Confused by the replacement of Levels

[keepsmiling101]

What are different schools doing in the absence of levels? Ours marks each learning objective with expected, exceeded or emerging. Do I now know how my kids are doing? Not really... in fact can feel slightly pale looking at the sheer number of emerging ticks one child got... so figure perhaps not on track... but not sure how badly ... last year's levels had seemed fine. Obv. will go & talk to the no doubt exhausted class teacher but suspect will be given all sorts of reassurances -- they always seem loathe to point out that actually your child really isn't doing that well. Anyway mebs am just being uncharacteristically gloomy... how do other folk feel?

We have a sweepstake at school on what assessments will look like in a couple of years.
I have money on end of year externally marked tests for every year group from Reception to Year 6 ( marked by a company owned by Gove after his resignation!!) with children ordered in the country by ability and the results published online for every one to see.

Yes, I'm completely baffled too. For writing my dd got expected level but the teacher wrote that if she carried on in the same way she would obtain a very high level.

I think this thread has gone a little bit conspiracy theory... The government is still getting just as much data as it used to - from the national assessments at the end of KS1 and KS2. Schools never reported children's levels at the end of other years except to parents (in some cases - our school never did) and governors. All that's changed is that schools can now track children's progress against what they think is important in a way that works for them, rather than following a nationally prescribed system.

Yes, but how are national assessments going to be graded, now?

You won't be able to get a level 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 in your KS1 and KS2 assessments next year. And parents won't make teachers' lives easy if their child's "exceeding expectations" in year 5 translates into, eg, 50th percentile in the year 6 examinations...

And then parents will start saying they don't know how their children are doing in the science curriculum, because it isn't tested externally in national tests... etc, etc...

It's really all a waste of time in my view, more shite for teachers to do, any form of grading doesn't tell anyone fuck all about the quality of the teaching (unless it's really really beyond dire) and even more vague and pointless than sats.
From dds report, unless you actually knew the teacher and her ability, you wouldn't know if she was Einstein coasting along with the teacher bigging up their contribution, an average child being railroaded to make the teacher look good, or the accurate version which is a child who is an outlier in that cohort that they've done their best to accommodate and stretch. Same goes for the average child or the struggling one. Writing a word or a number next to her name means sweet fa as a way of monitoring either the teacher or the school.

There's no conspiracy theory, the government are just incompetent.

DD will be Year 6 next year. Will she get a level from her SATs?

How was data collected before national curriculum levels, or was the pig just weighed less often?

The pig wasn't weighed at all back then. No one gave a shit until You reached O level/GCSE time

Alas, however meaningless, the computer says it must have numbers to crunch.

I do remember getting grades in reports at secondary school - school created ones, like A+, A, A-, B+ etc. Most parents seemed happy with those and felt they were meaningful, even though one teacher's A might well have been another teacher's B-. Much easier to think you understand than emerging, meeting and exceeding.

DD will be Year 6 next year. Will she get a level from her SATs?

She is the same age as my DD!

And no, levels have gone.

No, levels won't be used in SATs any more. Instead there'll be a numerical score, with 100 being the average mark.

And what will the highest mark be?

But lurked Einstein is an interesting example as he couldn't actually spell. So in year 1 he may have got expected for writing, while exceeding for maths and reading. So he could well under this vague system be beaten hands down by little miss just above average who scrapes exceedings across the board.

Schools must be drilling it down further or it will surely give no 'useful' data. Whatever your opinion on data OFSTED love it and that's all that matters.

I don't think it's clear what the highest or lowest marks will be yet.

Instead there'll be a numerical score, with 100 being the average mark

Like CATs then?

Will CAT tests still be done on Year 7?

Depends on the individual secondary school - CAT tests were never statutory.

I imagine so, FATE, because secondary schools still won't trust that SATs scores accurately represent children's abilities. Sigh....

Ofsted in general need to get a proper job, rather than doing what they do which is the educational equivalent of a paramedic at a crash scene polishing the ambulances dashboard

I am (was, 7 years out of the classroom) a secondary teacher. We never trusted SATs levels and replied on CATs.

A 100 average score for SATs makes a lot of sense to me. Easy to understand as a parent in placing my daughters ability.

Difficult to understand (yet) how primaries will give useful ongoing assessment to parents though. My children's primary school has not given any indication of this change to parents. I am so glad I read this thread.

Slightly worried by current Y5 DD will be the first cohort through this.

With performance related pay, teachers will want some method of showing children's progress in their class that is considered sufficiently robust to enable them to argue for a pay rise, as Ofsted will want assessments of teachers' performance to be quantitative, not just qualitative, because numbers are supposedly more objective than opinions, even if the numbers are created from opinions.

SATs tests are nothing like CAT tests, though - they aren't supposed to be an assessment of ability, but an assessment of how well you have been taught the curriculum.

100 as an average score for SATs makes sense if you just want to compare your DC against their cohort. However, it won't tell anyone what they are actually capable of.

The first year through the new KS2 SATs will perform badly compared to later cohorts who will have been through the whole new primary curriculum, giving them much more preparation time for the increased demand.
What use is non-objective data to secondary schools?

Secondary schools are quite used to non-objective data by now.