AIBU to not understand the numbers on my DD's school report?

[UndertheCedartree]

I'm so confused!

My DD is in Y7. She started the school a term late so this was her first report/parents evening. I asked some questions about the grading but honestly I left more confused.

On her report there are numbers from 1+ up to 4. There is a number for a target and then a number from her latest assessment.

First of all I'm so confused where they get the targets from. They told me they are from data they get from her Primary school but lots of the subjects they didn't do at Primary school or not much anyway. I asked if 4 is the highest (like an A) and I was told a 4 is where they should be at the end of Y7 then a 5 is for the end of Y8. So does that mean my DD is really behind if she isn't close to 4s? And if so I don't get it as she was only a little behind in Maths at Primary. And why are her teachers so happy with her if she is doing so badly! 😂 It's all such a mystery! What happened to ABC! It's all about data now, but I just can't get my head around it.

So if they set her target as say 2 and she then scores a 3 on her last assessment they will say she is 'exceeding' and all is fantastic but actually it is a whole point away from where she should be at the end of Y7 so surely eventually it means she'll be way behind in Y11 and fail all her exams?

That's madness!

It sounds like it's the baseline. So what she started with rather than where she will be after they've done more teaching and she's taken the end of year assessments.

Sorry, what sounds like the baseline?

It sounds like you were asking individual teachers to explain the grading system. You should email the school office instead, as there must have been a document issued to parents to explain it. Or, it is freely available on the school website.

Our school sends a supplementary document with each report to explain the targets, progress and grading (1-4), but perhaps yours did this before your DD started?

The y6 SAT score.
It is making more sense to me now too.

I personally think it should be added onto the reports - as a Key on a map. Would save a lot of emails around report time if it was on the document it was related to, surely?

Edited because I see you said your school does this.

Yes, maybe. They did send a FAQ sheet which I've looked at again. I did read it but didn't understand whether it meant.

Targets are calculated using the 'FFT system' based on SATs and using 'predetermined flight paths' which vary from student to student. If achieved they will be 'in line with' or 'above' national expectations.

I have emailed school to ask about it because I can get the general gist from that paragraph but it's really not detailed enough for me to understand fully.

Ah, right. Apparently they use other data from their Primary school too. Not sure what. I just find it strange that they can look at Maths & English tests and work out how good at Art they are or how good at Spanish which she has never done at school but is good at because her grandparents live in Spain! Music she got a target of 2- when she plays the keyboard and violin and used to sing in the choir at Primary. Her highest target is a 4 for Religious studies - she's barely ever studied this before! So it just seems so arbitrary!

I think that explanation could be improved though because I've read it a number of times and really don't fully understand! (And I don't think I'm stupid!😂)

I knew one family with twins who were raised in another country, so fluent, one better than the other slightly. They were given different grades via this system (so couldn't have been based on SATs as they were abroad) with the one who was better predicted a 1 and the worse one predicted 3! You would think the teacher would be able to add to the algorithm somewhere to correct glaring errors.

They're all different. In ours 1 is exceeding 2 good 3 working towards and 4 not great. I would call the school and get them to go through it with you, especially if you have just moved there etc

Do they not expect anyone to get below a 6 then, or do they award negative numbers?

About 15 years ago, the government got rid of KS3 (Year 9) SATS, about 4-5 years later the levels that used to be awarded were removed from use but not replaced with anything uniform across the country so all secondaries had to make up a system to report for Yr 7-9, once you hit yr 10 you can use GCSE predictions. Hence the confusion that reports create!

FFT is the Fischer Family Trust who have been around for years collecting data on academic achievement and how results as they move from KS2- GCSEs.

The Flightpath is how they will get from SATS results to GCSE grades, that sentence in the FAQ makes perfect sense to me, but its language I use at work regularly, not always helpful for non teaching people!

Students GCSE predicted target grades are based on SATS - its how we are measured to be 'performing' for Maths and English this is directly based on the Maths/English SATS for other subjects the average of the two is used. As someone else said these are tracked back to be used for KS3 monitoring.

