Will DD ever shake off her CAT scores?

[Finallyfinally]

We lived abroad during DD’s primary years and returned to the UK for her start at secondary. I knew her CAT testing was likely to be weaker than her ability - it may be cognitive ability, but she was taught in a very different way with different (US-style) methods of teaching. A lot of her transition was working out what people were actually asking.

Anyway - I was right, and her initial basebands after her CATs were low average. Y7 was a transition year but by Y8 she had returned to where she always was in primary - in the top bit of the class, repeatedly getting top grades for homework, for most unit assessments and crushing her end of year assessments with the top grade. She ended the year with two academic awards.

So we’ve started Y9 and rather than using their usual assessments, we are told what grade DD is working towards. We’re told it’s based on their Y7 CATs. And for DD, it’s a 4.

This is bonkers, right? What does she have to do? Is there anything I’m missing from this process?

Yes it is bonkers. My child’s CAT scores came back 60-70s, got her tested for sen and that included iq testing which put her iq at 105-120.

everything the school was doing was based off those cat scores!! Which is ridiculous. We have eotas now with 1:1 tutors who are really pushing her and teaching her in a way adapted to her & the difference is shocking. They want to put her in for extra exams!

Hopefully they will adjust as ahe goes thru yr 9. You can ask at parents evening.

In my DC's school, during the GCSE years, they had a target grade (based on CAT scores) and a forecast grade (teacher's best estimate). So tell her to ignore target and aim for forecast.

The CAT scores are a baseline. Students should not fall below the predicted grade, or the school has failed them. It does not mean your daughter could not achieve straight 9s, that just means her improvement score would be fantastic.
Students are assessed all the time by teachers, they will encourage every student to work towards their best.

Is that the Fisher Family target? I found it to be just nonsense. Teachers in parents' meetings used to ask me why it was so low! I thought, it's YOUR blimmin' system!

But does that really mean that every year, teachers will tell her she’s on course for a low grade, and every year will be surprised by the ability she’s been consistently showing them since the summer term of Y7? What about some of the GCSE choices that need an expectation of a high grade?

I don’t see how a child can get the equivalent of As all term in a subject, get another A on the end of year assessment (won’t give the categorisation as they vary from school to school and I really love the school) and be told - welcome to year 9, your friend who got the same scores as you last year is working towards an 8 and you’re working towards a 4?

My son’s cat scores were low due to various issues and his actual grades were always higher. Hence he became most of his teachers favourite pupil- he was going to gain them an increase in 3-4 grades due to their teaching. He later went to Cambridge so poor cat scores are irrelevant.

I’m not sure - I shall bear that in mind though if it is!

Is what I’m gathering though that essentially a bad CAT score is stuck with you until Y11?

Sorry @ClarasZoo that was meant to be a general post, not just to you!

It's not in the school's interests to remove / change her grades because the school gets credit for good progress. Your DD's progress will be stellar! Just tell her to ignore them.

Oh that’s useful - thank you

I’m sorry @mydaughterisademon , that is so frustrating. I’m glad your DD is now showing them how it’s done!

Think of the target as what the school will be measured on. There’s nothing to stop her attaining much higher grades than those. If the school puts her in ability groups (sets) just make sure she’s in the right one given her potential, and that she doesn’t coast. A decent teacher should recognise she does well in the classroom and keep on top of it.

This is all to do with how School's are ranked essentially. They care about their progress data - how well the kids do at GCSE compared to Primary age. They have essentially a government set target for each child. These can be wildly inaccurate by the time they get to GCSE as is the case with your daughter. The teacher will give a working at grade/forecast grade or similar that reflects how your child is doing now

I'm pretty sure secondary progress is based on KS2 SATS not CAT scores. Schools use CAT scores for their own internal data but it's not what they're graded on.

A lot of teachers and parents are unhappy with the way marks/prior attainment is used. My best teacher said she wanted everyone to have a clean slate at high school so she refused to look at any primary notes, and just got to know us all and what would work, and moved sets at half-term.
Guess she would be walking out if she was still working now!

