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Secondary education

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Original poster

Is this school govenor's take on Progress 8 scores correct?

161 replies

PossumInAPearTree · 08/07/2017 21:41

Dds school recently had a shocking Ofsted and got put in special measures. Bottom 10% of schools nationwide for progress and results according to the report.

Head has made it clear in emails home and to kids in assembly they disagree with the report, as has the governor.

Governor says the reason for the poor Progress 8 score is because the school has standards and won't pull tricks other schools do such as putting nAtive English speakers in for an English as a Foreign Language qualification purely so the kids get points/ a qualification.

Surely if this is what other schools are doing Ofsted would pick up on this?

OP posts:
user1497480444 · 08/07/2017 23:06

a lot of external invigilators are very young and just earning a bit of pocket money. They don't have any real interest in exams. They don't walk around or anything. It's the support staff that really facilitate it.

Allthebestnamesareused · 08/07/2017 23:17

user1497480444

Total BS. Both JCQ and CIE carry out invigilation inspections.

If you say this is happening in a school where you are working why haven't you reported it?

CrowyMcCrowFace · 08/07/2017 23:24

Honestly, user14, if your posts about your current place of employment are in any way genuine, this school is an unprecedented disgrace.

& you should be reporting it, not colluding in it & smirking all over MN whilst implying yours is typical practice. It seriously isn't - & goodness knows I'm not saying that as a defender of the state of UK education.

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 03:08

Both JCQ and CIE carry out invigilation inspections.

never ever anywhere I have worked, nor where anyone I know works.

crazycatguy · 09/07/2017 03:39

I work in a private school where SLT are expected to invigilate some exams where they have not taught the courses. On my first exam CIE showed up ten minutes prior to starting and watched us like hawks. As they should.

cricketballs · 09/07/2017 06:39

With regards to CA; this year it was still part of all courses apart from maths and English, next year it will still be part of a number of specs.

It is the current yr9 that will be 100% new spec GCSEs and even then some will still have a coursework element (GCSE Computer Science) and there are still a variety of vocational courses available

hesterton · 09/07/2017 06:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 06:55

I only tell it how it is. There are a lot of posters on MN who just have absolutely no idea whats going on. The OP here, for example, seemed to be under the illusion that school statistics have some sort of statistical validity, and there was another poster who seemed to genuinely believe that gaming the figures was minimal, and occurred rarely. It is absolutely the first and foremost priority in schools. Otherwise your school goes into special measures and you get sacked. Fixing the figures is far far far more important than education. It matters way more how a child looks on paper than what they have actually learnt.

youarenotkiddingme · 09/07/2017 06:57

Forcing children out who won't make progress 8

This happened to my ds. He started year 7 with good sats because the school he was in supported him. He couldn't keep up without support and the short and long of it is the school didn't feel the investment in support would acquire him the predicted grades. They they withdrew everything until he collapsed and eventually I had no choice to do a managed move which I'd avoided up until then when it was suggested for things like him being bullied.
The school always maintained my ds has no behavioural issues so the move wasn't because of this.
I now have to take him to a school miles from home.

I believe schools fix data - I've seen it. I've watched my ds be supported/helped to achieve and it's left him in a worse place because now he's actually years behind.

His new school don't seem to do this though yet are a really good school. So it can be done somehow

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 06:58

Those students who do a first language gcse have as much right to that qualification as any other. because it is meaningless and skews the stats?

Many of our Chinese heritage children for example spend years going to Saturday schools to learn this then they should do the exam under the Saturday school as well, not their weekday school.

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 07:00

youarenotkiddingme the second school sounds better, but the first school will have better stats, I can guarantee it! And so will the primary school who artificially inflated his achievements to start with.

DoctorDonnaNoble · 09/07/2017 07:03

@user1497480444 - if you are not taking crap then you are morally complicit in al of this. Whistleblowers are protected. You are doing a lot of damage on a lot of threads. What you describe isn't common. In the slightest. And is sometimes just plain wrong (your discussion on invigilation thread). Our school has had a random inspection of exams. They're very thorough and you get no warning. I happen to teach in a school that is always near the very top in league tables. We do not 'play' the system. I resent you implying we do. There are very very few controlled assessments now. If your school is as bad as you say you have a moral (and I would argue legal) responsibility to DO something about it.

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 07:11

I've been whistleblower before, @DoctorDonnaNoble it did no good what so ever. I've learnt whistleblowers are not in any way protected, not that it mattered to me, particularly, as I had another job lined up, but if I hadn't I would have been left unable to pay my mortgage. I've seen it happen to others.

I have been morally complicit in some schools, but not in others. I have stuck to the law and suffered for it, but in the end decided its not worth it. I'm changing schools again now, and have decided to stick to the law again in my next school, because honestly, i am an education professional, so it really seems pointless not to. I don't know how long I will last though!

I did actually raise the possibility of reporting something in an exam room just a few weeks ago, but the invigilators were split. Two agreed to, two said they would deny it. In the end, reporting it would have harmed a lot of children who had tried very hard, and I didn't go ahead.

Its odd that you pick out the invigilation thread, where as far as I remember, nothing I said on there was procedurally incorrect. Plenty of lying and cheating described in other threads though!

