year averages taken out of grades report cards

[Threeschools]

DS has just received his end of year 8 report in a selective indie. Last year we also had the year average to help interpret the results, but this year they have decided to not give them which I find annoying. 100% in ICT if the year average is 95% is not that exciting, and conversely 46% in Mandarin if the year average is also below-par is not that depressing neither if you see what I mean. Now we are in the dark. I have complained to the deputy head, not sure this is going to make a difference. Any thoughts?

I imagine they want each child to have their results based on individual merit rather than where they sit in their year. i certainly wouldn’t have wanted year averages in my DD’s reports. I can’t see how it would have been useful.

I don't see the relevance of knowing where they are compared to peers, it's interesting yes but you only need to know how your own child is doing.

Conversely I can see the value of knowing the average for the year. It would be part of the picture looking at how well they are taught; how much or how little they enjoy the subject; is there something else we need to do to support them; do they need to focus on the topic a bit more?

knowing where they are compared to peers

It's not knowing where they are compared to the peers that's the aim, it's the calibration of the marking schemes. Of course the problem is that any average grade of peers is also lousy at understanding the calibration of the marking scheme. So I think the school probably are sensible in not giving it out.

At a selective Indy I think receiving the class average is helpful as all the kids tend to do very well in all exams. If they have achieved 65% in an exam it's useful to know if the class average is 85% in which case you know to investigate what happened but if the class average is 65% then it's fine.

In a school with a wide range of abilities class averages are less relevant as the spread of marks is so much wider. If the ability range is very narrow, as it is at selective five schools, class averages are helpful to reassure you that your dc is keeping up.

We usually get them in DS's report and it is helpful. We get the median point so you know only which half of the year they are currently sitting in. As OP says 65% could be great or could be dismal without some point of reference. There is no setting at DS's school in yr 7 & 8.

I am interested in this too, as we are in the same boat.

DD1's results were a mixed bag of 60s, 70s and 80 per cents, and I don't know whether i should be worried or not. Difficult to know what her friends' got either, as nobody has shared them with each other (which I agree with - avoids arguments, etc)

I would be happier to get "levels" at least you know how your child is doing.

It would be helpful if anyone had any idea of what's a decent result..?

We used to get them and yes, found them really useful. They stopped last year which is annoying and unhelpful. It's good to know whether your child is above average (for that class), below average or around average.

I suspect they've stopped them because it highlights the poorer teachers as you can easily check the averages for other classes (other teachers) by asking friends etc. Our son got a very low mark a couple of years ago, the class average was also very low, but other classes who sat the same exam had much higher average scores (classes weren't set by ability).

My DS's school gives grades based on how on track they are likely to be with gcse grades. And compared with previous grades to track progress. I can't remember exactly what this system is called, I think it could be called value added data reporting or something similar.

I think it is impossible to respond to exam results at all without class or year averages. In the batch my year 6 took I know from experience that 80% in English is terrific but in maths would be fairly dreary, but until see the averages I have no way of knowing how to respond to a 78% result in some other subjects.
We don't get the averages until the end of term reports in some subjects, which is super annoying.

At my other boy's school each subject has a graphic showing his result as a little vertical line on a bar showing to total results range, also marked with the 25th and 75th centile and the mean. No where to hide there!

What does 65 or 83 mean? A mark or grade is pretty pointless without the context of how everyone else did, because that is what helps you understand where your dcs are. So you don't need to know that because you can't change this? then why both giving you the random 65% or 87%. They might as well just give you marks for effort and behaviour grades.

I think the point is that when you are comparing with year average you are looking to see if your child is achieving better or worse than the average. What you should be looking for is how they are doing compared to what would be expected for them, and if they are making progress.
Even in a selective school you can have an exceptionally bright year, or an unusually lazy one. If your son is very bright then getting 80% may not be good enough even if the average is 65%. On the other hand it can be discouraging to get 65% when the average is 70% because there are a couple of geniuses who always get 95% or higher. And I have known boys who are in the top 2% of the population who think they are "thick" because they were always below the class average.

