Year 5 levels - are there none?

[buggybored]

Bit bemused. At recent parents' evening teacher of younger child ran throughDC's levels at start of year, currently and anticipated by end of summer term by reference to a scale of between 2a and 3. All fine and dandy. However, teacher of DC in year 5, whilst making lots of positive general noises insisted they couldn't give an attainment level (current or expected) due to recent curriculum changes. Is this correct? AIBU to expect to have an objective standard in order to understand how my child is progressing?

I would be horrified if my child's school continued using the old levels to assess! Would you be happy if your child's shoes were measured in litres or grams? I doubt it ... the measure has to match the purpose and levels don't match the content of the new curriculum.

And just to confuse further...at secondary they shouldn't have levels but most do...and GCSE grades will become numbers 1-9 shortly, so you will have at least two different school level systems followed by a government level, all numbers but meaning different things...and the kids shouldn't only know where they are but how to improve to the next level!!

Yes we get that thanks Mrz.

Frankly I don't give a shit on how they assess but that all schools do the same and parents are fully informed on how they do it.

mrz:

Let's call the standard at or above which the government desires end Y6 pupils to demonstrate on KS2 SATs exams THE THRESHOLD

Let's call how you wish to descirbe progress in a given school year (Year R/ KS1 - Y1/2 or KS2 Y3-6) GRADES

Let's all agree - because this is the case - that each school can use whatever system/ nomenclature/ style of progress assessment of these GRADES and in principle should relate GRADES to THE THRESHOLD for parents.

I suspect this task has been going on in England for several generations.

I suspect we can argue until the cows come home whether it is best to have a uniform system across state funded schools or not - but regardless national testing (KS2 SATs/ GCSE/ A-Levels) means there is a national, universal standard that the vast majority of pupils will be assessed against.

Clear information on how your child is doing in terms of expected progress in a given school year and against national expectations at particular points (end KS2 SATs/ End KS4 - GCSE/ End KS5 - A-Levels) doesn't seem that unreasonable. Changing the system every few years is and in my opinion whatever the system: A rose is a rose by any other name Gertrude Stein

We do just that PSBD. The Year 1 curriculum is standard 1 the Year 2 curriculum is standard 2 etc ... It's a simple matter to discuss where a child us working and to provide details of what the child needs to actually do to progress ... much more meaningful than random numbers.

Then blame the government. Many schools don't like it either ( the diversity of methods rather than the changes per se) and are grouping together in clusters/education authority areas to try and come up with systems which are more widespread. we don't like having children transfer from one school to another with weird mixtures of letters/numbers/labels. We too want to know what they can do and what they can't. But levels didnt give us that either. Saying a child is a 3B tells me roughly WHERE they are nationally but doesn't provide any information about how that 3b is made up-can they do column addition but have no idea about percentages, can they write complex sentences but can't use adverbial phrases? We have provided parents with lists of end of year objectives and when we get to the end of the year, we will report which of these objectives have been met/not met but until then we are teaching the objectives, not reporting each time one has been achieved.

spaniel:

trust me I do blame the government for changing a system parents have just about got their heads around for a new system. I also think that the sudden shift from NC Levels to GCSE Grades over KS3-4 also distances parents from understanding where they're child is at - predicted achievement.

What I will say is that when DD2 transfered to her new primary her old primary only sent through KS1 SATs results. They refused (although several requests were made) to send through her transcript. I strongly suspect that St. Mediocre didn't want the new school reviewing their appraisals of DD2 performance.

Her Year 4 teacher had to teach DD2 how to write in paragraphs - at some point she made a comment that there were really odd gaps in her understanding and I just said - yes, the curriculum at St. Mediocre has always been heavy of prayer/ hymn singing and a little light on the 3Rs in my opinion. I don't know for sure but I rather surmised that this was all part of the school's religious ethos. Certainly the school avoided STEM subjects and refused to teach about things like puberty or the solar system.

