younger kids, you can ask the school for more information on how attainment and progress are measured and ask for that data the school holds if you want. You can ask for what they are targeting and what their current level is, even if that info isn’t made available. When looking at secondary schools, you can ask what data they receive, hiw they use it And what further baseline tests are taken and how they are used. You can ask about options to do more languages and sciences etc and how these opportunities are determined. Sometimes answers will be a bit vague but you can push for the info and build up dialogues and understanding with people like a Head of Year.

So basically, ask for more info and don’t just settle if you’re not happy with the info. Most people don’t seem to be too bothered about getting more info, so generally I think schools get the balance about right of providing accessible and useful info that works for most. But some always do want to know more….and you need to ask. Any ask any teacher friends if there’s anything useful they think it’s worth knowing, that they’d be keen to know about their kids…that can be useful as often it’s stuff those not in education can’t really see at the start of the journey.

One last thing, lots of people state a B/7 is a respectable grade. Of course it is, and for some that’s a great achievement and for others a distinct let-down.

It can be difficult to have a sense of where their kids fit and if they are very high, high, medium or lower ability, because most hear ‘they are doing well’ or the words in the report are couched in terms non-teachers might not be able to read between the lines for. SATS levels were clearly not perfect by any means, but did indicate which students were working at greater-depth. CAT scores do show where kids sit on the bell curve….again, nothing is perfect and there are always anomalies, but without that stuff it’s easy to see why parents can be significantly ‘off’ in their understanding of where their child is, and be rather shocked when a bit of harder data emerges.

@WombatChocolate a 7 is not a B. It's an A.

Thanks @WombatChocolate - that perfectly describes what I have just experienced in terms of previously having little knowledge of the system (I think the onus should be on schools to communicate this though) and subsequently having to become 'that parent' at the start of the year in order to become informed. I essentially had to organise a meeting and extract information through a process of inference and systematic questioning - none of the other parents I mentioned this to had a clue about the system either (and generally appeared unbothered). However, if I had not made a nuisance of myself I would not have been alerted to the possibility of dyslexia (note - not something school picked up on at all which probably does reflect that if a student is achieving ok, albeit mediocre results, they are not going to create more work for themselves) and this would probably have continued to go completely unnoticed.