gcse targets

[fiftiesmum]

DS has been given a set of GCSE target grades most of which are a little bizarre being much lower than his homework grades, year 9 results and mock module results. We have seen his subject teachers and even they are surprised and use their own experience when it comes to expectations of work. We were told that they were given the targets and thought the targets are based on a national system where they send in information to the government and the targets come back and could be based on school, home post code, colour of socks, etc.

Hopefully DS will not just aim for these targets.

Does anyone know exactly how these targets are arrived at.

Schools shouldn't be giving out computer generated FFT targets direct to students as they are average targets, not individual targets. They should be amended by teachers informed by knowledge of your actual child.

Ask the teachers what they think your DS should be aiming for and ignore the ones you've been given.

How they arrive at them, btw, is that they look at your DS's KS2 results, and then take other information into account such as free school meals status and ethnic origin. They then say what the average student with the same profile as your DS usually achieves. These are then his predictions, which the school will be judged against.

It's all gone a bit weird lately, what with contextual value added being scrapped and the new GCSEs being harder and pass rates expected to fall, so these predictions will be a bit rubbish anyway, I expect.

Targets have never been accurate for us ... DS predicted an E in French at AS and got an A. GCSE similarly wacky. They work for some people. Mine got expected, likely and ambitious target grades. Take with pinch of salt.

Seems a bit of a pointless exercise especially with KS2 results having a ceiling, children being early or late developers and no adjustment on the way, still if he exceeds his targets the school and his teachers will be judged as good.
Have given him our list of targets!!

imagine the teachers feelings! My SLT have decided that they are going to use FFTD and add at least 1 grade to it and we have no say in the matter. This means that the students can feel very demoralised as they know they don't have the ability to achieve them.

I personally prefer students to have targets that they can not only achieve but can surpass as this is a massive motivating factor and self esteem boost