Sixth form admission: Predicted Grade vs Mock Grade

[MerryOtter]

Dear All,

Please help me with your advice as I am really worried about my daughter’s sixth form admissions.

She got grade 8+ in her Year 10 mock exam for Maths. However her school has given "End of KS4 Target" grade as 6 in Maths. She has been performing consistently well and getting higher grades in Maths in mocks as well as internal exams and this "End of KS4 Target grade" is computer generated based on Year 6 SAT's and the teachers are unable to change it.

She want to pursue Maths at A-levels and I am really scared that if we put this as a predicted grade in her sixth form application, she would not even get a conditional offer from most good colleges as their entry requirement is 7 and above.

What should we do? Should we put her mock exam results in the predicted grade or should we put the lower grade ? Will we lose out on the conditional offer if we put the lower grade.

DS has both ‘target’ from SATs and a separate predicted grade ( which was ‘aspirational’ ) which were quite different . His mocks were somewhere in the middle and more in line with what he actually achieved . I would go back to school and ask for a predicted grade or ask what they would put on a reference. If it’s the 6 out your explanation in one of the other info boxes about why she is suitable

Thank you, I sent an email now to the school, requesting to review the Target/Predicted grade. I hope they help out with this. If they stick with this computed grade, then I'll have to explain everything in the sixth form application.

End of KS4 target grades are not predicted grades. Do not put that down on the sixth form application.

incidentally, usually teachers put the predicted grades in? Most counties have some kind of automated online system and schools enter the predicted grades, usually a bit later on the year.

Thank you so much for your advice. I was under the impression that the Target grades are the Predicted grades. However, have sent an email to the school, I will specifically ask them for the Predicted Grades now to fill out in the sixth form application.

I think most schools do mocks in November or January, and these are the predicted grades that are used for 6th Form applications.

My daughter did her first set of Mocks in June but we were told that these weren't predicted grades, and the highest they could get was an 8.

ETA: Most 6th form applications don't choose until January or February.

@MerryOtter are you applying to colleges or schools.

As others have said, target grades and predicted grades are not the same thing. But either way, no state secondary school should be restricting offers based on predicted grades because they are subjective. It would be a breach of the admissions code.

If it's a college they have more freedom. They're still meant to be objective but, unlike schools, there is no easy way to get a judgement on their admission policy.

Which county/borough are you in?

Thank you for your guidance.

Yes, my daughter has her mocks again (first one was done in Year 10 Feb) in November, however one of the sixth form college application is closing in October, so would need to get an earlier Predicted grade from the school for this application.

There are some other sixth forms who have their application closing dates in December, so it will still allow us some time to get over with the mocks and get the predicted grades.

@liquidwashup I am applying to 3 colleges in Hampshire county.
Thanks to this community, I now have some better idea about Target and Predicted grades.
I emailed the school to ask for the Predicted grades but still waiting for a response from them. Based on their feedback, I will put the Predicted Grades in the sixth form applications.

If your dd is now Y11 the "target" grades from Y6 are meaningless because there were no externally marked SATs in 2021 (they were cancelled due to the Covid pandemic).
So your best way forward is to ask the school about "predicted" grades.
I think when we applied for sixth forms we had to declare mock grades as well, but there are slightly different systems depending on which sixth forms you are applying to.