New levels

[Marmitelover55]

My DD2 is in year 7 and we've just had her first report. She has been graded with levels which equate to the new GCSE grades but I don't understand how well she is doing.

She has got a 5- for maths which looks good as her target for the end of the year is 5 (she is in the top set) but in RE for instance she has a 1 and a target of 5-, so not good. All of her other targets are 4. How much progress should we be expecting in a year? I had just got my head around the old NC levels and think two sub levels was roughly what was expected - is this still the same?

They do seem to have sub levels still as some are + and some -.

These are definitely the new levels and not the old ones. Any help would be great - thanks.

[Debsmumof3]

Sorry. I seem to have gone off piste. Started a whole new chat.
New to mumsnet.

[Debsmumof3]

Good point. It is a tough one. Although ideally I would hope the school would have intervention plans in place for all students who were below age expected achievement. Maybe if we also reported the old fashioned 'reading age' and started 'maths age' reporting, parents would understand better.
I truly believe though that we need to make the socially acceptable ' maths is hard' adage unacceptable.
Most maths success is about confidence. Learning through failure and patterns, and having good foundation teaching in KS1 and 2.
And I wish we would stop trying to be like everyone else. Far eastern children may do well in exams but they miss out on childhood and have a totally different culture.
I watched a program about education in Africa. Not sure where. But the school was run on a shoestring. At the end of the day it was the pupils who cleaned the classrooms. Helped prep for next day. Taking responsibility rather than seeing it as a right! Not sure it's the answer but a good point for discussion. My children seem to think they have more rights than responsibilities. And I probably don't help.

[noblegiraffe]

Be careful at only looking at effort grades. One parents evening I had to explain to the parents of a lovely Y7 that yes, her effort and homework grades were consistently excellent, however, she was bottom set for maths and working well below age-related expectations. They had no idea what the levels meant and because her report was glowing, assumed she was doing really well.

They immediately got her a tutor and she improved immensely with lots of help outside of school.

[Marmitelover55]

Thanks Debsmumof3. Her effort grades were all 1 which is outstanding (except PE which was good), so no worries on that score. She doesn't have a tv in her room but does have her phone as she likes to listen to music. However she got a clock radio for Christmas, so I can take phone out overnight - good idea. Thanks again everyone for your input and happy new year!

[Debsmumof3]

As a secondary maths teacher & mum of three with children who range from struggle to almost gifted I would say this.
Our children are in a ever changing world. We are constantly measuring them against targets and each other.
And the targets keep moving.
Smart kids in yr7 often don't do so well in GCSEs and those who struggled in yr 6 often excel by year 11. I would suggest you look at the effort grades. Do the teachers think they working their hardest? Does your child agree? Success is about having a positive 'can do' and hard working attitude, along side perseverance and resilience. They must learn to accept failure in order to experience success. Praise effort and hard work whatever their grades. Don't say " you are so clever well done!" Say " well done you must have worked really hard to get that grade". Get them to value their input not be stressed by the result.
Encourage them to read nightly. No TVs in their room. No phones /tablets overnight in their room on a school night. When you can, sit with them whilst they do their homework. (Tough I know but even if it's only once a month for 10mins). The pressure on our children is so much more than we ever had. Social media is as damaging as it is good. If you deny them it they will feel left out. So supervise them initially. Then trust them. And spot check!
Sorry feel I'm on a soap box now.
My children are not perfect. Nor am I. We are normal. Arguing fighting and making mistakes. But try to have consistency trust and positive discipline and praise. Trying to accept everyone's strengths and differences ( emphasis on Trying).
A happy child, who is secure in their place in the family and knows the family values will learn and succeed. Don't try to make them what they are not. They need manners and a good work ethic. With love and lots of cuddles they will be fine.
End of sermon. Xx

[Molio]

Bolognese a lot can happen to history in forty years. Forty years is a long old time.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

It is pretty much impossible to say what the report means without knowing how the school are relating the grading system that they have to the new GCSE levels, and even then as has been posted it would still be a guess as nobody knows how the new GCSEs are going to pan out.

