what do assessment levels mean?

[lu9months]

ds is in year 7, doing well and happy, so I'm not worried. i just don't know how to interpret the levels he's been given in reports, never understood this in primary either! any good resources to explain this? I've tried googling, just get more confused!

Levels have been scrapped and not replaced, schools are doing their own thing. Pointless googling or asking here because no one will know how your school is running things.

Look at the effort grades and focus on whether they are good.

I do think schools should make an effort to explain to parents how they are assessing children and reporting progress after they have completed a topic or period of teaching. Otherwise, what is the point of giving "information", if no-one can understand it? I would ask the Head of Year for a brief over-view of how the school carries out assessment and reports progress to parents.

Also, "levels" have disappeared so the school should be reporting what he has achieved in his topics so far, what progress has been made and what he can do to improve. Their system will enable them to record his progress but they will not have a "level" because there isn't one. I would therefore ask the Head of Year if their assessment of his progress can be given to you in easy to understand terms. They must be assessing progress because Ofsted will be all over it if they turn up.

Ours seem to be P-, P or P+. Then an attitude to learning number, followed by attainment- expecting/ exceeding whatever.
No clear explanation but trying to apply common sense to it all!

My DC schools appear to be using a simple system for all years. Current grade 1-7+ (if they were to sit the GCSE right now) and predicted grade 1-7 (what they should be able to get when they sit the exam in Y11). They have explained how hard it is to work out some of the grades but have underestimated rather than over estimated any ones ability.

Actually seems simpler than the old system of levels that you had to convert to grades.

We have an insanely complex system of 5 different descriptors, eg mastering, approaching. However these are accompanied by lengthy written descriptors which describe what a student at each level displayed in the last test. So glad i don't teach y7!

At least that makes some sense, Rosie. The descriptors are progress and the test results are attainment. Although the national curriculum is the same for everyone, the methods used to record progress and report it to parents vary so much it is not surprising everyone is confused if schools do not explain what they are reporting and how they arrive at their decisions.