Changes to NC and relation to 'old' levels...

[Panicmode1]

I have tried to google this but can't find it....I'm trying to find out how the new NC assessments correspond to the 'old' NC levels - my children's reports all say "will achieve above age related targets by the end of the year". How do I find out what that actually means in real terms?! Or what the age appropriate targets are.....the information coming from the school has been rather thin to say the least!

The new curriculum doesn't relate to the new levels.

The age appropriate expectations are the curriculum content.

As Mrz said.

DS's school now have:
'Beginning' working towards national age expectations
'Within'
'Secure'

So if your child is say 'secure', how do you know if any progress has been made, or if they've slipped slightly but still within 'Secure'.

Is it any different to A,B,C ? Think of secure as B....

That makes sense mrz.

Ah. I was thinking about this since parents eve. It looks like we're getting 'below average', 'average' and 'above average' as a marker.
I thought that's a bit airy fairy - how are they going to properly show progress? Set targets etc?
It's funny how at the start I never liked those levels and now feel funny about them going.
But yes, I suppose it's just like A B or C.

But it's not though is it.With the old levels you could be way below or way above now and know exactly where and how much progress they'd made as the levels were the same whichever year they met them in.Now it's just a,b or c and the c could stretch on forever,ditto the a.I then guess said a,b or c will change in content when they move up the next year or not- info appalling thin on the ground here too.No idea what our school does,nice for them to let us all know before parents evening,not.

But you can do the same with a new system Petit. Once you are secure at your current year groups' expectations you can move on to beginning the next. Giving you a 'level' that says how far ahead you are. It's just slightly different labels than under the old system.

Of course different schools are now going to be using slightly different labels to each other to measure the same thing (or in the case of herts and Sheffield very different labels). But that's a headache for Ofsted/ LA advisors to sort out as they try to compare progress across different schools.

Have you not had a parents evening since September petit?

It's not as simple as that. The expectation is that most children will be secure by the end of the academic year. They can't move on until the following academic year.

That isn't true redspottydress,
People seem to have a great deal of faith in levels and their usefulness but what did they really mean? In Year2 children were expected to achieve level 2B so now they are expected to be secure at Y2. How is that different? If they are working at Y1 expectations you know they are a year behind and if they are secure at Y3 a year ahead ...

That's not right.

From the English curriculum:

Schools are, however, only required to teach the relevant programme of study by the end of the key stage. Within each key stage, schools therefore have the flexibility to introduce content earlier or later than set out in the programme of study. In addition, schools can introduce key stage content during an earlier key stage if appropriate

So will we be told if the ahead is the next year's curriculum or below is the previous and not simply stretching sideways?And what elements?Surely just working at the year above isn't attaining it.Also levels were quite detailed. You could be one whole level above,maybe more,maybe just a sub level ditto if you were behind.Will it be broken down?

Had one previous parents evening,no mention of details or anything.

If my dc isn't meeting expectations in new money in year 5 frankly I will want to know what they are planning to do about it.Given that all this has been known for a while then surely extra resources should have been put into year 5 instead of spending money on other things.They have their Sats next year and for them to probably be starting year 6 below where they should be isn't good enough.

DS's school have said that they have been told not to teach above age level expectations - to do extension work. So if you have a child on the top level, in our case 'secure', we have no idea if he is secure for his age or secure for a child one or two years higher.

Just as achieving elements of level 3 didn't mean the child was achieving it but it seems many parents were happy with a 3C (which was a made up concept)

I can't say what your child's school will do or say ... Perhaps they don't know

We are getting 'working below' 'on track' and 'working above' - this is a secondary school.

One member of staff told em that there are children with the potential to get a top grade but who decide hey only 'need' C so once they are told they are working at a C they stop bothering so instead of being told the grade they are at they are given one of the above gradings in relation to their 'flightpath' as predicted by the wizzy software the school use.

