School reports which give your kids GCSE grades or 'flightpaths' are bollocks

[noblegiraffe]

I've posted quite a lot about how reports which say 'your child is currently working at a 4+ in maths' or 'your child in Y7 is making good progress towards their GCSE target grade' are nonsense.

No one knows how your kid would perform in the new GCSEs because no one has had any results for them yet. This is especially nonsense for the subjects other than maths and English where students haven't even sat their mocks. Students from Y7 up have had GCSE target grades generated for them through a computer program that doesn't have any information about how anyone has actually performed on those GCSEs. These targets will be bobbins, and will be revised the instant any results roll in and so will change year on year as each new Y11 cohort sits the exams. If you've been told these targets by the school, the school is stupid to do so.

Teachers are forced to make up 'working at' numbers, and give a 3+ or a 4- to give an impression of accuracy.

If your kid is in top set Y7 then that's a good sign. If they're in bottom set that's a bad sign for a GCSE pass. But there's a long way to go and a lot can happen. That's as accurate as you're going to get.

There's an interesting twitter thread here where experienced headteachers are discussing exactly how nonsensical these reported grades are.

twitter.com/teacherhead/status/885923507858792457

Comments like 'GCSE grades extrapolated back to KS3 despite the fact we don't even know what they mean for year 11. Utter madness- completely meaningless'

And 'It's nonsense, but the shambles we find ourselves in nationally doesn't help.'

• just confirm that many teachers feel the same way about this illusion of science.

As always, noble, you talk sense.

We've just ditched the flight path for any students below Y10. And we still don't really know what will constitute a pass next month. Or, whether a 4 is good enough or students must get a 5....

I have never liked levels and targets and believe that if a child was targeted for a C then this is what they'd aim for, even if capable of a B.
It was only my opinion and I always fell short if somebody asked what I'd propose instead.

I know that this is just a temporary issue due to new GCSE's but I'd still like to know what could be used instead.
Although, it's nice to not have to hear levels and targets.

How accurate were A - G GCSE predictions in the days before 9-1 for students in Years 7-10?

completely agree. Secondary reports are baffling. I don't want a guess at how my ks3 child might do if they sat GCSEs this minute. I want to see some sort of measurement/grade that references their current school year. I don't massively object to a projected GCSE grade, but don't want that as the sole measurement.

Blanketdog the previous predicted grades were pretty accurate as we knew the exams. Last year my predictions were 99% spot on 😁. The 2 I got wrong both pulled their fingers out and massively over achieved - I'm happy to get those wrong.
New exams are just a complete guess. We have no idea what kids will need to get to achieve a particular grade. So I've looked at what I thought they would get last year and then predicted the equivalent grade for next year. I am expecting to be v v wrong.

Our reports have end of year exam percentage and year average, alongside the usual write up. No target grades, no flight paths. We used to regularly tell the students they were all capable of straight As (true - I teach in a grammar) but no predictions until Year 10 end of year exams. My HoD asked me not to predict any 9s (even though we are pretty certain of a few) because it's just such an unknown. It's been horrible feeling so powerless and lacking in knowledge in front of the parents!

mumsneedwine what subject do teach?

Are they grading to percentiles for the new exams? I feel I should know this from umpteen MN threads but I don't. If so, is the problem that they haven't said what percentiles they're grading to yet?

This focus on nonsensical 'data' is why I will probably leave teaching. i don't understand these flight paths, don't believe in them and hate the way they undermine students' confidence. Particularly in light of the new exams where we just haven't a clue what anything means.
I'm on mat leave at the moment but seriously rethinking my career.

I have suspected that the targets and 'flight paths' are inexact at best and arbritrary at worst, especially since the change to new GCSEs for which there are not yet any results.

Parents want to know whether their children are making appropriate progress in each subject, so what should schools be using instead?

What I don't understand is how you can predict success rates of GCSEs in Year 7, while still promoting and supporting the growth mindset approach. Surely accurate GCSE predictions suggest a belief in fixed mindset?

My ds got 'if he sat gcse now grades' for his year 8 exams. No trajectory given.

He got 1/2 for humanities/MFL/English
3 for maths, 4 for science and 5 for computing.

That actually seemed pretty accurate to me based on his academic (or rather not so academic!) ability!

Previous school predicted him 6 across the board and that seemed unrealistic as he's a wiz at stem subjects but has a literacy ability well below age expectations.

His current school say he's making lower than expected progress through most subjects.

Ours do targets and how the child is doing against them. I understand this can't predict how they will do in gcses, but i like that we are being given a clear indication of how the teachers judge the child is doing. It's similar to how an A told us how we were doing at homework when we were at school but it didn't mean we'd get an A at O level. I wouldn't want to change to Expected etc like they do at dc primary as it isn't very clear.

DD's school have never used flight paths etc. The system is 5 times a year we get two grades for each subject one for effort and one for achievement. 1 exceeds expectations, 2 meets expectations and 3 lower than expectations. The expectations are of the individual child. Very simple adaptable for no linear progression. Acknowledgment of how much effort is great to either reward hard work or get on their tails.

Are they grading to percentiles for the new exams?

For the first year only the percentage of students achieving a 1 or above, a 4 or above and a 7 or above will be pegged to about the proportion of students who achieved a G or above, a C or above and an A or above in the previous year's GCSE sitting. The proportion of students getting a 9 is calculated from a formula based on how many students get a 7 or above. The percentages that this represents for Maths and English were only given in about March this year, and only as a rough guide. So it's all a bit vague.

