yr 7 levels?

[nicknamerunout]

My yr 7 dc's got her first secondary school report last week. She has a mixture of level 4s and 5s (old nc still). Is she behind? Mnters' children seem always have level 6s, 7s even 8s and then all gcses A*s or As. So I am sort of led to believe that my dc's results must be very substandard.

Please any secondary school teachers advise............

This is the danger with levels; when posters can comment that levels 4-6 for a term 1, y7 are low!

Your daughter is doing very well OP.

Ok OK OK but no no no she is only mostly low 4s and mid 4s. She doesn't have any thing anywhere near 6.

for you Notin

notinaminutenow
honestly though, you didnt think 'top grammar schools' would have kids getting more than 4-6? i didnt even think they would get in to top grammars without 6s (we are very much not grammar round here so am clueless, just it sounds like the results are the same as our bog standard comp is all)

sanfairyanne

I suppose there are some grammar kids getting L7+ in year 7, as are some children in comprehensive schools. There must also be a proportion of grammar kids who, now they are not being heavily tutored, may not be achieving the dizzy heights that they were so the end of a Primary.

My DS's report last week reported levels ranging from 3a to 6b. His friends levels range from 3a to 7c. They attend a comprehensive school. Whether it is big-standard is open to interpretation I guess.

I really am more interested in knowing that my DS is doing his best or near his best in subjects (effort scores).

nick not sure whether coffee and cake is a good thing in mumsnet land, but as it's fab in the real world, thanks! Happy Christmas!

I really should not post after a drink! I'm sure you get the gist!

DD2 came into secondary on high 5s and a low 6, but a lot of that is meaningless - as are target levels for new subjects. They've set her a 6 as a target in Spanish because she got a 6 in English - bit of a logic fail IMO as Spanish is a new language for her and the requirements for L6 are such that they can't realistically be met in the space of a year. It's silly - but schools have to do it.

Similarly they project the humanities from their English levels - presumably because with a L5/6 they are reasonably articulate in writing and can read and understand well. There's a lot more to History and Geography than that, though.

There's such an emphasis on data and managing 'expected progress' that the focus on teaching is getting lost.

Different teachers will award levels in different ways as well, it's not an exact science, and certainly targets aren't!

Don't get too hung up on the minutiae of levels, look at the general trend over time, and try and get feedback at parents' evening would be my advice!

"More usual to use FFT."

So why don't the targets come with a probability attached to them?

"Yet, bizarrely a couple of her friends have been predicted the same level but freely admit"

Y7 DD reported how one of her new quiet-girls friends was puzzled by a quite high level they were given for something i.e. they told DD they thought it was too high.

I'm quite pleased by the kind of friends she has made.

"FFT has probability"

Yes, this type of predictive stuff inevitably dumps little bell curves further up the achievement scale, but we only get to see a fixed target presumably because our tiny brains would explode if confronted by any more complexity.

Similarly we were sent individual sub-test and an overall CAT score without the error bars.

Just remember NC Levels are not allowed to be reported after April 2015 so no child will achieve their end of Y7 target if it has been set by the old levels.

Feellikescrooge - I don't think that's true, KS1 and KS2 will have NC levels reported in summer 2015, and schools at KS3 and 4 are allowed to continue to use the NC levels if they find them helpful, however there is going to be an expectation that they devise their own assessment system, so I think Ofsted would frown on a school clinging to their NC levels. In any case, I think the current Y7s will still be given a NC level at the end of Y7 - reporting the levels certainly isn't banned.

FeellikeScrooge:

Just a parent - but am aware that the government is leaving it to schools to determine which progress descriptions they prefer to use...

As this OP was about Y7 reports - thought I'd just say what our secondary is doing. They're going for things like 4L/ 4M/ 4H (low/ medium/ high ability sub-level descriptors) but maintaining main levels as

a) parents know vaguely what this means from primary experience and there is no national testing end KS3. More clued up parents might also be aware that NC L5/6 was 'old system' end of KS3 achievement target for England.
b) pupils know what this means (again from primary experience)
c) does mean you can guage progress against primary KS2 SATs results and/or primary school Y6 report.

I agree that GCSE scoring on 1-9 with 9 being roughly equivalent to old style A* but apparently at a slightly higher standard (e.g www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/new-gcse-grading-system-number-of-pupils-given-top-marks-to-be-slashed-9727557.html is coming in - but I have to admit I'm not completely clear how progress will be reported in KS4 (as DD1 is only Y7).

We're in an odd period of transition - largely from the governmental own-goal of scrapping old Level system without offering a replacement. But then (admittedly quite cynically) I see this as a government mandarin's solution to the problem of a large group of people seriously worried about education (namely parents). It's preferable to divise a new system, which doesn't equate exactly to the 'old system' to distance parents from truly understanding how their children are doing. Education is a 'big issue' for parents (and there are millions of us) - lots of anger/ concern/ worry there - takes the pressure off government if parents have no clue how their child is doing now doesn't it.

HTH

Yes, it's going to be up to schools to work out how to assess and report. Our school is sticking with the old levels for now - their view is that parents have only just got their heads round what they mean, so they are not going to start messing around with new systems, until there is a period of calm, because tbh they have enough to do getting to grips with the rest of Gove's changes.

With a son in Y9, the changes to GCSE are frankly terrifying, ds1 will have some 'reformed-GCSEs' - marked 1-9, some 'normal GCSEs' marked A*-G, but the reformed GCSEs assume a KS1-3 curriculum which he has not been taught. And how you are supposed to have parity when half your GCSEs are one style and half the other, I have no idea - the next 2 or 3 cohorts of children are unfortunate victims of a minister for education with little knowledge of schools, but a great desire to change things to his own memory of 1950s independent school eductation.

And I spotted I spelt education wrong - I do know how to spell it really!!!

I agree with you psbd. The reason I am so keeping a close eye on my dcs' schooling is because I feel very insecure and uninformed about the ed system. Especially I already lost my confidence over their primary ed.