Question about NC levels and progress

[AlarmOnSnooze]

My understanding is that a child should make 2 sub levels of progress over the course of an academic year. Is this right (roughly speaking?)

Does this still hold if the child is ahead of where they should be? (Eg finishes year 1 with a 2a for maths. They should the. Finish year 2 with a 3b?)

How does this fit in with the whole 'learning is not linear' stuff that is always mentioned whenever progress comes up? Especially when a child is slightly ahead, and it is trotted out to allay fears of non-progression.

To use my example, if a child finishes year 1 on a 2a, and is looking to also finish year 2 on a 2a, how do you tell whether the original 2a was a 'fluke' and a result of a learning spurt, or whethe the second 2a is due to non-progression rather than catching up after a learning spurt?

Surely even if a child is ahead, they should show progress within the year, meaning that the platitudes of 'learning is not linear' are used to cover up potential other issues?

In theory a child should make 2 sub levels progress over a year ( although this can vary from school to school, some expect 3 sub levels over 2 years, some differing levels between ks1 and ks2) whether they are ahead of the "national" requirement or not, so yes, a child at 2A at the end of year 1 should be a 3b at the end of year 2. But learning ISNT linear, so sometimes children will not move on as far as the "rules" say they should-and sometimes they will move further. They should however show SOME progress, even if it's not as much as expected. But what should happen is that any progress less than that "expected" is a trigger for discussion ( we have pupil progress meetings with the Head and SLT every 6 weeks where we look at where each child was, where they are now, what progress they have made and, if not sufficient, what amendments we are making to teaching and learning to aim to ensure they do!) One of the reasons for slower movement MIGHT be that they are consolidationg previous learning, but it needs to be justified, not used as a platitiude!

Hi AlarmOnSnooze:

My advice is to look at the mumsnet pages on assessment: www.mumsnet.com/learning - just scroll down to Assessment topic.

There blurb on expected progress through levels and a handy table for notional targets for end of each school year is here: www.mumsnet.com/learning/assessment/progress-through-national-curriculum-levels - just scroll down to bottom for 2nd table breaking down progress per year or 1st table which breaks down expected progress through sub-levels per key stage.

HTH

PS Mumsnet - about to graduate to secondary forum soon - and have noticed there isn't a lot to explain Key Stage 3/ Key Stage 4/ GCSE choices/ etc.... - do you think you can design something like that as the secondary forum is clearly very lively as well!

If my child finished yr2 on the same NC Level that they finished yr1 on, I would be asking some serious questions!

Basically it could be that the first 2A was over inflated, that your child hasn't been taught L3 in yr2 so cannot progress or that your child needs to mature a bit before they progress more.

Do you think he has made progress?

On the level that a child should finish the year on if ahead, I guess it depends on the school. In KS2 it would take a child 2 years to go up one sub level (obv some do it quicker) so it would be unfair to expect a younger kid in KS1 to do it in half the time! My DC school seem to be using their common sense and don't want to push DD too hard but at the same time they recognise she is very driven (to learn) in what she likes (reading, history, literacy).

DD started yr1 with a 2A in reading and a 2B in writing, her end of yr targets are a 3B and 3C if this helps! She is bang on target so far.

In KS2 it would take a child 2 years to go up one sub level

I think you mean one level, not sublevel.

I was always told in ks1 3 sub levels was expected progress per year dropping to 1.5-2 in ks2

Yes, sorry Feenie

No need to apologise - I am not the levels police

I did know the correct answer, but was typing too fast