The point is the exam could have been easy or challenging, there is no way to tell without understanding how everyone else did and therefore whether your dc is improving or not. This year my ds got 64% in his Maths - doesn't sound great until you put it in context - the average mark for the class was very low indeed. 50% was described as a very good mark and knowing that made his feel really good about his result, also made me happy that he was doing well. The problem is that without context we can't compare from one year to the next, one class text to the next without context. So if you don't wish to provide context, giving raw exam results is fairly meaningless. We don't even get the exam paper back anymore to understand to gauge how challenging the exam was.

When I was at school (in the dim and distant past) tests and reports came with marks of A, B, C and so on, with + or - so you could be a B+ for instance. We would also be told our position in the class, eg: 11/32.

It was a lot more meaningful.

I remember getting 95% in Irish and the comment was - Satisfactory result! Maybe nothing is meaningful when you have 150 reports to write.

Thank you, that's very useful, I might direct the deputy head to this thread. There is no way the grades can be interpreted without the mean and the median. One cannot help but think like Badbadbunny "I suspect they've stopped them because it highlights the poorer teachers".

Primary school my kids went to used to display their results on the wall of the classroom in order of success - a bit brutal for 6 year olds, I'm not convinced it does anyone confidence much good to have it plainly confirmed in writing that they are bottom of the class!

I am referring to a super-selective indie secondary school, where most boys are expected to do well, not a mixed ability primary school. In my daughter's mixed ability outstanding state school, they translate their grades to the new GCSE grades, so even if I don't know the class average, I know if she is on track on not, which is all that matters, and what are her strengths and weaknesses. I suspect that doing that in DS's school, where the boys are likely to all acheive a level 6 in year 7 (remembering that a level 4 in year 11 is a pass) is likely to be counterproductive, as they will all sit back and stop working. I am not sure what is the solution to be honest, lots of pros and cons.

In my daughter's mixed ability outstanding state school, they translate their grades to the new GCSE grades How? How can you translate primary school grades into GCSE 9-1 grades - Do the parents not scoff and laugh at this very odd approach. Are they using a crystal ball? How can primary schools teachers know what GCSE grades look like when secondary school teachers are struggling to understand. I'm sure they can say student X scored in the top 10% in the class for a test but that isn't the same as saying she'll get an 8 or 9 in her GCSE.

Sorry I think I misread - Threeschools - your dd's school is secondary isn't it not primary? Ignore my last post.

A % alone is not useful. Some extra info is needed and schools can give this in a variety of ways to make it meaningful.
Schools can give Levels or Grades - so a certain % equates to a certain level of success - you need to know where the cuts offs are,mor this to be meaningful. In a selective school, you might get over 80% or more getting the top level, which might be more useful than knowing you are above or below the half way point in class.
Schools can give a colour or grade to measure your attainment against your ability. This can be useful in some ways, but won't give you a sense of nationally or in Absolute terms how someone is doing.....and eventually that is important. I always remember in the past how disappointed parents were at the end of KS1, having been told throughout infants that their kids were making great progress, when they got 2C in their SATs or even L1. Teachers felt their kids were doing well for them, but of course were graded against the cohort and the comments through the years didn't reflect this.

It is for this reason, that I think kids should be able to measure their attainment either against their year or against some kind of absolute measure, because in the end,not hey will be measured like this and it isn't reasonable to keep this information from them. It doesn't help. There are ways to stop this info being soul destroying, whilst also being honest with kids and parents about what is going on and how they are doing. Otherwise, again parents and kids are disappointed at options time to discover their kids haven't been doing well enough to choose certain options. Honesty is really important.

If a school only told me % results, I would write saying that I didn't need to know ranking etc, but I found % alone to be meaningless and I would like to have more information of an absolute nature to allow me to interpret the results and to have a sense of my child in terms of national progress, rather than against immediate peers. No doubt, I am considered a pain, but I think it is a perfectly valid point.

The most useful statistical information is target grade (generated from a national benchmarking system like Midyis) vs attainment grade. Many schools also turn raw percentages into standardised scores with an average of 100 - this means you can compare a high score on an easy test with a lower score on a harder test.