[teacherwith2kids]

The child I have taught who worked hardest, every day, was a child who worked harder walking from the door to his desk and sitting in it accurately than any of my able children did at any point in the day. Every day he laboured, and every day he practised counting to 5, and sometimes the first letter of his name as well. But it all had to be done again the following day, because of significant mental impairment that affected his memory. His progress, in terms of 'levels', over the year was 0, but he worked at the absolute utmost of his ability, every day.

[teacherwith2kids]

"I would assert that more able pupils put in the hard work to get that progress and lower attaining pupils put very little work in"

No. Just no.

If you take 2 equally able children, and 1 works very hard, and the other doesn't, the one who works harder will attain better.

But a naturally gifted child, who finds academic work easy and has a good memory will make progress faster, and much more easily, than a child who starts off with significantly lower ability, for whom acquiring and retaining information is a daily struggle.

[teacherwith2kids]

"Its very telling that parents know extremely well which schools are good, bad and in-between."

But the data is at an individual CHILD level. So EvilTwins' school, say, may be less well regarded than another local school by parents, because it has a different profile on intake in terms of proportions of able / less able children but also because the intake of the schools is very different in socioeconomic terms.

But a very able child at ET's school may still be at an 8 or 9, and a child on the SEN register in the 'better regarded school' would still be a 1 or below - but because those children are statistically rare in their respective schools, the staff there will less confidence in putting a level to that child than they would more typical students, and because those 'outlier' grades will be statistically rare anyway, it will be harder to gicve them accurately within an individual school.

Just because a school is 'better', does not mean 'every child is a 7', nor is every child in a 'less well-regarded school' a 4.

A school I know of (not local), is statistically one of the worst schools in the country.The majority of its intake arrive with levels more typical of a Year 2 than a Year 7 child. But it recently celebrated its first 2 Oxbridge entrants.

[EvilTwins]

I teach my KS3 classes once per week. I have to test them and report their grades every 6 weeks. Which means I am testing and reporting on them once every six hours. It's ridiculous.

Then I have to analyse the data and state what interventions I am putting in place if they are not making progress.

Its very telling that parents know extremely well which schools are good, bad and in-between. If teachers are unable to do so then I find it hard to believe them. - you asserted up-thread that teachers should know where their school fits in nationally. So if I teach in Southampton, I should know how my school compares to one in Lincoln? And now apparently parents know that.

[noblegiraffe]

The op has clarified that the school has NOT said these are GCSE grades

Uhuh. So the school has just started using a new system based on the numbers 1-9 when the government has just introduced new GCSEs based around the numbers 1-9 but you think they are not meant to be the same system?

If a school tells parents that a DC is at level five but explains these are not yet accurately aligned with the new levels then what's the problem?

The OP seemed to think that they were the new levels. The school has done a poor job of explaining if otherwise.

However that does not mean their no value in measuring pupils progress as best as possible until the new system beds in.

As best as possible is not making shit up and pretending it's meaningful. Sticking with the old levels would be better than this. But they've been scrapped and we're not supposed to.

I would assert that more able pupils put in the hard work to get that progress and lower attaining pupils put very little work in.

Go on, post a thread in AIBU asserting that. I dare you. It's bollocks, and actually quite offensive.

Btw teachers assess pupil progress all the time. It's trying to quantify it in this way, distill it into neat little numbers and straight line graphs that's the problem.

[Bolognese]

noblegiraffe

The op has clarified that the school has NOT said these are GCSE grades. If a school tells parents that a DC is at level five but explains these are not yet accurately aligned with the new levels then what's the problem? This is what my DC’s school has done and it seems the op’s school.

I get that you don't like the new system as it is not yet as refined as it will be. However that does not mean their no value in measuring pupils progress as best as possible until the new system beds in.

Its very telling that parents know extremely well which schools are good, bad and in-between. If teachers are unable to do so then I find it hard to believe them.

