All levelled out.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Ok, levels don't mean a thing to me. I have no idea what level my dd is currently working at, in any subject.

With so many posts and threads on here, I wondered why so many parents are bothered. I'm not being judgemental as I used to like to know what level my dc were, but I don't know why.

I think I understand the confusion.

OP is not really asking if she needs to level her child - she's really asking if she needs to teach her DD the NC.

I think this question would be better asked on the HE board.

Alien she is home educating her child. But she isn't teaching her. It appears her child is teaching herself. Which actually, I can sort of 'get' - my girls have always been independent learners and I was myself - but that still needs to be checked up on occasionally. I reckon. But as I said above - I cannot, and never will be able to, prove that morethan is wrong. Only she knows her DD. she might be doing exactly the best thing for her DD.

I must apologise, that I may have come across as a tad bit too challenging. I thought that maybe somebody could offer sound reason why I would be better off working to what would be her school year (Y5) in september in order to take up the offer from our teacher neighbour to give her a level.
As my philosophy is one shared by many H. edders, I was making sure I had considered my approach through other conventions.
Yes Alien she is an independent learner, sometimes she will study something in quite some depth. At other times its a quick, well I suppose I'd better attitude.

Thanks morethan, that's helpful context. Interestingly, I would describe my DD as an independent learner too, although she attends state school. Sometimes she will study something in depth. At other times it is a quick, well I suppose I'd better attitude. But I now understand that you are home educating your DC(whether you describe it as teaching or not is of course completely up to you) and I am reading your question and your responses in a very different light. I'm not sure I see the relevance of levels, I think your question is more about "which parts of the NC benefit from being taught in a year by year way and which ones can we jump around and follow DC's interest"? But I sense you just wanted a platform for your views on why levels don't help your dd, without having any enthusiasm for hearing others' views?

There is a difference between "I am autonomously home educatiing my child so I don't use either the national curriculum or SATs levels and obviously I don't need to because of the way my child's education is going" and "why are any parents bothered about SATs levels, they are completely unless and if you were any sort of a parent you wouldn't bother about them because you would know whether your child is progressing enough"

Sadly, the OP's posts came over as the latter rather than the former.

I hope the GCSEs your dd intends to take at 13 are a big success. It might be a good idea to make sure she's covered the necessary curriculum first- the exams are quite prescriptive.....

morethan I've just reread your post of today at 18.46 in which you say"I thought that may somebody could offer sound reason why I would be better off working to what would be her school year in sept in order to take up the offer for our neighbour teacher to give her a level". But, with all due respect, you didn't ever ask this question. Out of interest, why didn't you post it as a specific issue rather than saying "I don't do levels,why are you other parents bothered?"? Either is a genuine enquiry, I.e. "i am HEing, should I work to school year" or "let me know how levels help you" but I think you have deliberately conflated two questions and ended up (/since you clwarly havent bothered to read the responses) telling yourself that your position has been justified!!

Well, my apologies curlew that wasn't my intention at all.
I haven't said anything detrimental about others having a use for levels and can see why they are used.
I really was asking for opinions, and doing so here because I know other h.ed families share this approach. I was looking for suggestions or comments as to why I might have it wrong or for, or other considerations.

Alien

I did mention my neighbour and the offer to level near the beginning, that is what prompted me to seek opinions. "never look a gift horse in the mouth" and all that.
Obviously for her to do this dd would have to follow the nc for that particular school year, which of course dd hasn't been learning like that.
It is as simple as that.

morethan How is your DD learning maths? Surely you are following the NC by and large for that? Musical people are normally excellent at maths - the music, maths, further maths A level combination has always been very popular. Slightly less so these days because of the soulless minions or orthodoxy and the tyranny of triple science being forced on anyone that can hold a pencil regardless of whether they want to do it or not - but even now, maths and music still go together like Wagner and Valkyries. letting your DD do fake SATs in maths might actually be an enjoyable experience. And maths is certainly one GCSE that, especially in a HE situation, would be easy to take at 13, for a kid that can do it. Maturity isn't a thing for maths.

Russians.

She uses the nc quite a lot, as I said up thread it makes a good base for most subjects. I think maths is pretty prescriptive whether you consciously follow the nc or not.
She does like Maths but I wouldn't say she was good at it, she doesn't struggle with what she has done so far, but there are gaps in workbooks for all KS2 years. Still she is only 9, and has decided to do what she finds easy and then y6 to work on the things she finds more difficult.
The same with the KS3 syllabus as well, there are a few things she has done because you can see them in her books. I'm sure she'll have a year doing difficult concepts here too.

She enjoys Science and at the moment is mostly interested in physics and biology.

Thank you for your comments Russians, I know our philosophies differ but your opinions like all the others are valuable.

morethan Please don't patronise me. It is quite funny but since it's probably meant to be rude, perhaps better if you stopped?

Your posts seem to imply your DD decides what to study. That she is getting no direction from you. That's pretty outrageous, to be honest. Independent learners go beyond. They don't have no input whatsoever other than the buying of the workbooks. The best 9 year old still needs some direction.

Russians

I can assure you I have not intended to be rude and hoped that I had engaged and at least listened to what you had to say, which imo is the reason for a thread like this.
You have derailed from the OP that didn't even mention teaching methods, the nc, nor the value of a H,education.
Nevertheless, I answered your questions to the best of my ability and think you have some good suggestions/points. An example, mfl was mentioned and I agree with you, we have discussed this and dd has a lesson planned for Septemeber.
It is a shame you find me rude and patronising as I have no reason to feel like this towards you. I know we have differing opinions but we share a common interest in the support of our dds in music.
However, I feel that I don't want to engage with you further now, which is a pity, but hey ho.

