So now levels have been scrapped how will we know what progress our dc are making?

[MotleyCroup]

Ds has done really well in his KS1 end of year report. He's coped with a change of school as well as the SATs (his school didn't keep it discrete) and he's making new friends.

Question is, at the end of Y3 what then? If things stayed as they were I would know, by his next parents evening, what (if any) progress he was making. Now how will I know? What will be put in the current systems place?

Why have they scrapped the current system (when I'd just got my head around the meaning of the levels)?

You say you understand levels 3asabird so you realise that a child achieving 2B in Y2 would not be expected to achieve 3B until Y3/4.

that should of course by Y4/5 not Y3/4

Too much measuring of children's "progress" seems to have resulted in a lot of teaching to the test.

As long as shes where she needs to be and not masivly behind and teachers are honest abut her progress and where she is and things to work on im fine fine with that. im just annoyed wasent aaware she was behind until end of year.

both r and year 1 teachers fobbed me off and was very stresful summer trying put extra support in place then in sept the school failed to take ownership what i was after is sorry you should have been notified sooner and this is action plan for year 2 instead i got load excuses and to juts chill and trust them, no extra support was offered in reading due to her passing phonics test.

so we moved and made it clear to new school that i want to be kept track of where she is and tbh year 2 i was on it meeting every term see how she was doing, she had lots extra support in new school.

as a parent want them be happy , know where they sit and what we can do to help if theres what to work on.

its just come back home.

there are no levels just

working above age expectations

working within
working towards

all literacy speaking/reading/writing all above? im assuming this means shes 3a or 3b?

numeracy and science working within within so guess 3c?

all other topics ict, hist, geog, art. design and tech, pe , re, music working within age .

a for homework, behaviour and organisational skills she tries very hard says always tries her best cant ask much better. confidence grown.

says practice times tables and read lots as targets,

her muisc report for flute has number of targets work towards

so this summer we doing maths factor year 3 summer school
times tables
reading challenge and practicing her flute more,

I will be checking with teacher next week my assumptions are correct i would have prefered levlels but on whole good report

mrs z I did realise its 2sublevels in ks2 yes not 3 so did anticipate her getting 3C. I guess shes hitting level 3 now which is what she needs to be but am aware some year 2s were hitting levels 3s last year and at year 6 expected is level 4 and 5 and c is ahead.

what they want from her in years 3 and 4 I guess is to be a secure level 3 working towards level 4.

Im not pushy mum but if she has potential to get get level 5 or would expect school to prepare her to achieve that
shes now ahead on literacy not surprising as shes had extra support in that area for last year half .

"Jinsei you will be informed about how your child is progressing against national expectations just as you are now"

But as a parent that gives me absolutely no information past reception. Once I have been told that my children are exceeding, I need to be told how much by, and how much they have progressed.

If a child is 'meeting' expectations, and falls back, then their parents are made aware of it, because they fall into 'below'. Equaklly if they accelerate and become 'above', their parents understand the good progress that they have made.

If my child is alweays 'above', I will never find out how much they have progressed or falen back.

I can see that your school's approach - to indicate where they are in the programmes of study - is reasonable up to a point. So a Year 3 child working at, e.g. level 4 in Maths would be told 'working securely within the year 5 / 6 programme of study'.

Given the lack of continuity into the secondary curriculum at present, how will you report a child e.g. in year 5 and working on current L5 or L6? Would yu report them as 'working within the Y8 / 9 curriculum'?

Yes, i have a personal and professional interest in 'outliers', mainly because a way of testing the robustness of a model aimed at 'the average child' is to see whether / how well it works for outliers.

PSBD, I enjoy reading your posts. I'm glad we've got you on board, feels like we have a strong ally in our midst

Just want to second that comment. They have been extremely helpful to me and I have similar experiences to you.

true it does not tell me how much shes progressed in each subject

if say working within age expectations in year 2 is 2b
and expected level was 3c in year year 3

how do i know if shes progressed at all in maths , scince and other subjects? I dont i cant say ahh 3c shes climbed 2sublevels.

she was where she needed to be at end of year 2 with 2b i assuming shes 3c form this years report but literacy clearly improved but is she a 3b?

if she was 3a then she clearly has talent for subject and this should be nurtured.

no one wants their child to be behind, cat or make little progress.

we just want them to get the best they capable of.

high have expectations and reach potential

if every schools reports different format must be so confusing

we on primary 2 and new schools far more detailed.

but lots people in city move schools how to we ensure continuity and accuracy of assessment if child moves if every school does something different?