The other grades boundaries will be calculated numerically at equal intervals between the 'pegged' boundaries. When they get the results, if they need to set the grade boundary to get a 1 (to give the same proportion of students as got a G+) at 10 marks and the grade boundary to get a 4 (to give the same proportion of students as got a C+) at 19 marks, then the grade boundaries for 2 and 3 will be at 13 and 16. If a 1 is 10 and a 4 is 40, then a 2 and a 3 will be 20 and 30. This is regardless of the shape of the distribution of students between those marks. It will be the same between a 4 and a 7, so no one knows what the difference between a 5 and a 6 student will be in advance. For maths, where there are two tiers, no one knows the proportion of students who sat higher or foundation, or the proportion of 4s and 5s which will be allocated to each tier (you can achieve these grades on either tier), so you could think that your top student on Foundation should get a 5, but you don't know, and they could have had a better chance of it if they'd sat higher. For the 9, we have no idea where that grade boundary will be, who knows how bright and well prepared students are in other schools compared to yours? This then brings uncertainty to the 8, because the 8 grade boundary will be slapped halfway between the 7 and the 9. Some schools are saying 8 = A, but actually this is incorrect because an 8 will be easier to achieve than an A, it will also cover the top of the A grade.

So that's the level of uncertainty for Y11 who have just sat the maths and English exams or will be sitting the other subjects in 9-1 for the first time next year. Now track that back to Y7 and add 4 years of working hard or slacking off uncertainty into the mix and it's all just a big guess.

Now track that back to Y7

I should also say that the grade boundaries for subsequent years will be calculated differently to the first year so the proportions of Y7s who achieve various grades in the future will be different to the proportion of Y11s who achieve them now and next year.

so what should schools be using instead?

Well that's really the million dollar question. There are two problems that have caused this current chaos.

1. Levels were scrapped at KS3 and not replaced
2. GCSEs were completely revamped

But schools still have to report pupil progress to parents. Some schools have decided to replace levels with GCSE grades because that would save them coming up with a totally new system. Unfortunately due to 2. the new GCSE grades are also a totally new system, as yet poorly understood and won't be well-understood for years. The result is nonsense.

However, levels were scrapped because they were crap and poorly understood. Parents thought that a 5b had meaning compared to a 5a but it really didn't. Levels (and especially sublevels which were always made up) were totally subjective outside of a proper end of Key Stage assessment.

The real issue is that progress can't be neatly captured and quantified. It certainly can't be reported to parents numerically in bitesized chunks 5 times a year. It absolutely can't be forced into a system where schools and parents expect to see nice neat improvements and where concerns are raised if this doesn't happen. Progress isn't linear, it's messy, and it happens in the brain of a child so can't always be observed. Any system which is set up to replace levels and report progress will always ultimately be flawed.

noblegiraffe - I think you're my favourite poster on education.

My dd's report was like this. I read it and just felt so sorry for her teachers: forced to waste hours on creating the report, presumably accumulating the data behind it, and (I would guess) with senior management on their backs if any children deviate downwards from the 'flightpath'. Not to mention the fact that the 'flightpath' probably tracks back to SATs results in KS2 (which can be quite dubious).

Don't get me started on the cult of 'growth mindset' (which, in many manifestations I suspect, has very little to do with Dweck's original research).

"Progress isn't linear, it's messy, and it happens in the brain of a child so can't always be observed."

The weird thing is that, as parents, we know this from our own experience of our children.

Dd's school don't do this for precisely this reason. It's selective and it's not really a question of whether pupils will pass, more how well they'll do. But their message is still that progression isn't linear for every child, and with the new system nobody knows enough even if you can predict the childs progress. The most they'll commit to is that you can indicate vaguely for pupils at either end of the schools ability range, but at y8 dc can still level out or rapidly climb. And that really parents should be focusing on how achievement grades compare to effort grades.

It's all very well dismissing the entire situation as "bollocks" and everything schools are doing as nonsense.

If you have hopes for your child getting an 8 or 9 in English or Maths in Year 11, and their Year 9 result is a "3", they are well off-track and need some pretty serious help. Or you need to revise your expectations. It isn't enough to just say "oh well the whole situation is bollocks and schools have got no idea anyway".

I teach science (& maths if needed). I think noblegiraffe has put it all very clearly - it's all a bit of guesswork and always has been. But up til this year we knew what the end game was, so could at least guess accurately.
Now, well who knows !!! Will 90% be a 9 or (as I'm predicting after the year 10 data !!) 75% ? Depends how the whole Year group do in the exam - an exam we haven't seen or been given much guidance on. I also am mum to a year 10 and feel so sorry for her. It's all a bit crap

@BungledUpInTwo, @noblegiraffe teaches maths, I teach English. We are teachers telling you that currently it's nonsense. Please listen. I had NO idea what or indeed how to predict the grades for my year 11s there has been no support or guidance from the boards. Given that, how on earth could I even begin to predict a year 7s achievement 4 years down the line? It's actually quite a ridiculous thing to try and do at the best of times.

I teach Mfl and we had grade descriptors for 2, 5 and 8. Nothing in the middle. We used our (considerable) experience as a department to fill in the gaps, but it's still guess work all told. The format of the assessment has changed from 60% controlled assessment to 100% exam (a good move imo) but that makes it even more difficult to predict grades.
The changes were made and implemented far too quickly. I feel for the kids sitting their exams this year and next - they are just being used as guinea pigs.

@DoctorDonnaNoble I teach English. Please don't assume I don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, it's my fault, entering into arguments about school online gets my blood pressure up and, of course, has no constructive effect whatsoever.