High School Tracking Reports

[Backchat86]

Can anyone give me their thoughts on high school tracking reports as my daughter received hers recently which left me quite concerned, I’ve been informed that they are designed to encourage kids to study harder before prelims.

As a teacher myself I find them baffling if you are talking about the type where there are targets and then working towards, on target, exceeding type of comments.
As a parent they tell you bugger all really except maybe effort. Instead read through your child's books and ask them questions. Ask them which subjects they love and want to persue at a higher level. What do they find hard and can you do anything about it. Monitor their homework effort and quality yourself.

'prelims' is a term I am unfamiliar with. Where (what country) are you based?

In England & Wales (don't know about elsewhere in UK) schools report as they see fit, there isn't one 'standard' way of reporting.

Often there is an effort grade, and something to do with attainment. The attainment may be on a scale made up by the school, or it may be a 'currently working at GCSE grade' or a 'carry on like this and you will maybe end up with this GCSE grade'.

There may also be a progress indicator compared with how they were when they left primary. So if someone did very well in leaving SATs they may be told they are 'behind' on everything, even if still doing above average.

Does that help at all?

Thank you all so much for your reply's. I'm in Scotland and my daughter is due to sit her prelims in December,at present she has a maths tutor who tells me she is doing well and certainly her reports confirm this. My daughter always does her homework which I obviously check and is always correct!
Tracking report states no award given and working towards a D!!! I'm at a complete loss, when I contacted the school they said class average was 28% and last year it was 25% with 65% children passing their exams. HELP!!!

What year is she in?

You might get a better response if you ask your question in the Scotsnet topic (where we would've understood your reference to Prelims ).

I know that CEMIS(?) is quite restricted in what it can report: ds' old secondary in Glasgow was quite frustrated by its lack of ability to report more detail and spent quite a bit of time trying to manipulate it/put in something alongside it to give more useful info.

Having said that, the "No Award Givem" and "Working towards a D" would concern me. Presumably if you've been issued with a Tracking Report, there is a parents' evening coming up? Can you ask why they are concerned then?

Thanks for your email. She's in 4th year and parents night is this week so hopefully shed some more light on things. I just actually joined Mumsnet to purely get some opinions on this but as you say I should go on to scotsnet.... if I can find it.
Thank you

Here's the Scotsnet topic

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/scotsnet

There are also a couple of teachers who post in that topic who may be able to advise. Not sure there's a Maths teacher though.

Scotsnet is just a sub board within MN. It is located here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/scotsnet

You are more than welcome to post education questions on here, (I find it interesting how different places do things so differently), but 95%+ posters in this bit seem to be England/Wales so if it is a Scottish system dependent question you may find you don't get so many answers.

Of course, you won't know it is Scottish-system-dependent until you ask and then realise no one knows what your question means!