DfE have confirmed the end of NC Levels

[Itchyandscratchy]

Here

Sorry if this is already out there and old news.

If not, discuss...!

Thanks Itchy, it may be old news but I didn't know about this.

My initial reaction, surprisingly, as I'm suspicious of many of this government's reforms, is positive. I like the idea of focusing on what the child can do in more broad terms rather than the micro-managing of a specific skillset.

Thanks Itchy, I didn't know either - I am rather sceptical instead and will reserve judgement until I see it working in practice.

I see this as potentially an excellent outcome for outstanding schools and a terrible one for failing schools and their parents.

I like NC levels.

It stops teachers telling me my child is 'doing fine', 'making progress' etc when actually they are slipping further behind their classmates and need me to do some proactive intervention.

Teen, I would expect teachers to show me evidence of how my child is progressing in some terms - NC or not. Our school has software that tracks every child's individual progress, so it's not hard to do!

I'm sure there will be measurements of some sort, they will just be called something else

Actually - now I've read the information - I suspect there will be a period of chaos in a lot of schools, and the NC levels will be clung to (overtly or covertly!) for a long time to come.

We will overtly cling to national curriculum levels as they have the widest possible understanding of any alternative, at least through to end of key stage 3

In KS4 there is already the proposed confusion of levels 1 to 8 with 8 being highest grade for 2015

A couple of schools I work with sometimes have already scrapped levels and use GCSE grades all through school from Y7.