Can anyone talk to me about levels in French for YR7 please?

[DinosaurRumpus]

Ds1 is in YR7 and I've just received his school report.
Seems to be doing well - Average CAT score = 129 and he was given level 5 for maths, english, science, history, geography, ICT etc but then he has been given a level 3 in French.
That seems very low! Do you think that ds has a problem with this subject? He hates french and thinks it's 'pointless' so that doesn't help, but can anyone tell me what sort of level is expected for french in yr7 please?

Don't panic! That's actually a decent mark for French. They all start at level 1 at the beginning of the year and then progress from there. Don't be surprised if he is moved to a higher set; one of my boys was with the same level.

It should be a level or 2 lower than other subjects because usually they only start the language in year 7. Only reason to be concerned would be if he had had French lessons before.

vj32
French lessons have been in primary schools through the whole of KS2 for several years now

That's certainly not the case in this area. He's doing well! As a previous poster said they start off on a 1 or 2 in Year 7.

In year 7 I would expect some top set children to be achieving Level 4. Lower groups tend to be level 2-3. That's in a reasonable comprehensive in quite a deprived area.

Perfectly fine. They only start in Year 7!

It depends how many lessons they are having too.
But generally MFL levels tend to lag behind other subjects right through KS3 IMO.

For top sets/high fliers Maths, English, Science, History, Geography, Music, Tech, etc. will set targets/award levels up to L8 for the end of yr9 at the boys' school. But MFL only up to L6.

By lessons I mean some schools just do 1 or 2 lessons of MFL in yr7. At other schools they do a term of each of 3 languages. So they're not going to make vast progress in such circumstances.

Thanks for your replies :)

He has done very little french before and has certainly not had regular lessons throughout primary (something that I'm not terribly happy about but that's another thread!). He did do a little in YR6 but they did not seem to take them much further than name, age, address, siblings and counting to 10!! So from that point of view he was starting from scratch. Certainly, having discussed this with him, writing and reading french are completely new to him.
He has 3 lessons of french per 2 week period (2 in week A, 1 in week B)

It sounds as if he's not doing too badly then, even though he hates it! His school insist that they study a language to GCSE so he's just going to have to get on with it - Any tips, resources, websites you can suggest for a reluctant language learner?

DD1 now year 9, had level 2a for MFL at the start of yr7 with an eoy target of 4a which she reached. She HAD done French in junior school, but that was the highest level the secondary school were teaching to at the time.
Her subsequent targets were to progress a full level each year, so she should end this year on a 6a. Again, highest school are teaching to.
The teacher has said she should acheive at least an A at GCSE.

This is not quite on par wih other subjects where a 6b would generally be a N grade prediction.

Whoops - that should have been "B" grade.

Try www.zut.org.uk for fun activities.
Totally agree with other posters re-his level. Often teachers have to start from pretty much scratch in Year 7 because all the pupils in the class have very different experiences of learning French. And some have been taught the wrong thing.
Languages can be quite unpopular because it takes a bit of perseverance to get you head round the grammar (esp verbs). But once you get how it all works, it gets better.

I think a 3 is fine for just now in Y7 - lots of DD's friends are a 3.

DD does 2 languages, 1 period per week. They test them all the time, and she was a 2a at October half-term, a 3a at Christmas and is now a 4a, but only in the areas they have studied, of course - when we were in France, she was laughing about only being able to tell people about her school bag, family and house!

And they don't seem to do grammar and verbs in the way they did in my day!

Well that the whole point about the levels, it's that you can be a level 4 with minimal vocabulary . The amount of words you knows has virtually no impact on the level given.
Quite frankly, I would not worry too much about levels (at least in languages) because I don't think they prove very much. Have you read the level descriptors? Woolly as can be. And may I also add that you can have a different level for each skill. Confusing.

Just had a look at your link Elsie - very confusing!

TalkinPeace, that isn't the case. Some MFL provision has been accessible but was only compulsory from 2010 and could be any MFL, not necessarily French. Where it has been provided it is often inconsistent between years, feeder schools etc so many secondaries find themselves starting at the beginning or doing a lot of work to revise/develop the basics.

Level 3 is normal for Y7 as explained earlier - to get equivalent grades to the core subjects pupils would have to study quite complex grammar and use it confidently and consistently which is difficult without a good foundation of vocab and language knowledge - it takes more than a few months to develop these. Some pupils do hit L4 in Y7 but it is perfectly 'normal' not to.