Fed up after options evening

[toomanyoptions]

Hi, my ds(12) isn't the most academic kid but tries so hard, he is a little below on maths/english but hopefully will improve in time. tonight after options evening at school I noticed he is being put forward for the lowest group, practically all BTECS in motor mechanics/hairdressing etc with only a few GCSE options. The school did tell me that they 'band' kids from their results and a computer programme decided to put him in this group, and I am so annoyed that he isn't automatically being offered the chance to pick other subjects and seems to have been sent to the bottom of the pile at a young age!

I think the school should be encouraging all kids to try for the GCSEs rather than just get lumped in with a group where vocational subjects (not even that many offered!) are offered. ds is very upset and feels like he's stupid :(.

Sad to say but the school are thinking about their A*-C grade percentage at GCSE and are pigeonholing students who won't acheive a C in the tougher subjects into the easier ones! A product of our 'rigorous' education system! They start gcses in year 9 so they get an extra shot and more time at achieving their targets!

I teach secondary geography and despite having pressure off slt to achieve over 90% Cs and above we don't turn any pupils away! We have a wide range of pupils who enjoy geography and I teach them and support them to get the best grade they can, if its a D or less then so be it, I have very bright students who struggle with literacy and so dive in exams but their geographical skills and knowledge are brilliant! Unfortunately they are victims of our exam systems and that's why they are offered the btecs which are more assignment based!

I would say for your son to do whatever he enjoys, if its history and geography then do it, yes it's a lot of theory and history is notorious for writing and essays but its the enjoyment that counts! The teacher should support him no matter what grade he is predicted!

Would it be highly cynical of me to suggest that schools might start offering fewer and fewer GCSEs/options to students with lower levels so the parents of less accademic children in younger years might opt to move schools and as such their average cohort would gain better grades?

Don't write off BTECs out of hand. Which subjects are on offer? I teach Performing Arts and have both GCSE & BTEC groups in Yrs 10 & 11. They do the same work. The only difference is the external assessment. For some subjects, a BTEC is more appropriate. Also, a BTEC L2 is accepted as equivalent of a GCSE almost without exception for entry to L3 courses. A Distinction is an A, Merit is B and so on. Interestingly, my yr 10 BTEC class is far more able than my GCSE class, but I think that's just coincidence

I echo eviltwins comments. In fact the BTEC in Business covers far more than the GCSE and now also includes an external test for one of the units

On page 2 somebody wrote that predicted grades were based on where a child lives and what their parents work as. Where exactly did this piece of information come from????

Russian, I would be interested to know this too.
I suspect, that this does not apply to individual childrens predicted grades.
There aRe research groups that work on looking at a wide variety of factors which might influence educational outcomes, using huge numbers of pupils, as the basis of their research. It wouldn't be surprising for them to find that as a broad pattern (and of course this does not mean every single individual child) children who live in deprived areas and are from lower socio economic groups tend to achieve less well than those from affluent areas with parents in professional jobs.
So I don't think any school is looking at an individual child and saying they can't take GCSEs or can only achieve X grade, because of where they live or what their parents do. Don't worry about that. In fact schools are under pressure to 'narrow the gap' and ensure children from precisely the backgrounds mentioned have more opportunities to do well.

Hi Chocolate Wombat

Your explanation sounds feasible. I know that individual targets aren't based on such things. For a start I have never given my job details to my secondary age child's school and also, I work in a school myself so I believe I would have heard this snippet of ground shattering news if it were actually based on their individual levels!!!

"predicted grades were based on where a child lives and what their parents work as. Where exactly did this piece of information come from????"
DH is secondary school governor and I think this type of information is used statistically to assess the performance of individual schools against other schools nationally with a similar pupil profile. I don't think it's used to assess individual pupils though.

My daughter has educational needs and struggles academically she was always disregarded by teachers. I encouraged her to choose all vocational subjects and she is much happier. She starts college this year. She couldn't do photography at school as it went hand in hand with art however she can do just photography at college. She did really well in child development and food tech but couldn't pursue the food tech due to nut allergy. However what I'm trying to say is don't ever let the school/teachers bring you down every child has their own thing which they will just excel in. Regardless of handwriting and maths skills etc. options evenings are horrible in general , stay positive and don't worry 12 years old is very young. There is a whole life of college beyond secondary school these days

All to do with 'progress and value-added'. Sounds like your school is one of those data-smart schools that have whizzy programmes (eg 4-matrix, 3-matrix) that looks at ks2 reluslts as 'input', measures value-added, projects to what it will mean for the school 'output' and allocates the subjects according to where the school can demonstrate value-added at the end of Ks4. Never mind about the living, breathing child - its all about SLT's and teachers' performance-related pay

There is a place for those whizzy programmes. They do provide really useful information about outcomes across large groups. However, a good school will always just use them as one bit of information in making decisions. Good schools will always ask the teachers what they think and if what a child has done so far supports or contradicts the data. Good schools will be able to assess an individuals skills and weaknesses and build that into the process.