NC levels in year 7- I am turning into one of ^those^ parents.......!!!

[seeker]

Do you all know what level your year 7 child is working at, and what their targets are? If so, are you willing to share? If not, do you know when you will/do you want to/are you bothered?

And does your child bring marked/commented on homework home regularly?

I have a parent's evening next week, and I am very keen not to appear to be a git with unrealistic expectations......!

What you also need to remember about levels and targets is that teachers know all about them in the context of GCSEs. So I could look at a Y7 with a KS3 target of level 6.2 and think that kid should (very roughly) be a C grade GCSE student (which, let's face it, is what everyone is actually concerned about). With the usual caveats that a lot can happen in 5 years etc etc.

But current Y7 won't be sitting GCSE. Who knows what the future holds for them, it's all a complete mystery to everyone.

That's getting to me at Open Evenings (currently looking for DD secondary). There's no point in schools telling me how they like to schedule GCSEs, because so subject to change. Common current practice is to complete 2 option GCSEs each in yrs9-11 and 4-5 core GCSEs in y11, but no idea if that's what DC will do. Argh.

2 of the state schools we're looking at have E-Portals for parents: parents can login & see homework deadlines, debits, detentions, etc, for their child. Alas DS school is a secondary that does not have parent e-portal. I am going to suggest it to them. He brings workbooks home most days so I can see for myself what standard work he's doing (very little marking, though).

If you do a Google on "Expected levels Year 7", you will find that several schools have tables and information on the expected levels at their particular school. It's quite interesting to see the huge variations. What is expected at one school might be exceptional at another.

At my school, we do the FFT targets divided by 3 thing. I find it frustrating as I teach drama and academic ability doesn't necessarily correlate to dramatic ability. In my yr 8 classes, I have students with targets ranging from 4a to 7c and in Yr 9 from 5a to 8a. I have two incredibly talented students who are already hitting the criteria for the top of level 8 so they will appear to make "no" progress this year as there is simply nowhere else for them to go. In practice, of course, they will be developing their skills in all sorts of ways. We don't yet have targets for yr 7 students- FFT takes its time and then the targets have to be split and put into the system at school. We send review grades home at the end of every half term so parents should know the end of Key Stage target, the end of year target and the current level of their DC in every subject.

I would say it is too early to be expecting targets etc; as others have said your ds will only have seen some teachers for about 5 hours in total. And your initial parents meeting is more about the pastoral side and how they are settling in etc.
In ds's work so far, what seems to be the strange thing to get used to is how the different subjects all mark differently so some are 'out of 15' per homework/classwork (humanities), some are effort and attainment grades (maths) and some are actual nc levels (science and English).
The weirdest thing to get your head around, I think, as others have said, as an ex-year 6 parent, is the lack of sublevels (as we are constantly being informed by teachers they don't really exist anyway) but year 5/6 seemed to be obsessed by them.
So ds gets a piece of science homework with the criteria for level 5, 6 and 7 alongside it when set and a mark when completed of just the level achieved, with advice for how to go up to the next level. That's it. You can jump from a 5 to a 6 if you do this. No 'a's, 'c's, etc. It's so different and, in truth, probably more useful to just be concentrating on how well he's settled, coping with the routine, enjoying the new subjects taught by subject specialists, new clubs, etc, which I'm sure you are.

(Surely mordion didn't mean it's an invasion of privacy to look at your own child's schoolwork??)

I got sensible levels and sensible CAT marks for DD1 in Y9.

Much of what I got before that was and (L7 for English, that turned out to be a speaking and listening test. Her written English was L5 on a good day).

what giraffe said

iu totally concur
sub levels are made up - the whole system is subjective nonsense

Seeker You were concerned, in your original post, about turning into 'one of those parents'. IMO going through your kids school books either with them or by yourself is well over the line into 'those parents' territory already. It's not an invasion of privacy, really, because the books aren't private, teachers look at them, etc. But it's an invasion - or, maybe, a usurping, of responsibility and autonomy. If kids ask for help and/or advice they should be given it immediately. If there is an external indicator (ie word from the school) that there is an issue then you should work with the kids to help them resolve it, again, immediately. But poking around looking for problems (or looking to be reassured) before there is even any indication of an issue? How can kids ever start to take responsibility for their own lives if at every turn they are being mollycoddled like that? Plus many kids would find that intensely irritating.

