Pathways

[Trb17]

DD in Y7 has started coming home telling me she has been put on a specific ‘pathway’ at school.

I’m going to ask about them at Latents evening as I don’t fully understand them but was wondering:

• are pathways all the same at all state schools. Or do schools make up their own?

• any advice on what I should be asking at parents evening?

Thank you

• parents evening that should say

Also should say DD’s School is a CofE academy if that makes any difference.

It’s become more of thing recently, especially at A-level.

The school I used to teach at has devised a North South East West thing at GCSE, depending on how academic a child is.

My current school just offers a mixture of GCSEs and BTECs, with an option to do the EBacc subjects.

Oh sorry, I see it’s a Y7 thing! No idea, have never seen pathways introduced during Y7!

My understanding goes something like this.

A secondary uses incoming SATs / CATs they run / initial performance in class to identify a starting position for a pupil. From there they guestimate a rough place the pupils will be on at the end of GCSEs.

So e.g. A child coming in with 115 in SATs will be on a 'pathway' to GCSE grades 7-9.
When giving reports they will indicate whether a pupil is making progress as expected against this pathway, or is going better or worse.

It used to be done with NC levels but they got thrown out without anything to replace them.

Now of course for an individual pupil pathways set in y7 can be very wrong by the time you get to y11. At the moment even on average for a cohort they could be far off as the new style GCSEs haven't been sat yet (except for maths & English).

A school however shouldn't limit a pupil's teaching due to their pathway. So it should be possible for a pupil to outperform initial expectations.

Some (a minority of ?) schools may also use pathways to channel a pupil into particular GCSE options. e.g. Some schools at least give children option forms on different coloured paper with e.g. the blue paper meaning they have to do an MFL the green having an optional MFL and the white no MFL option at all (or whatever).

Of course, your school might be using the term completely differently from my understanding.

Thanks all. I guess I’m worried that setting her on a pathway this early could restrict her choices later on. Or even that she shouldn’t have set expectations placed on her just 5 weeks into year 7!

I shall ask for more info at parents evening.

Try reading this thread first. Forewarned is forearmed if it's another version of 'flightpaths'.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/2979988-School-reports-which-give-your-kids-GCSE-grades-or-flightpaths-are-bollocks

It’s another word for banding.

They put the more able kids in the top pathway and they do all subjects.

The less able do more English and Maths and sometimes do a combined humanities course rather than separate, or sometimes don’t do a modern language.

It’s cheaper to run and can be sometimes more appropriate.

Thanks for the link I will have a read.

It can’t be banding at 5 weeks into year 7 as all the cohort do the same hours of the same subjects throughout year 7. They do start to ‘set’ eventually but all of them do the same hours of the same subjects.

I just think it seems very early if it’s to predict GCSE grades.

Sets I understand but pathways at this point in year 7 seems bizarre and accuracy seems highly unlikely.

Just back from parents evening and found out about the pathways.

It is indeed what they expect Y7 children to achieve at GCSE. I’m shocked that they can predict it this early on but I’m assuming School know better than me on that front.

It will be based on expected outcomes which they need to get your child at to get a positive progress 8 score and keep Ofsted happy.

They can predict, but it will have pretty wide error margins!

I’m assuming School know better than me on that front.

They really don't. It's made up bollocks. They are trying to predict GCSE grades for GCSEs which are mostly (except Maths and English which have been sat once) totally new specifications and have never been sat by anyone before. Then they are trying to predict these grades based on KS2 SATs scores from a style of SATs which have only been sat twice, and no one will be sitting GCSEs having sat those SATs for years to come. They're totally in the dark.

Honestly, Ofsted should step in and stop this sort of crap.