That's going to depend on how good your individual school is at communicating with parents I think. As an example of what our local schools are doing: The end of year expectations for years 1 to 6 are numbered 1-6. For each level there are 3 'sublevels' if you like. Emerging developing and secure, depending on the number of criteria a child has achieved. So a child might be given 2e, or 3d depending on where they are working at. Progress is expected to be 3 'sublevels' per year. It isn't wildly different to the old system, where some schools gave levels to parents and others didn't.

Not sure we've really moved forwards with this system. Telling me a child is 3d or 3e doesn't tell me anything more or less about what a child can or can't do than telling me a child is 3c or 3b did.

Rafals, the old way showed progress through the sub levels - which was helpful.

There is also the issue that the new curriculum is harder. For example, the old year 2 expectations were 2b and the new Year 2 will be a secure Year 2. However, a secure Y2 is not the same as a 2b. Current thinking (and this will probably change once the new SATs results start coming in next summer) is that a secure Year 2 will be the same as a 2c, not a 2b.

We are working on the theory that results will be deflated by one sublevel, possible two further up the school (i.e. a 5c will be the same as a secure Year 6, not a 4b as it is now.

As does the new way in the cases I've seen. Herts, Sheffield and my local system all have an end of year expectation and an expected number of 'sublevels' progress for those working at, above or below this. I'm going to assume target tracker does the same because it can't track otherwise.

What we are really talking about here is how schools are choosing to communicate that knowledge to parents.Or in fact whether they are at all. And there were plenty of threads under the old level system where people were complaining that schools didn't or wouldn't give out sub levels other than in the years where they were required to.

If I understand it correctly, the key difference is that it is now up to the individual schools.

One school may have translated the new curriculum content into a 'levelling' system that is just as detailed as the old levels were, with very clear, detailed criteria of what a child must achieve in order to reach which level. Another school may choose to restrict 'levelling' to vague, generalised 'child is on track/not on track' information, based solely on the teacher's 'impression'. (The latter school may have more time to actually teach, but at the cost of having less precise 'data' of where each individual child is at and how much progress they are making)

Even if your school has implemented a system that you find helpful, they may still have the problem that they can't compare their internal 'levelling' with other schools. What's the term - when teachers from different schools came together and compared how they levelled they same piece of work, to ensure that everyone's levelling was realistic (not too strict/too optimistic) and comparable.
And you may have the problem that whereas with the old levels, you could look up the detailed criteria online (or ask Mumsnet to 'level this piece of work for me please'), now only teachers from your school can tell you what 'level' your child is working at because those particular levels may only exist at your child's school.

Our school seems to have come up with a decent system, and clearly they have put a lot of thought into it, which makes me feel optimistic. We will be told in which year's curriculum our children are working (that would be the old 'level' except that they go from 1-6 now rather than 1-4), and how secure they are in it, with 6 'sublevels'. Furthermore we will be told how that translates in terms of expected attainment at end of their Key Stage. So e.g. if a year 3 child is working at year 3 curriculum at 'secure' level, right at the start of year 3, that would translate into 'expected to achieve higher than 100' at the end of KS2, provided the child continues to make the expected progress. If at the end of year 3 the child is still 'secure' at the year 3 curriculum, that would translate into 'expected to achieve about 100' at the end of KS2 and would indicate that the child has made less progress than expected in Y3.

Thank you so much everyone - so interesting to see how different schools are communicating with parents.

I suppose as someone upthread said (sorry, on mobile so can't refer), at least with the old levels you knew where they were on the national scale. Now I have no idea if my children are working at their correct year levels, or above, just that they will 'exceed age expectations'.......but we have had no explanation as to whom they are being compared....in their cohort, in their school, in their county...? Meaningless really, but apparently there is going to be a meeting to explain further. Shame that wasn't before consultations/reports!!

The criteria for the new curriculum is freely available on line (with detailed year group expectations).

They should know exactly where they are on a national scale as its measured by the content of the national curriculum.