Your article from the local schools network does not support your claim, it states that more able pupils are more likely to make 3 levels of progress not that it is easier for them to make it. I would assert that more able pupils put in the hard work to get that progress and lower attaining pupils put very little work in. I think it is a very good idea to have 3 levels of progress as a goal for all pupils otherwise you are just leaving those less able pupils to future disadvantage.

IguanaTail and pieceofpurplesky

I accept Noble is an experienced teacher but argumentum ad verecundiam, is not a generally reliable argument for establishing facts.

EvilTwins

I read your article from Mary Bousted, firstly I am told she has a very biased political agenda but that aside. Two points: It is not ridiculous for a teacher to monitor a pupil that has been off for 3 weeks and teachers should monitor what is written in a pupils book. So I find Mary’s assertions wrong and the rest of her comments spurious.

A lot people work in jobs where they are accountable every day, I don't see why teachers are so against a 6 week cycle of review (if that's what it is). If we waited a whole year to review teachers progress and they fail then that's a whole year of a child's education lost. A stitch in time save nine. A good manager wont see anything wrong with zero measurable progress over six weeks if its explained but if a pattern emerges over several months then it can be addressed. Good business practise.

noblegiraffe

The Data Delusion seems like a very detailed blog. But in essence I think it highlights one side of a simple argument. A lot of people with vested interests in the ‘educational field’ have an opinion that anything anyone tries to do to improve education is wrong and teachers should be left alone to be trusted to do what they think is best. Everyone is equal at the bottom. I don't have the stats to back this up, so its my perception that when push come to shove these experts send their children to private schools. Hypocritical much? The other side of the argument which I subscribe to is to get the best results you can for the most people you can. Yes a small minority will fall by the wayside but as a country its in out collective best interests to excel.

So if one year a level 7 is 89% but the next year its only 85% then I don’t care, and I think a lot of people agree with me.

Molio

I completely agree there is no point linking attainment in Y7 to GCSE grades but that is not a reason to not give pupils a grade so their progress can be tracked.

And how is, for example, the historical facts of the 15th of June 1215 different now than they were when I was at school 40 years ago?

[Marmitelover55]

I've had another look at the report and to be fair it doesn't actually mention GCSE grades, it just says that they have adopted a new system based on levels 1-9. It says in year 7 nationally that most students will be working at a level 1, but at xxx school that is the minimum expected. It says the targets will be refined as more information becomes available.

[Molio]

Bolognese I can't see that noblegiraffe is being abusive in any way. noblegiraffe seems to me to be talking complete sense. There is absolutely no point in linking attainment in the first term of Y7 to GCSE grades whether on the old system or new. It's utterly meaningless under either system. The politics of marking makes it a non starter, for a start, leaving aside all the issues of non-linear progress etc. A 'Working at the level expected/ above the level/ below the level' has always worked fine for me. I've never been given a GCSE level until the start of the GCSE course and never been in any way anxious for one since I know it would be bollocks.

Sophie, that chart is mesmerizingly misleading, at the top end as much as the bottom. It implies that each and every kid at grammar school will get a full set of Grade 9s, so each will be at the very top end of the A* bracket for all subjects. That's not what happens now and it's not going to happen from 2017.

Bolognese the statement that history hasn't changed for thousands of years is also rubbish, obviously.

[noblegiraffe]

This article about data in education should be required reading by all SLT who think the data that is being churned out is meaningful.

headguruteacher.com/2013/03/17/the-data-delusion-on-average-its-a-bit-more-complicated/

[pieceofpurplesky]

Bolognese do listen to noble and other who actually teach. Going to school and having a child in one does not necessarily mean that you know more than the teachers.

[PiqueABoo]

@EvilTwins "Children do not make progress in a linear fashion because they are children, not machines"

Perhaps, but I don't believe you don't have the means to reliably measure that progress so any talk about the nature of a progess graph is fundamentally broken. It kind of works for large numbers of children over years.

[PiqueABoo]

I did much the same with the 2012 transition matrix data a couple of years ago when Ofsted published their Most Able report and started saying all end-KS2 L5s should be getting A/A*. There are caveats and the usual bell curves for where a given end-KS2 starting point arrives on the GCSE grade scale, but Henry Stuart's article is definitely correct.

