Year 9 targets already??

[sparepantsandtoothbrush]

DS has just started secondary school but has been given his targets for the end of year 9 already. Firstly, does anyone have a link to expected levels etc these days. Everything I can find seems to be old cirriculum levels. Secondly how do they come up with the levels 3 years ahead of time?!

Levels have gone so it's about developing, securing and mastering a subject now.
Depressingly, thone targets will have been taken from Year 6 SATs data, and may or may not be altered as assessment in Y7 feeds in.

better to have a target than just drift

They did this when I was in school about 5 years ago now. They seem to start to go on about GCSEs you're not taking for a few years as soon as your year 7 bum hits the seats. Just make sure he does his homework when he gets it, understands the material and uses his teachers time to gain extra insight. It'll be fine. Make sure you tell him not to worry too much at this stage.

The only thing I wish my mum had done when I was in high school was to write down exactly what homework I was getting and how long it was expected to take me and just look at it on a chart. That's when it gets scary.

She'd of seen I had about 8 hours of homework to do after school EACH NIGHT and after extra curricular things I was meant to do like sports or instruments. Left no time to y'know...eat. Or relax. Or socialise.

I feel like if she'd have realised that she might have talked to the school and found a way to stop this and take a huge amount of stress off of me and would have been a lot better for my mental wellbeing. (I ended high school with prescriptions for my anxiety and fainting spells in exams.)

I think you should talk to the school about your worries but most importantly write down exactly what they're expecting your child to do and to see how you think that will impact on his mental health.

better to have a target than just drift

I completely agree. I just didn't know where the targets came from.

thatgingerone, 8 hours a night? That's insane. DS has spent 2 hours doing homework the last few evenings but that's because he left his termly project until the last minute. He's totally exhausted coming up to the end of term but is still happy going to school.

We've got parents evening after half term so I can ask about levels etc but after asking DS this morning it seems the levels he's been given are the new GSCE levels but where they should be at the end of year 9 not year 11

Sparepants Yeah, when you add up homework for all of the different subjects that's how it comes out, especially when you get a lot of it on friday to do at the weekend! 2 hours for History, 2 and a half for English, an hour for maths, an hour for Biology, an hour for Chemistry and so on, it all adds up! That's why I said its best to have it written down and realise how much there is. A teacher will usually say how long they will expect it to take. Subjects with lots of essay writing like History or English are usually the worst for it xx

I did some of my GCSEs at year 9. Like RE and French. I also then did the ''practice'' exams at year 9. You also have to choose your options in year 9 too! Its one of the most stressful years - limited spaces in subjects, also if your grades aren't very high the teachers won't want you in their subject for the options years. For example ''low achievers'' were often put in GCSE PE as it was seen as ''easy''.

I did separate sciences - Biology, Chemistry and Physics. I had no option, I had to do them separate as my grades were very high (luckily I didn't mind! I'm now at uni studying for a BSc in Forensic Investigation!). If the grades achieved were a C or lower, the kids were made to do the sciences all together as 1 GCSE instead of 3. Meaning they achieved less GCSEs and at an easier level. The school was very concerned about how the grades looked to them, and not their students. Its ridiculous that you can only do three years of high school and it effects the rest of it!

Dd started secondary with end of yr 9 targets ( she's now in yr 9) and GCSE targets based on yr6 data results and cat scores. When old NC levels were ditched, they converted these targets to the new 1-9 system despite no one knowing what any of these grades even look like yet. It's a shambles.
Concentrate on how engaged/ happy your child is and if they are putting in effort... I am ignoring targets.

It's all bollocks. No one has ever sat those KS2 SATs before and they were a shower of shit so any data generated from them should be taken with a huge pinch of salt anyway but also targets for Y9 will either be something that the school has made up itself, or something using new GCSE grades, for GCSEs that no one has even sat yet.

So if the question is 'what should my DS who got 110 in maths in Y6 be achieving in Y9?' Or similar then the honest answer is 'fuck knows'

Oh he did mention they'd done CATs tests recently so maybe that's part of it too? Im not really that fussed what his targets are but do like to try and understand these things where I can so I know whether he needs a gentle shove every now and again

But yes he's very happy and seems to be thriving so I might just loosen the apron strings a tiny bit

DD2 (now year 8) was given gcse targets within weeks of starting secondary.