i thought I had levels all worked out, then year 7 hit

[kimlo]

Dd1 is in year 7, she left year 6 with a 5a and 5b for english and a 4a for maths. Today Ive recived a list of levels in the post and they just seem a bit all over the place, theres a current level, and a target and a predicted level for the end of the year.

Art current 4c predicted 4c target 4c
english cur. 4b pr.5b tar. 5b
geography cur.4b pr. 5c tar. 5c
history cur.3a pr. 4c tar. 4c
IT cur 3a pr. 4a tar. 5b
maths cur 4a pr. 5b tar.5b
pe cur 4b pr. 5c tar 5c
r.e cur 3a pr 5c tar 5c
science cur 4a pr 5c tar. 5c
Technology cur.2a pr.5c tar.7c

Why is art expecting her to make no.progress at all? But then religious studies is expecting her to go from a 3a to a 5c. And technology are predicting she will go from a 2a to a 5c, but her target is a 7c. A 2 to a 7 seems like a lot for a target!

Where do the targets come from? And how is that diffrent to the predicted level?

How much evidence do you need for the child to be at a particular level? One, two, ten? What if it's maths and they are fabulous at algebra but useless at shape and space. What about if they consistently hit level 4 in homework and class work but not in assessments? What if they make two full levels of progress in one year... Should this be their rate the following year? What if they only make a tiny amount of progress in a year? Should they be expected to make up the remaining shortfall the following year and make 1.5 levels of progress? How about if their mother died during the year, or they moved house four times, or they are EAL, to what extent should that be taken into account?

That's why OP's school needs to run a workshop for the parents because they probably have school-specific answers for all of that stuff but just don't communicate them.

Our workshop covered some of those points. Like other schools mentioned in this thread they work backwards from GCSE grades. So in old money if a student comes in with a high level 5 or level 6, they're expected to be capable of getting an A/A* at GCSE. To achieve that they have to make approx 2 sub-levels of progress a year, so that's the starting point for target setting. However they look at each students individually to take their circumstances into account.

If a student has a bad year and make less than 2 sub-levels then their target for the following year won't be adjusted downwards, but they will be given more help to get back on track. That's not about putting pressure on them - it's about intervening to make sure they achieve what they're capable of.

On the other hand if they have a good year, and make more than the target progress, then they won't be resting on their laurels the following year because their target will be set at two sub-levels above the new starting point. Again, that's about encouraging students to achieve as much as they can.

Subjects like humanities and languages that aren't really assessed at primary are given targets based on the English/maths achievement as a starting point. Similarly with art/music/pe but with a strong pinch of salt and lots of pragmatism.

The view seemed to be that the level system isn't perfect but as schools do need to track progress somehow they would stick with it until they had something better.

The previous GCSE system has been disbanded, so measuring targets based on that is pointless. It's not that languages are "not really" assessed, they aren't. Secondaries have zero information.

There is nothing logical about it, and no workshop in the world will clarify that.

But in conventional old (dodgy) money getting from a 5a to an A* is five levels of progress so two-sub levels per year over five years isn't enough. In fact it's just the 'expected' three levels progress with one extra sub-level just-in-case. Henry Stewart wrote a good blog-post on this here:

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2015/03/how-to-use-data-badly-levels-of-progress/

They did make it clear they were explaining it in old money Iguana, and like everyone else they're playing it by ear with the new system till it becomes a bit clearer. I'd rather they did that than stick their head in the sand and pretend they don't have to measure progress any more.

Pique I might have misremembered - perhaps it was the level 6s that were tracking an A/A* and the high 5s an A/B. Anyway the main thing I took from it was that there was lots of scope for individual students to be stretched and they wouldn't sit back and watch anyone coast along.

Wota - the point I'm trying to make is that progress is almost impossible to place on any kind of neat grid, old system or new.

They can't stick their head in the sand because the government hasn't quite grasped that children do not make progress in a smooth flight path, and therefore all schools and all children in schools are resigned to having to artificially "measure" themselves by criteria which is totally unsatisfactory and makes a fool of us all.

Of course all students should be stretched and helped to progress as much as they can. But target setting, (aspirational or from floor targets etc) is necessarily totally flawed, and the smooth progression from A to B is ridiculous.

For subjects like languages, drama (if they do it at your DD's school), technology, it's easy to make progress because they haven't done it as a serious subject before (in primary school), whereas in English or maths, if they've already achieving level 5 or 6, they can't make much progress because they've reached their maximum potential (for now).

Once they have been given a baseline "assessment level" (and I put that in quotation marks because the whole thing is so nebulous and subjective) why are they likely to make more progress from that point (which is where it is "measured") in MFL and Technology than in other subjects?

And why is level 5 or 6 their maximum potential for now in English and Maths?