Your child's new school would have access to the KS1 results on line once the transfer was completed so the school had nothing to gain by refusing to send the information (assuming both schools are state maintained)

Oh Spaniel believe you me I do blame the gov and not schools.Can't belive schools are going to have to waste time sorting this out and showing Ofsted what they do when all could have been simply told and a level benchmark given to parents.

It's an utter waste of time and resourses.

Just to be clear (because Im completely confused-it doesn't take much!) can schools still use the old NC level system?

DS1 is in Y5. At the end of Y4 he was "levelled" by the school as 4A in Maths. He is now a 5B in Maths. He has been teaching himself stuff at home by watching YouTube Tutorials to grasp things he couldn't do. I was incredibly proud of him because I assumed his school was still using the old levels for Y5 but Im now wondering if they are not?

Schools should continue to use the old curriculum (and levels) for Years 2 & 5 but should be using and assessing the current curriculum for other year groups.

So I can assume from that they are still using the old levels and he has made decent progress?

Will ask at parents evening as well but have had huge issues with school and the teaching this year(their teacher walked out 2 weeks into school term and they have had supply teachers so no consistency)

I wouldn't assume I would ask the teacher

I thought it was 2 and 6 for old levels and the rest new so Y5 should be the new system.

It is my earlier post is a typo I didn't notice I hit the 5 on my phone key pad until you posted

My child was Level 5 and the end of Year 5 and is planning to get Level 6 SATS in Year 6.

Ah thank you-Will ask the teacher at parents evening.

mrz, a 'number' is the one of the most informative feedback you can provide to anybody re performance, specially, if the person does not have the resources to find all that 'public and easily available' information.

Everybody understands the number, including the children. It is very easy to dismiss the value of a number when you understand the curriculum inside out and you are in contact with the children 6 hours a day.

Really? Can you tell me exactly what a 5b means in terms of skills and knowledge?

I don't understand the curriculum inside out ... It's new we've been working with it since September getting to grips with what it means, firstly for our own year group and secondly for the school as a whole ... However having assessment criteria that is specific for each year group means that teachers can tell you that your Y3 child is working securely at /exceeding / or beginning Y3 expectations - so you have a number and it equates to each year

A 5b means much more to me that the consultation time I have at school, where they tell me they are 'meeting/exceeding' expectations but I don't have a clue of what this means, nor can I really check what it may mean. My latest 'consultation' with school (and many others) focused on some obscure info about: needs to reflect more on her work (math, dc1) or needs more encouragement with handwriting (dc2).

I know my children are doing much better than I expected from that information because at some point (end of year2) they gave me a number. I was totally surprised. I was surprised again by the vagueness of the feedback provided in the report/consultation compared with a much clearer understanding from the numbers written down in reports I got in Y3 and Y4.

Because my kids are doing reasonably well, I don't care if someone gives me a 'mark' or another clear picture on how my children are doing. Not sure I would be that happy if they were struggling. Still I would not dismiss the value of a number either. It is not true that it is replaced (at least in my school) by a better feedback.

I chose the school precisely because they have a relaxed atmosphere, close to no homework and a happy environment. But I fail to be impressed by the lack of transparency on the academic side.

By the way, I know University lecturers (sometimes driven by obsession over NSS results) who use the following strategy to ensure that every student gets 'feedback'. They provide detailed comment on the work of students without giving a mark. This guarantees students will come to see them for a face to face meeting, because they have not got the most important feedback they need: the number.

I would be able to guess the mark of most students reading the comments of any summative or formative assessment, but I don't know any who would be happy just with this.

I'm afraid that isn't an answer ... It seems you are happy to accept that a number indicates your child is doing well what if they weren't doing well how would that number inform you how to support the areas your child struggles with ...

No... I am saying I would not know whether they are doing well or struggling without the number. If they were struggling I would be quite angry to discover it as a surprise by the end of year2.

So if the teacher told you your child is exceeding expectations for their year group you wouldn't know if they were struggling or doing well?

Yes mrz, but a number would also give me that information, perhaps more accurately. I am just disputing your assertion that a number means nothing whether vague statements over meeting god knows what targets is a clearer message.