What do you men by "doing harm"? I am telling the truth. What is harmful about that? People should know what is going on, don't you think. Corruption is devastating to our whole way of life, integrity and culture. it needs stamping out. People need to understand the league tables and education system for what they actually are.

hesterton · 09/07/2017 07:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 07:18

The OP was about the stats,

DoctorDonnaNoble · 09/07/2017 07:28

Schools don't play the stats!!! We look crapper than usual as we were allowed to keep on with English IGSE for a couple of years (doesn't count for new tables). We only switched English Language this year as the government decided (half way through the course) that without English Language GCSE (not IGCSE) sixth form places will not be funded (this has also caused problems for our international boarders). You did refer to incorrect stuff on the invigilation thread as was pointed out to you several times.
I had to whistleblow on a colleague. It turned out for the best for everyone. So there we go. Are you in a union? You bloody should be.
You keep saying the crap from your rubbish school is widespread. IT BLOODY ISN'T.

DoctorDonnaNoble · 09/07/2017 07:29

Also none of us at our school as the time to indulge in gaming stats. We're too busy teaching, marking and planning (I include our SLT in that by the way).

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 07:38

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Blanketdog · 09/07/2017 07:39

My dc's first primary gamed the Sats, my ds failed his EYFS apparently he was capable of doing very little - that was a surprise to me - it took me 3 months to get the official report from them with the results on it. Lots of parents had to openly question the end of Year 1 result as their levels were recorded as 2 sub levels below what they'd been told previously - we just wanted to know what level our child was actually on. HT muttered that it would be changed, apparently the deputy head(class teacher) got confused - believe me she is not the type to get confused about anything! They are now Outstanding....there was nothing outstanding about that school!

DoctorDonnaNoble · 09/07/2017 07:49

@user1497480444 How dare you! I am just a classroom teacher, teaching my students and not letting them cheat! I don't know how you think I could play the stats. We do not generate the KS2 sats. I have no say over them. Given the school I teach in, we pretty much ignore them anyway and act on the assumption that all of our students should have got the highest level and then act accordingly. My school is not data obsessed. I have never been given a list of target grades for my classes for example. I have explained how we took a decision that actively harmed us in the first release of this data (and we're not the only school in this situation I believe). We track our students of course and I know who's underachieving. What you say about all schools being involved in some gigantic mark fraud is just not true. In a 100% final exam subject with no tiered paper that everyone has to enter, I'd be intrigued to know how on Earth I would achieve that!

user1497480444 · 09/07/2017 07:59

Why are you saying "How dare you?" I made the only suggestions I could think of for why you would assert something so blatantly untrue, and keep on and on asserting it, for no reason at all, that I can think of, when you MUST know it is untrue. If you do work in a school in England, you HAVE to know it is untrue, realisitically

DoctorDonnaNoble · 09/07/2017 08:03

I teach in one of the best schools in England thanks. I am neither naive or blind. You are wrong.

cantkeepawayforever · 09/07/2017 09:13

I maintain my point that, as User has fundamentally misunderstood how baseline levels are created / used - and who can and can't be included - it is really quite likely that none of the remainder of his / her claims would stand up to similar scrutiny.

Primary schools work very hard to MAXIMISE SATs levels - rightly or wrongly, through very extensive teaching to the test - because that is their key performance metric, whereas User is claiming that minimising them to improve secondary progress stats is widespread...

He / she is also claiming that those who arrive without SATs are included in statistics - which is also wrong.

i suspetc that the other things he / she reports are 'rumour / misinformation / inflated gossip' in a similar manner, with no good underpinning data.

A child in DS's cohort was found to have a mobile phone with them in the exam hall - not using it, just had it with them as hadn't handed it in. GCSE invalidated straightaway...

TeenAndTween · 09/07/2017 09:58

OP. I'm not a teacher. I'm going to disregard the discussion with user apart from to say I do not believe them.

Some schools more than others choose the courses they run to help the stats look good.

For example when ebacc was being measured, they set out the GCSE options to more or less force able students into qualifying for ebacc by ensuring they did an MFL and history/geography. We read on here about different coloured option forms being given out to constrain choices.

Many schools choose different English boards dependent whether their students are top end or at the pass borderline. Are they gaming the system, or trying to ensure that their students have the best chance of getting a good grade for the English (especially when a pass is the entry to many college courses)?

Some schools (eg the other school in our town) are a bit 'free and easy' with the compulsory RE bit of the national curriculum. in as much as they include for all children a bit for parents to sign withdrawing from RE with their GCSE option forms (thus freeing up the time for something else). Other schools only withdraw if a parent proactively asks.

All of these could be viewed as 'gaming the system'. But equally they could be viewed as trying their best for the children.

Personally I don't believe that so much gaming goes on that a school with bottom 10% progress 8 would miraculously climb to say top 50% if they 'gamed' the same as average schools. And a school that blames others for its poor performance rather than looking to see how it can improve, is a school I would avoid.

cantkeepawayforever · 09/07/2017 10:57

And a school that blames others for its poor performance rather than looking to see how it can improve, is a school I would avoid.

Absolutely this.

Any school put into Special Measures but which refuses to take a long, hard look at itself first and foremost is a school I would not want to be a pupil or teacher in.