levels going down in year8

[mebaasmum]

Ds was level 5b in french at end year 7 now/4b, 6a in science now 5 b, english stayed at 4a since year 6. Maths seems to the only thing that's going up. No change in schooll from year 7 to 8. BTW its mixed ability teaching for everything except maths. Getting concerned

While it is worrying, and perhaps not ideal, the 'Year 8 dip' is well documented. It's to do with feeling relaxed in the school and not having any national assessment fo another 2 years, I think.

Are his writing skills letting him down as his English level is on the low side?

How were these levels assessed? Was it an end of year exam for Y7 being compared with a single levelled piece of work this time? Or are these levels on a report? If they are on a report I'm surprised as teachers would not normally assess at a lower level than the end of Y7 after a couple of months of Y8 as there probably won't have been time to do an accurate assessment.

Hi
Thanks for the replies. The levels are for pieces of work but they are consistantly lower than the end of year 7 work. With regard to english his writing does let him down and he doesnt like writing. He gets very tired when reading so isnt good with comprehension. He can touch type but this isnt his medium of work at school.
Thanks

This may also be because the school has changed it's marking policy after last years gcse shambles . So they may be producing the same work or even slightly better than last year but there grades are lower because there now marking them differently. Apparently this is what's been happening at my child's school , even though not in gcse years , there doing a push with the lower years too.