• GoogleyEyes Fri 11-Jul-14 16:10:56

totally agree this is what i mean when the schools seem aimless...other private schools are shameless when it comes to selling where their pupils end up, I cant find any info on this on our school website...

friends dc in private its open talk among the parents who is aiming for where and why and NO, its not always the hard driven academic school, friends son is G and T and she does not want him worked hard..
however the talk is there without all the pushing/ working them hard BS.

Private schools are all about marketing and the best marketing tool is excellent results. They won't get excellent results without ensuring that children are progressing

There is aim in private schools.

Didn't the DFE publish a new national curriculum that published expectations by year instead of level?

It had a good deal of detail - as I recall - down to a list of high frequency that should be read/spelled - I think by the end of each year.

I realize it could be strenuous for a teacher with 30 kids to report that level of detail to each parent but possibly. It would be useful to know if your DS achieved to 18/20 of the numeracy objectives expected by the end Year X.

I'm not an expert but it seemed like levels were just being swapped by year group expectations.

Proud, the issue being that so many children achieve out of year group expectations. As far as I can remember, DD never has (she was reported within NC levels in Reception). DS never has in Maths, and only breifly did so for English.

All of which is fine IF the primary and secondary curriculums are joined up, so year 6 DD can be reported as e.g. meeting Y9 or Y10 objectives in English and Maths. But they don't. So reporting within years limits attainment and progress of the most able, whereas levels (and P levels for SEN children below the normal levels structure - btw, are they going too?) were a 'phase independent' indication of present attainment and progress.

On a less personal general level, in my class - year 5 - I would have to report about a fifth of my class as making progress within the Year 8/9 curriculum (working within level 5 at present). Equally I would have to report the progress of some within the year 2 or year 3 curriculum (working within Level 2 at the moment).

This is not a problem with levels - I can report a child as being a 2c or a 5b, for example.

Without a joined-up primary and secondary curriculum covering all year groups, it is not clear what obectives I should mark my Level 5s as. I know what the descriptors are for each level in great detail, though, which enables me to be accurate in my assessment.

Pastsellbydate Sorry, I feel I haven't put my point across in the right way, I am not a teacher. I was speaking as a parent about my experiences, I feel some teachers feel it is ok to let more able children coast and many parents will not realise this is the case.

I am not sure if you are saying I am being patronising or not, that's not my intention, I absolutely agree with everything you have said and up until Y3 for my DS I had been extremely disillusioned by the teaching my son had received. He was left on the same reading level from spring term Y1 to end of Y2 as there was no group for him to go in so he had to wait until a group of other children caught up with him. He then moved on 6 reading levels 3 weeks into Y3 at the new school.

I actually thought his levels sounded ok through most of infant school as like most parents I did not know what he had to be able to do to move up, I made a point of finding out though once I felt something wasn't quite right.

The problem with levels is that they were originally designed to show progress at the end of a key stage. They are a broad indicator. You now have sub-levels which don't exist nationally they only report a whole number at KS2 and the sub-levels are often different from school to school and as much discussed in various meetings in my secondary staff room from primary to secondary. You only have to read some of the posts on here from concerned parents whose DC have been getting say 5cs and then end up with a 4 at the end of the year and are worried about progress when in reality they are making good progress they haven't just covered all the topics required for a level 5 overall.

However the big plus point of levels are that parents are much more aware of what their child has achieved and want to help to support their progress. Progress is still key between key stages and year groups and Ofsted will be looking for clear evidence of progress and interventions where progress is not being made and to make sure that all pupils are challenged. So I think the key is not to worry and see what happens, ask questions and not worry about being "one of those parents!"

Transparency will be the key, will there be an expected number of points progress each term or year? It is easy to understand with the NC levels as there is a lot of information around expected progress or expected level for each year group.

