Year 7 nat curriculum levels, can someone answer me a question please?

[VivaLeBeaver]

Dd's interim report has come with two columns. First column is her current level, second column says end of year target.

The target levels are different for different subjects. I assumed that these are personally set for each child. So they look at what they're getting now and expect them to make so much progress a year. But she's currently doing better in maths than what they want her to by the end of the year. Have they got her figures wrong or are the end of year targets just a general thing???

Also in her year six sats she got a level 5 in English. Now she's a 4a, should I be concerned?

Do not be concerned.
Ignore the actual levels
is she likely to hit her targets
its all finger in the air stuff (my kids are year 8 and year 10 so I have bundles of these and they make good paper darts)

Its widely accepted that all y7's dip in at least terms 1 and 2. Generally because they were prepared very specifically for their SAT's and the changes they have to adapt to in senior school.

Secondly, her target grade will be a calculation based on a formula of where she was previously, so she's doing well!

my dd has current levels, target for end of year & aspirational target for end of year. I think it's all a bit silly tbh, she didn't do SATs & she's consistently working at higher levels than her aspirational targets anyway.

talkinpiece2 That is very naughty and all too true.

DD1 has GCSE targets for English and art based solely on her good CATs score, they seem to forget that she's dyslexic and can't draw??

She might scrape a B for English, but if she gets an A for art there will be flying pigs joining your paper darts.

My DS got a report just before Christmas which had target grades for the end of Yr 7 and a comment saying whether he was beyond, on or below target. Apart from French and Drama, every single one of his target grades was the same - 5a - which I find very odd, given that he is dyspraxic and finds Art and PE very difficult. My sister (who works in the data area at a school) tells me that the target grades for non-core subjects are decided by KS2 SATs results together with CATs tests if the school do them, (and that the teachers of those subjects tear their hair out as obviously your ability is Art is not going to be governed by your achievement in Eng/Maths/Science). This would make sense as DS got 5cs for Maths and Science and a 4a for Eng. at end of Yr 6.

I am happy that he is on target for all subjects, except (inevitably) Art and PE, and will probably have a chat to teachers at Parents Evening about the targets for those subjects and whether they might be a mite challenging! (As far as I can tell his target levels equate to As and Bs at GCSE).

DS attends a super-selective and there was no indication on his last report about expected levels or even the actual levels he's at. It all seemed to be competitively based on his place in relation to his peer group which is not very helpful!

Thanks for your insights (as always), Tiggytape....Yes, we have to keep reminding our DS that he is likely to do really well even though he's middling to lower middling in the class currently (but near the bottom in maths). I don't think he can yet accept that though! And it seems as if a lot of boys continue to be tutored whereas we firmly believe that DS should be achieving on his own merit...

Yes it is the superselective we've mentioned before...

Well done to your DS! I'm a bit confused about the music grade though - is that related to his maths level?

Is there any relation twixt GCSE grades and A levels though? I know plenty of people including myself who didn't do particularly well with O Levels but did significantly better in their As!

Does anyone actually think that these projected levels are that helpful? If so, to whom?

My daughter's report came out in November and I had to laugh as they had given her end of year targets as well and, as her tutor put it she had already smashed two of the targets. It's a shame they weren't re-adjusted when that happened given they aren't even half way through the year. My daughter had a mixture of levels from 3.75 to 6.75 and we were told the lower levels are because the subjects are new to them or because they have never had an assessed grade before. Found it quite confusing myself.

Anyway, this week they are going into their new sets and I've got a better feel for how she is doing generally now compared to other children - know we shouldn't compare them but always nice to feel your child is doing well, or if they are struggling thinking of ways as a parent to support them.

That's interesting to know about maths and music...had heard there was some link twixt languages and maths but not sure how reliable that is....

Yes, indeed it has been strange and an eye-opener for DS and us too. A lot of DS's primary school friends who have gone to comprehensives (but were not necessarily top table ever in their primary school careers) are in the G&T groups. DS keeps saying "well I would have been G&T at a comprehensive" which is most likely true, but we do have to keep reminding him that a) he was very keen to go to a grammar school and b) he is with a very, very bright cohort which skews his reality...

We don't think he does need to be tutored (he picks up stuff very quickly if he can be bothered!) but it appears that some of the boys still are being...I find it alarming that for whatever reason parents consider it necessary to continue to have their DCs tutored even when they are at some of the most high-achieving and sought-after schools in the Country...(but that's another thread...)

As gatheringlilacs commented in another post, it is a pity though that children can go through super-selectives feeling 'second rate' but still come out with twelve As/A*s

So if the targets aren't helpful to the pupils, what's the point? DW was saying only the other day that her junior school Headmaster accurately predicted how many O Levels she would get and he was right. But she wasn't aware of this until her parents told her much later on in life.... I am sure teachers are quite capable of getting a handle on their pupils' abilities without it all having to be documented for what I can only assume is some woolly governmental purposes...

You are indeed right that so many variables come into play in determining educational outcomes in secondary school (and hard work/slacking is one of the most significant factors I would have thought) that these targets are a load of balloney...

The 'dip' that can be common in English is not so much about the Sats grade being overinflated or the huge 'teaching to the test'/mass revision that some feel happens in yr 6; more that secondary school English can be a very different kettle of fish from primary. Yes, they're still doing comprehension, but it's of vastly different and much more grown-up texts and so the level of understanding required to tick the boxes of a certain level, so to speak, is much greater than in primary.

I was looking at some essays the other day of some yr 8s (this is in a grammar school) which were on the 4a/5c boundary - the text was Frankenstein - and I don't personally know of any primary aged child who could have done any better (including all the children I know who were officially level 5 in year 5).

(I personally believe English is the subject most appropriate to the comment some people make about 'a KS2 level 5 is not the same as a KS3 one').

...Incidentally, ds came home tonight and said, 'I think secondary school English should be renamed 'Philosophy' - you have to think about things so more than at primary school'!!

Thanks everyone. Interesting comments. Ill stop worrying about it and make some paper planes.

please my son is in year 7 and the result at the end of the year stated, Maths 5c, science 4c and RE 4c please can you help is this result bad?

please my son is in year 7 and the result at the end of the year stated, Maths 5c, science 4c and RE 4c please can you help is this result bad?

can anyone help please?

please can anyone explain this to me, my son is in year 7 and the end of the year result is maths 5c, RE 4c, science 4c and the other is not out yet. please is this bad?