But as for your original question - my opinion as already stated is do ask about targets there's nothing wrong with that at all.

i wouldnt ask in a level based manner though.
Id be pleased if a parent said " Oi mo, how will channelle improve in Physics then?"

i will say " she can shut up and do her homework" or something more charming

NB i am kidding

I know DS is in the top set for Maths, and he got a level 7.
He got a 4B in science.

Everything else I am not really sure about, and neither is he. We dont even get a parents evening until the summer term, instead the form tutor gets reports from all the teachers and we get an appointment with him/her to discuss it.

At 14 (so during year 9) they are expected to be at level 5 or 6. What is more accurate is looking at their level in year 6, they are expected to progress by two sub levels in a year so if they were a level 4c at the end of year 6 then you'd expect a 5b at the end of year 7 if they are the "average" child.
What really matters is that they are happy and doing their best.

oh sod it, I typed that wrong - 4c at the end of year 6 means a 4a would be expected at the end of year 7. 4c means they have just started working in that level, 4b means they are secure in that level and 4a means they are at the top of the level.

We don't do FFT, because they are contextual and context is out. We use levels of progress. And our end of year targets assume a completely linear progression from, for example, a 4b to a C.

Yes it's a load of rubbish. My year 7s are doing a test this week. From this we will give them a level. However, we have been doing one topic with them. Next half term we will move on to another topic. Would we expect them to "progress" to a higher level, if demonstrate that they can produce work of am equivalent standard in the next topic?

For ourselves, we divide our assessments into skills (data handling, explaining, planning etc) and knowledge. We plot progress in both. But parents want one number. It's a shame, because it is imposing a very limited 2 dimensional scale in what is a considerably more complex situation.

i am a little bit worried you lot take levels so seriously

noblegiraffeSat 13-Oct-12 11:22:20
Target levels are usually generated by an outside company, e.g. Fischer Family Trust. They would take the KS2 data and a whole host of other factors including post code, ethnicity and free school meal status to generate a target for the end of KS3. This is based on what the average student with a similar set of KS2 results and a similar profile to your child achieves at the end of KS3.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will be furious if my DS targets are one iota less than his friend's with the same SAT/CAT scores, just because DS happens to be mixed race, FSM and in a single parent family. Possibly fair enough to base an overall target for the school on these sort of averages, but not for him as an individual.

One of the biggest indicators of children's success is teachers' expectations, and I believe that these predictions provide schools with an excuse for poor outcomes and let many children down.

noblegiraffe. Yes. In the face of the madnes of my place, it's good to see that other teachers have the same issues.

Mind you, we've not even been given our yr 7 SATsresults yet, so working fairly blind - apart from initial diagnostic pieces.

The other problem we have is that primary schools cram and cram and cram kids to pass SATs; so they do. They pass well, too. Then they come to high school where it's not English all day, sorry, 'Literacy', and their marks appear to drop.

We also have the problem where we need to give an overall level eachg half term, but English isn't like this: you can be at ahigh level in reading, but low in writing.

@maureen I'm a little about a lot of things on MN, I seem to be the laxest mother in creation when compared to some of the things people write on here yet my children are all doing very well indeed at school (despite their various SEN conditions) and I think most of the other parents and teachers I know at the 3 schools our kids attend, think if anything I'm more a bit more full on than them.

Maybe this really is just an exceptional (as in, very different, not better) part of England than anywhere else that Mumsnetters live.

choccy they WILL be

Having just had my SEF meeting Maureen, levels are looming large in my mind...

mordio - no criticism at all

just if you could see the ahem.. thought .. that goes into them you so wouldnt give a tinkers cuss

I get p'd off with those who take levels so seriously at times, but the reality is that people who work in schools have to take them seriously whether they like it or not.

Maureen you mean they will expect less of DS because of his ethnicity etc?
That is so out of order, and this whole area deserves to be highlighted much more.

Not in my school. We don't use FFT. Levels of progress are what matter, completely decontextualised.

they wont expect less at ALL
but his fft will be lower.
i had a kid with a D - she got an A*

No,it won't affect expectations. Or it shouldn't. A target is a figure generated by an outside body.Teachers teach children. The only way the figures become maddening is when you have a lazy child with a high target. X is mean to get a B. Or an A. Yes, but X won't hand in his homework and never has a pen.