can anyone tell me if these levels are ok for a year 7?

[MathsMadMummy]

hi, got my DSDs' levels for the year. no idea what all this means...

DSD1 - English 4C. Maths 5C. Science 5B. Targets 5C/6C/5A. (DSD1 struggles a lot with dyslexia-type difficulties but is enjoying school)

DSD2 - English 5C. Maths 5B. Science 4A.
Targets 4B/4A/4B. (DSD2 capable of much more than this - her year 6 SATs were higher than her targets for year 7!) WTF?!

I know this should maybe be in Secondary but I thought more people would know about levels here - I didn't even know they'd still use them in high school.

What levels should a year 7 be on roughly?

TIA

If 4b is target for end of Yr6, and 2 sublevels is average progress each year (average, each child is an individual not a statistic), then target for Yr7 would be 5c in each subject.

So your S-DC are about on target for their year groups. There's a lot to be said about how Yr-6 results are all hot-housed and Yr7 results might be a truer picture.

If they were my kids and they could say they were happy at school I'd be happy with those results; people take happy-at-school status way too much for granted.

I?m not an expert, but I?m pretty sure that primary school levels and secondary school levels are not directly comparable, MMM.

If it helps my DD?s Y7 levels (got last week) were English 5A, Maths 5B, Science 6B. She attends our local comp but has always been strong on science. Your DSD2 looks pretty similar, your DSD1 slightly low in English but that?s understandable if she?s slightly dyslexic.

HTH.

What levels did they get at the end of KS2?

The ones you have given for the end of Y7 look OK, but would be more meaningful in relation to KS2 levels.

I understand levels, but please, what is a DSD?

Darling Step Daughter

They should correspond directly, although Secondary teachers will argue that 'they are much higher in Primary and we are much harsher' and Primary teachers will argue that secondary schools try to knock them down.

There are meant to be complete national curriculum levels that are the same from ks1 - ks4, they should be levelled accurately by all teachers, regardless of primary/secondary.

thanks all.

what concerns me is the difference between their target levels. they're in different forms (although do maths/English together) but why would DSD1 get high targets and DSD2 get low ones? their SATs results were virtually the same. mix of 4s and 5s.

maybe different teachers have different expectations. or maybe the report was filled in wrong (quite possible given the amount of typos in all their letters!)

DSD2 is one of those has-brains-makes-no-real-effort types and we're a bit worried she'll carry on coasting, and do the same as her brother, with really poor A levels. if they keep setting her low targets she'll think she doesn't need to make any effort.

I think you have to ask the school about DSD2's puzzling targets.

At our school (sec) the pupil's targets are set for the end of KS3 on an expected (by the Dfes) progression of 2 levels from end of KS2. If a child at our school had targets like DSD2's, lower than KS2 attainment, it would be a mistake!

ok thanks. TBH it's a (possible) symptom of a much bigger problem, DSD2 is so unenthusiastic about school and is just not making any effort at all. sigh.

But it isn't at all likely that the school will be matching her targets to her level of enthusiasm! They have to achieve that magic 2 levels of progress over KS3; targets have to be 'challenging'.

Looks like targets are wrong for DSD2. As a department we are encouraged not to go too far above targets, so the attained levels might be lowered to fit the targets. If she got higher than this in SATs, it might be worth questioning.
Comments matter more than levels though, IMO.

Might be worth posting this on secondary, rather than primary education.