National levels at the end of year 8?

[Atari]

DS has just had his half-termly monitoring.

He appears to be making good progress against his targets and his effort levels have improved a lot

However, I am concerned that the targets are not setting his sights high enough. He is one of those children who will quietly do OK, never cause anyone any trouble (at least so far!) but won't push himself to do more than he can get away with. Where are they "expected" to be at the end of year 8?

What does he need to be achieving at the end of year 8 to be on target to achieve , say, an A at GCSE?

Yes, not only is there not a ten year pilot for these new GCSEs, there isn't any pilot. Which is ridiculous, they have absolutely no idea what will happen when kids are faced with these new papers. No chance for any errors to be ironed out or decisions rethought.

There was supposed to be a double GCSE introduced for maths back before Gove stuck his oar in, that pilot had been running for years. One of my Y9 classes sat a pilot for a functional maths exam that all kids were supposed to take in 2009, after the pilot the entire exam was scrapped and rethought. Single level SATs papers went the same way.

Pilots are essential and I'm afraid that if I were a year 8 parent, I would be concerned about being the guinea pig year. I'm concerned for my classes!

Pilots are essential and I'm afraid that if I were a year 8 parent, I would be concerned about being the guinea pig year.

Although in 2013, I suspect some/many parents are rather less willing to believe in the "man in Whitehall knows best" air of pilots than my parents were in 1978. Certainly if my kids' school told me that they were going to teach an experimental syllabus leading to a new qualification as a pilot for the rest of the country, I'd ask some very searching questions about what's in it for my children. A new syllabus (ie, limited resources and less well prepared teachers) leading to a new exam (tricky for grade boundaries and equivalent outcomes) with a new name (tricky for consumers of the qualification like universities and employers)? Rather like most experiments, it's easy to say "pilots are necessary", but rather less easy to convince yourself that it should be you participating.

Lots of schools ran (and are still running) the linked pair pilot for maths, so I don't think recruitment was a major issue there. Thing is, it looked like a decent qualification with benefits for the schools that ran it and kids that sat it.

The new GCSE, not so much.

Rather different, though: there had been a ten year pilot for the GCSEs
must have been a bit more than 10 years, I did 16+ Biology exam in 1977 so started the course 1975. (It was a bit rubbish compared to the O-levels for the other subjects TBH)

As far as I understand it from my DCs' schools, broadly speaking Level 7 at the end of year 9 would mean an A at GCSE in year 11, and a C at GCSE if you took it at the end of year 9. This applies in most subjects as far as I know.

End of Yr 9 GCSE predicted
Level 4 ......... D
Level 5 ......... C
Level 6 ......... B
Level 7 ......... A or A*

I found this school's web page helpful for explaining this - I think I found it through Mumsnet.

I am not sure that I agree with how this school have calculated it for English though. I really don't think many year 9s in my DS's school get Level 8s but I do think some get As at GCSE. A friend's DS finished Year 9 with a Level 4 and was told he was thus predicted a D at GCSE, so that school seems to follow my rough guide above.

That makes sense, DSy9 is aiming for Bs and he's getting L6s.

I agree too. I know at the end of year 9 my daughter and friends were aiming for level 7's in all but maths when they were hoping to get level 8. I guess cos they were then on track for A/A*. I also think English on that link is a bit unrealistic.