End of year targets: pulled out of thin air?

[ThreeBeeOneGee]

DS2 is in his first half term of Y7. Very happy with the school so far. The school assesses progress in each subject each half term, so he's been given the level he achieved in recent tests, along with a target level to work towards achieving by the end of Y7.

Today he was given this information for the first three subjects:

Science:
Current level 6A, end of year target 6B.

ICT:
Current level 6A, end of year target 6B.

Art:
Current level 5C, end of year target 5B.

The art target makes sense to me, but the other two? Shouldn't they adjust the target before giving DS2 this information?

Many children might be happy that they are doing well, but DS2 has Aspergers and is very literal. He has come home with the impression that he needs to adjust his work in order to meet these targets. I have tried telling him that the targets have been generated by data analysis that takes more than one variable into account, but I don't know enough about the process to explain it to his satisfaction, nor to back up my argument that he should be ignoring these targets and making his own.

The results will probably be from end of unit tests. I know at our school the results are like that. They don't adjust the target as they student may not do as well in the test on the next topic.

They then average out the results from the tests over the year to produce the end of year level.

It's all made up, sublevels are plucked out of thin air, they aren't actually officially defined anywhere.

Levels are designed to assess progress across a key stage, not a year. So they'll have taken a computer generated KS3 target and divided the difference by three or something similar. Nothing to do with how kids actually make progress.

Targets are assigned by a computer I last two places I worked and fiddled if the reality didn't match the model-- Go to Parents' Evening. If there are issues, they will tell you.

Thanks all. If I explain to him that his Science target for the end of KS3 is 7A then I think he will accept that and work towards it at his own pace. At least then he'll be trying to progress rather than regress!

The target shouldn't be lower than his current attainment. Where do the current levels come from at his school?

The targets should be based on baseline testing that he should have done when he entered the school (eg CATs or MidYIS). These test produce end of Key Stage predictions and most likely the school will choose these figures or add one sub level to them, and then plan for steady progress over Years 7, 8 and 9.

You need to keep in mind that NC levelling is a very blunt instrument. They were never intended to deliver an accurate snapshot, but progress over a long period of time. They are really only accurate at the end of Year 9.

We were only given levels at the end of year 9 for ds1 and then either level 6,7,8 - no sub divisions.

I much prefer it this way. No worrying over targets!

DS is in y9 with targets all over the place (change sharply from one report to the next). Out of thin air, indeed.

Yes in our school they are plucked out of thin air by the computer and we have to put them up if a dc exceeds them in a test even if we know they are likely to average out at the original target over all the topics.

I would definitely take them with a pinch of salt . My DD is out of mainstream school due to illness ,for the first 2 terms after she stopped attending we still received reports for her ( which were glowing) and at the end of the summer term 2013 , having not attended since Jan 2012 ,we received an email telling us she was getting a bronze certificate for effort and attendance !

My DS's target seemed to be plucked out of thin air. A friend's daughter who academically is almost identical to DS got a lot higher targets than him (despite him doing better in SATS) in all except performing arts when he got a lot higher target than her. He does nothing arty and she dances 4 times a week....

They are now in yr8 and I worry that she will get pushed more than him because of having the higher targets.

If you are lucky you will get 'fairly' sensible GCSE targets at the end if Y9.

Only fairly, because Ofsted insist they are aspirational not realistic (hence the nonsense of some DCs being predicted 11 A*)

Before that, they are indeed, plucked out the Ether or generated by a bingo machine