BTW what I have said about teachers is only our specific experiences with one or two teachers at one school, I am not suggesting this is the case for all teachers or schools.

I really believe all children should have the opportunity to work to their potential regardless of their ability which is why the changes in the reporting of NC levels seriously concerns me.

Too much measuring of children's "progress" seems to have resulted in a lot of teaching to the test. not in the UK Bonsoir where they are tested twice in seven years!

teacherwith2kids ... you simple call year 1 curriculum band/grade/standard/level 1 .... and year 8 band/grade/standard/level 8 so report half your class band/grade/standard/level 8 and some at band/grade/standard/level 2 or 3. A quick explanation to what this means for parents very little difference to current system

Although in the new curriculum much of the content for level 5 has been moved downwards so it won't be year 8 anymore.

Although in the new curriculum much of the content for level 5 has been moved downwards so it won't be year 8 anymore.

Is that part of the reason why so many more children are achieving level 5 now than they were 5 years ago and why more children are attempting the level 6 papers?
I looked at the figures a few weeks ago which showed a huge increase in year 6 SATs levels over the past 10 years. I keep hearing that lots of children are leaving primary school unable to read and write and that they don't have enough basic skills to cope well at high school, yet the SATs figures show continual improvement in achieved levels.
The two things don't add up to me so I can only assume one of the following from the various reports:

1. The bottom ability group have remained stagnant whilst everyone else has seen huge improvement.
2. Schools are spending a lot of time teaching to test, so test results show good achievement but actually the child does not have a broad education and therefore doesn't have the basic skills to cope well at high school.
3. Tests have been dumbed down so more children are reaching level 4b or above but actually are no more able than children who got lower levels in previous years.

If mrs z is correct and the curriculum content had been moved downwards it really does suggest that levels are not as informative as they need to be and we need a new more robust system.

Mrs z?

can I just clairify few things as you well informed?

leve 6 paper dident exist until recent years?

Only the bright able kids would be put forward for level 6 paper or bad performance would risk dragging that pupil and schools performance down.

The aim is get every year 6 child to level 4?

but lots of kids are getting level 5 year on year increase?

if targets level 4 for year 6 why are so many kids getting higher?

is teaching better?
sats dumbed down? which is what you suggest
kids getting cleverer

is sats going same way as gscses? every year an inflation.

from sept onwards will we still get levels for actual sats?

how do i know my child year 4 sept in year 6what papers shes sitting and what levels she is?
year 5 we have to consider senior schools as have to apply at start year 6.

Although we dont have grammers here we have 2academys that have test and private schools having higher nc levels would be indicator or if shes suited to these schools, we plan do stuff at home.

what im unsure of right now is
was she let down by her old school and failed reach potential thats shes not very behind,coasting or just average?

Right now I would say shes average shes like me and my husband we had to work hard effort will get good results but none of it comes easy to her,

maybe she surprise me end year 4 and 5. and suddenly shoot ahead.
shes on middle table this year.

she will have same teacher for next 2 years which worries me a little.

A freind from another schol different part of country has said year year 1 got 2c and her year 3 3a but they always been ahead.

Im pleased with daughters report this year but be handy see where exactly she was.

I do wonder if the kids who always been ahead rec, year 1 and year 2 remain ahead for all juniors as thourght year 2sats of 3 an above almost definatly meant that child be entered for 5 and 6 papers.

we will do what we can at home during years 4 and 5 and keep clse contact with school to ensure she does best she can.

The last few years year 6 sats results has been quite high and would say looking at dfe site shes middle cohort ability.

leve 6 paper dident exist until recent years?

Level 6 tests were used in KS2 when testing was first introduced in the early 90s then stopped for a number of years before being re-introduced (and of course they existed in KS3)

Only the bright able kids would be put forward for level 6 paper or bad performance would risk dragging that pupil and schools performance down.

in theory schools could put every pupils forward for level 6 but it would be a bit pointless if a child is working at level 3

The aim is get every year 6 child to level 4?

no the expected level for the end of KS2 is level 4 but as in everything there will be children working above and below the "expected"

but lots of kids are getting level 5 year on year increase?