Sadly what yours mean will definitely need to be down to your school to explain due to the lack of consistency across the country.

I did read your OP; if you didn’t understand the answer to your question then you ask a follow up-‘sorry, I didn’t understand, are you saying this is a good score and predictor or is there something we need to work on?’

If you really want to get the most out of parents’ evening, ask about your daughter’s attitude to learning and how quickly she’s picking up new concepts/skills and applying them. The numbers will just drive you mad.

DD3's old school used to report in a 'your child is working at a rate that might result in a grade x' way. So year 7 kids being given 9s. Then they realised that it was a bit unrealistic, so they decided to change it to 'if your child took a GCSE in this subject today, this is the grade they'd get', with an explanation that a grade 2 in year 7 is perfectly good and will result in a grade 6 in year 11. Then they realised that they couldn't really predict in that fashion because they haven't taught the whole curriculum... So then they changed it to 'mastery levels' with an explanation that a child who has mastered their subject is likely to get a 7-9, and that what is considered mastered changes each term as teaching progresses, etc.

It's all imperfect. But they have to report something.

With a bit of extra noodling around in the apps (and frequently paying extra), you can get a version that calculates on the basis of CAT4s/other assessments aimed at identifying raw ability instead. As they aren't used for Government measures of progress, most schools have tended to stick to the KS2 data (nobody likes surprises in outcomes, whether it's a worse than expected P8/A8 or a better one), but will use the CATs for identifying potential SEND/gaps in education from being taught to the test, not to understanding and to allow proper monitoring of those who did not sit SATs for any reason (not in the country, withdrawn, on holiday, ill, in private primary, EHE, etc).

I prefer using CAT4s, as they don't test how well a child remembered to front their adverbials and ignore that you are comparing a nearly 12 year old with others who are 10 until 30th August, they assess verbal, non verbal, quantitative and spatial reasoning and weight for their children's actual ages, instead - and you at least have control in making sure all new starters sit them, so you have more complete data to start with.

But I'm not SLT, so just have to make the data get where it needs to go and for the calculations to work to reflect the government prescribed methods of assessing progress.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

As I said, I didn't have time to ask all my questions as you only get 5 min with each teacher!

Thanks for the advice!

They do have a number on their report for attitude to learning and a separate one for homework (1-4, 1 being the best.) This was explained well on the report. I did ask if there was anything she could improve on.

But that's a good question about how quickly she is picking things up. I'll remember that next time.

Blimey! 😀

This makes me sound like my mum but A, B, C etc was so much easier to understand!

Yes! The school is private so they did a CAT4 and MidYis, the one better at the language scored lower on those than the other, so despite it being obvious to anyone speaking to them in the language the rest of the scores would have affected their report grade. Obviously this affected them negatively as it was their favourite subject.

I honestly don't really understand why they don't use the end of term exams. Surely these are age appropriate, in line with the national curriculum and a good way to measure progress in their peer group? Better than something they took 2 years ago at any rate?

It sounds so simple to let the teachers write in reports, and I know teachers seem to not want to, but it must increase admin?

Target is set by SATs itis ridiculous to heap that pressure on the child to be constantly judged by an algorithm based on brief tests (usually intensively prepped for). Many children essentially slip against that mark and are receiving a message of essentially not doing well enough. No wonder so many are experiencing huge anxiety

There is no set way of assessing any more. They did away with it.

So school A might do this in y7, and school B something entirely different, and academies don't have to follow to national curriculum, and then school C says "we don't assess at all" except they do.but give them words like "dragon" and "beetle" instead of grades...

It's a mess.

Surely you had the same grading system at primary school? Developing, meeting, exceeding? To be attaining a 4 with almost a full term in year 7 left would mean they're exceeding in every subject!
They did away with ABC etc because it was getting ridiculous my friends son achieved A+++ in science and wasn't the highest mark in the country!