DD had high end-KS2 attainment and her school still uses and sends us termly reports with NC level:sub-levels and automatic annual targets of two sub-levels progress. This term I went to the school for a lengthy (friendly) meeting with the most relevant SLT-bod and challenged them to point to something, anything, useful a parent like me could take from her latest report. They didn't succeed because the data says DD is being systematically failed by the school, but they're currently contemplating 'life after levels' and I was there to plead for a less crocky replacement that reflects at least some reality. I'm under no illusions about my influence but maybe, just maybe, it will be a straw that helps steer them away from one of these even worse new d-i-y assessment/progress jobs.

[EvilTwins]

Bolognese - read this

There is a difference between being held accountable and reporting grades every 6 weeks.

Children do not make progress in a linear fashion because they are children, not machines.

You are ridiculous in your assertion that teachers should be sacked if they don't know where their school fits in with all others nationally. There are about 3,500 state secondary schools in England - do you really think I should know where mine compares?

[mumsneedwine]

After hours of discussion and many ideas put forward, my school came up with a brilliant new system for KS3. It's completely the same as the old one ! Everyone understands it, we can relate it to nee GCSEs (as far as anyone knows what the he'll they will require) & everyone can see what progress is being made.

[noblegiraffe]

Progress at higher levels is harder and slower so I dont see why lower achieving students cant make the same or greater amount of progress in terms of 'sub levels'

I will elaborate on 'This is bollocks' just so you are aware that I wasn't talking out of my arse.

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2013/06/why-3-levels-of-progress-is-a-very-silly-measure/

This article shows the percentage of pupils who made 3 levels of progress in maths and English from a variety of starting points in 2012. You will see that the lower attaining students are far less likely to make 3 levels of progress than the higher attaining ones, especially in my subject (maths). This suggests that your assertion that it is harder to make progress at the higher levels is wrong. It also suggests that if you do as the PP's school did with that neat grid and expect the same rate of progress from your low ability students as your high ability ones, you either setting your low ability students up to fail, or not challenging your high ability ones.

[IguanaTail]

Bolognese trust me, Noble knows what she is talking about.

How confident would you feel about being responsible for the progress of students where there are no measurements in place?

[noblegiraffe]

If you are unaware how good/bad your school is compared to your local area then you are a bad teacher.

But your GCSE results won't be set based on how your school does compared to its local area. They will be set nationally, and they won't be set based on the headline figures which are reported in the press, but based on figures for your individual subject which usually aren't reported at school level. What raw score did the top 3% in the country get in GCSE maths last year? We know the grade boundaries for an A* but that's the top 6%. How good do you have to be to get a 9? Don't know. So sack me.

[noblegiraffe]

I took this to mean that ‘someone’ was asking you to give GCSE grades in Y7, so noble what did you really mean?

Read the OP. That's what the teachers at the OP's school have been asked to do. That doesn't mean that every teacher in the country has and I never said that they had.

Why is a baseline in Y7 mean you have determined the child's GCSE grade?

It doesn't, but if you say a child is currently working at a GCSE grade of a 5- and their end of year target is a GCSE grade of a 5, then isn't that what you'd expect that to mean? Except it's made up because no one knows what a GCSE grade 5 looks like. It's a lie to parents in an attempt to make it look like the school knows what it's doing, because we can't report 'your kid's doing ok, check back in in a couple of years once we've got our head around a few things and we can give you a bit more info'

Ummm can’t teachers tell what level a student is at

Not on an exam that no one has ever sat before, no. Not even exam boards can do that, that's why grade boundaries are set after the exam, once they've seen how the national cohort actually performed.

are they so simple that they cant tell a clever child from an ‘average’ one

I don't know if you've noticed, but GCSE grades are a bit more nuanced than 'clever', 'average' and 'troll'. Did you spot the OP's child being graded at a 5-? That's not being asked to distinguish a clever child from an average one.