Level 5 is the expected level for 14 year olds but because children aren't machines some will develop earlier or later.

if targets level 4 for year 6 why are so many kids getting higher?

teachers teach to the child's ability not to levels - there isn't a cap on what a child can achieve at any age/stage.

is teaching better?
sats dumbed down? which is what you suggest kids getting cleverer

I've never suggested that SATs have been dumbed down (or that kids are getting clever/teaching better)

You could include parents paying for tutors, schools teaching to the test or any number of things in your list

from sept onwards will we still get levels for actual sats?

you will get levels in 2015 but not from 2016 onwards

Zanymonster:

Schwew! I thought that comment was coming from a teacher - but now realise you're just a parent with deep suspicions (like me) about the attitude.

-----

At core there is a battle going on here folks. Parents are desperate to clearly understand how their child is doing. Parents are eager to learn if there are any 'issues' early, so that they can help (and MANY OF US CAN! why not deploy your strongest tool teachers?) turn things around.

OF COURSE CHILDREN DON'T PROGRESS IN A LINEAR FASHION - Nobody has that expectation - but because there is so much 'gaming' of targets/ reported NC Levels (and let's not forget years of people posting "I don't understand PFB was a NC L3 on KS1 SATs end Y2 but now the Y3 teacher now says he's 2a") parents are confused, suspicious, disillusioned and worse yet if you get too much of this 'mumbo jumbo' from your school - you can turn out as jaded as me!

I'm just a parent - but I truly think if teachers actually want us to treat you as professionals you need to be able (and maybe that does require training) to calmly relay actual information to us about our child's academic performance - good/ bad or otherwise. You shouldn't hide from those hard conversations, you should have prepared ideas on what to do next or be prepared to provide support/ guidance shortly after relaying news (good/ bad/ otherwise).

I would have far rather have been notified that DD1 wasn't making any progress in reading/ maths in Y1 - then wait for end KS1 SATs confirming it starkly, after progessively asking questions since May of Y2.

I get that as a teacher this puts you under pressure and it can be a difficult situation - but I think the problem is 'culture'. You've got used to not relaying this information and as parents we've got used to not learning precisely how our child is doing until it's too late.

perhaps it is just me

But I see this system of relaying information on my child's progress as cart before horse

Most schools have purchased (WITH TAX PAYER'S MONEY) computer programmes to track pupil's progress. Indeed with a press of a button they can generate a transcript tracking your child's progress since Year R. Why aren't parents also seeing this data schools hold on our children?

And GOVE/ OFSTED/ DofE - timely/ parent-friendly communication of pupil progress is actually what needs fixing in the English primary education system.

is sats going same way as gscses? every year an inflation.

is there year on year inflation ... the data suggests not

National Test Results
(Table 2)
The percentages of pupils in all schools achieving level 4 or above in the 2013 key stage 2 tests by subject are as follows:

Reading test
:
86% (down 1 percentage point from 87% in 2012)

Mathematics test
:
85% (up 1 percentage point from 84% in 2012)

The percentages of pupils achieving above the expected level, level 5 or above , in the 2013 key stage2 tests by subject are as follows:

Reading test
:
45% (down 3 percentage points from 48% in 2012)

Mathematics
test
:
41% (up 2 percentage points from 39% in 2012)

how do i know my child year 4 sept in year 6what papers shes sitting and what levels she is?

you won't know levels because they won't exist there will a new system of measurement in place for end of key stages

Although we dont have grammers here we have 2academys that have test and private schools having higher nc levels would be indicator or if shes suited to these schools, we plan do stuff at home.

just as higher results in the new tests will

what im unsure of right now is was she let down by her old school and failed reach potential thats shes not very behind,coasting or just average?

it's a difficult thing to guage I was a coaster ... I found being top easy and put in the minimum amount of effort high levels and good exam results were no indication of my lack of effort.

I do wonder if the kids who always been ahead rec, year 1 and year 2 remain ahead for all juniors as thourght year 2sats of 3 an above almost definatly meant that child be entered for 5 and 6 papers.

some will remain ahead others will be overtaken by peers as they develop and mature children are different and learning isn't linear