Secondary schools are judged on their progress.

for most students who sit ks2 sats their target gcse grades are generated from the ks2 sats. Kids who didn’t sit them have targets generated from cars instead.

generating targets from cars is a very ineact science, but no your child’s targets will not be changed.

just ignore them.

Teacher here. I can't do anything to change a student's 'target grade' the baseline data determines that, but once you get into GCSE years you'll get a more accurate Predicted Grade which includes recent assessment data for that subject and teacher judgement. Until they start doing assessments with GCSE style questions it's kind of meaningless to give a predicted grade in KS3 for an end of year 11 projection, and with likely a lack of teacher continuity in KS3...

Target grade never means your child is capped at a 4. Teachers will use their judgement in Year 11 when entering students for tiers, so if she's working above her target grade and teachers put her in for higher tier (for tiered subjects) you can still achieve up to a 9.

Edit to add: if you are staying she is being put in a 'set' based off her baseline data every year rather than teachers communicating within their department to be like 'Hey, so and so's CAT scores aren't a reflection on their attainment, we should probably move them up a set/s'. Then yeah, that is odd.

Thanks @Odellio I was hoping for a teacher to chat to, I have lots of teacher friends but all are in Primary.

I understand the system a lot better for this thread, but I have to say she is a bit demoralised. She looked at her base grade last year and viewed it as a challenge. Now she feels the work wasn’t noticed. But while I accept it is a Progress 8 vector, I think in that case it shouldn’t be given out to the kids in this way, if it doesn’t reflect the work they’ve done in the last two years, just a day at the start of Y7 (or even PS SATS? She didn’t do those at all…)

Definitely needs better explaining to parents. At our school we don't give our teacher predicted grades at all in year 7 and 8, the students would only get their first predicted grade on their reports after their first assessments in January of Year 9. Until then it is always just target grades only printed on reports. Hopefully you will find that you start seeing predicted grades soon that better reflect the grade your DD is currently working at.

@Finallyfinally I see you have had reassurance on this thread and I would add to it. As others say, a lot of TGs are generated by nonsensical figures. I had a student for GCSE who had a target of A for my subject and most others, but in fact achieved much lower grades. Similarly your DD I am sure will far exceed her targets, much to her school’s delight no doubt.

This though What about some of the GCSE choices that need an expectation of a high grade? – that's not a thing, so please don't worry about it. FM may be offered only to more able mathematicians, but that's not offered at every school or even many schools IME. Ask if your DD's school offers triple science only to the most able, and if she would want to do that then maybe plead her cause, but otherwise it's all good.

No, and it’s ridiculous. It’s unhelpful for kids the other way around too! I scored very highly in SATs and then very highly in the baseline tests (can’t remember if they were CATs - this was in the 2000s) and all of my target grades were As across the board regardless of subject. If I’d taken art (I can barely draw a stickperson) it’d have been an A target because data.

And on our reports were our progress 8 scores and I was always in negative numbers. I was doing very well but every subject where I was at an A and not an A was a -1. 12 As and I’d have got a zero. It was all incredibly depressing - I put a lot of pressure on myself and it was constantly being made clear I was underachieving, even though I ultimately got all A*s and As I was still an underachiever! Unsurprisingly I totally burnt out during A Levels and never did “reach my potential”.

Edit:
It’s going bold / back to normal where I’ve put an asterisk… I was meant to get all A STARS. This was before number grades.

Take no notice. Dd was predicted low grades but got high. DS the opposite. Only issue was fighting for her to be entered for the right paper, intermediate rather than foundation for maths for example. Tell you child to take no notice either.

Yes that's a good point – higher not foundation for maths, science and MFL (no intermediate) – make sure she is not doing F unless she is only hitting a 5 (I mean in tests etc not in TGs). But the school should make sure of that too. My student that was erroneously predicted an A in French based on year 6 SATs was entered for foundation (at my insistence) notwithstanding (the other way round from your DD @Finallyfinally but YGWIM)