Oh, morethan- don't be disingenuous. There is absolutely no suggestion in your earlier posts that you are asking for advice or opinions or anything like that!

Read back, and you'll see- it's all "I'm really not bothered and neither would you be if you were as switched on to your child as I am"

My grief will be controllable.

curlew

No, I wasn't asking for advice and am switched on to my child I hope.
That does not mean to say I was not seeking opinions.
Of course I want to be sure I am doing right by my dd as every parent does.
I still say there have been several posts that have given me food for thought, even if I have a different approach/ philosophy.
Anyway I have gained some insight to how others view levels and maybe there may be some more, but for now I will take the views that have been offered.

Apologies. Strike out "advice".

I do suggest you read your posts- you do not come across they way you say you want to.

morethan, I can't believe how you can honestly believe this has been a useful thread. You have been disingenuous throughout, only recently revealing you are discussing the value of levels in the context of home educating your DC. How can you see opinions when you are not giving people the appropriate context in which you are phrasing your questions? Anyway, delighted thy you feel you can head off happy that your approach/philosophy is unchallenged...don't worry about considering whether you ever really put it out there to be challenged...
What a waste of time.

She doesn't really, alien. Sadly home educators sometimes feel the need to show people who use schools how much better their way is. Not sure why- maybe they have the occasional wobble and need to shore themselves up? No idea, really.

I don't even know what these levels are you are all talking about! My ds has just finished YR, so maybe they aren't relevant yet. I'm with morethan. Curriculum targets are very narrow and pretty arbitrary. (Reminds me of the five a day campaign for vegetables which had no basis in science). OK he doesn't know as many key words as his peers. He's not ready for it yet! It'll come when it comes. Doesn't mean he's not bright or we don't want him to fulfill his potential. Right now I think he is going to find more richness, intellectual stimulation and development of his imagination poking around the garden for bugs, tootling on his harmonica, making dinosaurs from playdoh and playing out with friends than struggling over books about Biff and Kipp.

I couldn't agree with you more,ilovesushi- if we're talking about reception age children. You may find that you want to keep a closer eye on things as your child moves up the school.

ilovesushi please don't fall for the suggestion from OP (as a home educator) that everyone who has a DC attending school is obsessed with levels. Many posters on here have articulated particular situations in which they have found levels useful, e.g. Recognising if their child was struggling in a certain area) but many have also said that they remain relaxed about levels and find them simply helpful pointers and nothing more. And yes, as you say, not yet relevant for the vast majority of YR children.

Morethan have you read anything by Alfie Kohn? He writes a lot about standardised levels and grading and how he thinks they are completely counter-productive in learning - you are not alone.
Russians, it is not unusual for home ed children to be completely self directed in their learning - many have taken this approach and then gone to university and got good degrees.

Chocolate How many? The successfully HE'd kids I know have/had competent parents directing them to a certain extent - certainly setting the minimum curriculum (which didn't always coincide with the NC in MFL and humanities subjects). The catastrophically unsuccessfully HE'd kids Ive known had laissez faire parents who were disengaged with their kids' education to the point of neglect.

I feel it's a bit unfair on a 9-year-old to expect her to take full responsibility for her own education.

OP- why not have your DD do the English SAT paper for your neighbour to mark? It sounds as though you're almost afraid of knowing what her level is. And the writing paper at least doesn't require you to have followed a set curriculum for Yr 4, 5 or whatever, at least as far as I can see - my DD1 has just finished Yr 4 and I had a look at her writing exam, and she had to write about a trip to Antarctica (there were some pictures to use as ideas if you wanted), and I reckon any year group in the school could have had a go at it. The teacher marking it is looking at content, creativity, structure, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary, handwriting etc, which is then distilled into a mark and then turned into a 'level'. So no, it won't test every aspect of English writing, eg poetry, but it does give you a pretty good snapshot of their command of English.

While constant testing is probably counter-productive, I do think the kids need to do tests sometimes - not just to establish what they actually know, but so they get used to doing them. My DDs for example seem to have real difficulty ever finishing a test paper in the time, which could be a serious handicap later on, so I want them to have practice at it. If your DD wants to do GCSEs later on she is going to have to be able sit an exam in a controlled environment, and you don't really want the first time she does this to be on exam day surely?

Chocolate

Thank you for the book recommendation, I will seek it out.
Being aware that many H.ed parents don't see levels as important, myself included there, was the reason I posted here and not the H.ed pages. I wanted to see if the parents of schooled dc had good opinions to add.
I had already considered a level would be beneficial if our dd decided to attend school at secondary level, but couldn't think of any more.

Russians
We are neither disengaged with our dd, nor do we ignore the nc. Yes we take an autonomous approach, that does not mean to say we aren't involve. For goodness sake, if you are going to comment at least have some idea what you are talking about.
Today during the holidays, she has filled a bird feeder, collected data, on the variety of birds in our garden, produced her findings in graph form and registered her results online.
The website talks about producing statistics over a specific time period, when she decides to do this and asks for our help we will give it. We didn't ask her/ tell her to do it she did it herself.

Morethan- that really wasn't how your post came across.Really. I suggest you read it again. Even your thread title didn't suggest that you were looking for opinions.