Flight paths in secondary are nonsense and demotivating for pupils SAY OFSTED

[noblegiraffe]

Ofsted finally saying what I’ve been banging on about for years. Flight paths are bollocks and schools shouldn’t be producing them.

So if your school does, hopefully Ofsted not being keen might make them reconsider!

a rigid flight path or “methodology” as you put it, is actually quite damaging.

So is putting too much emphasis on individual teacher judgements. My child was completely 'written off' by more than one. It was only standardised tests that highlighted their potential. For which I am thankful for.

The yawning pupil, who does no homework is struggling.

No. you missed the words ‘could be’ cool

They are struggling to learn if they cannot stay awake.

Let us, who are still in education, do what we can to try and make a difference to our pupils.

You don't need my permission. But don't expect your work to go completely unchecked.

And I said this:

"That could be due to having to overcome some quite serious barriers to learning. "

Note the word 'could'.

So teachers are actually saying that we should have no attempt at standardised assessment?

So a class has 3 different teachers in 7,8 and 9. Each teacher has different ways of assessing progress and attainment. At the end of it how do we know which students made progress, if any? Because each teacher assessed differently. So how do students know which subjects they are doing well in (rather than subjects they like or teachers they like) in order to choose options, or which subjects they aren't doing well at or are behind in?

Do you think we should wait until end of yr 11 and then realise that some students were badly let down by a school, but how could anyone know? We only had the say so of teachers of varying experience and some far more capable than others to go on.

And how exactly is effort rewarded in GCSEs? Or is it only attainment that is graded? Of course throughout school effort needs to be graded and commented on but you surely can't combine effort and attainment into 1?

And how will you weed out the teachers who aren't doing their best for their students? If they just mark according to their own judgement they might well award higher marks than another fantastic teacher, who is getting the best from every student, encouraging independent learning and giving students the solid foundations that they need. But no one will know because poor teacher will give high marks (to make themselves look good) and fantastic teacher will give lower, more realistic marks, but no one will realise because there's no benchmark and it's down to individual teachers?

It was only standardised tests that highlighted their potential.

And a standardised year is much better than a flight path. Because it highlights the here and now. Not what ‘might’ be in the future.

If I’m honest, I think it was probably the target grades that did the most damage to you child in the first place (and I’m sorry you did experience that). The problem is that a target grade can damage in two ways: 1. It is too low and once it is met, either a teacher, parent our pupil can just down tools and not bother or 2. it is just so unrealistic that the pupil will constantly feel that they can never ‘achieve’ or that they are good enough.

To give feedback to the pupil and parent, it is much more meaningful to say: this is what we have done, that is what was achieved. Let’s look at what the next step is.
Not: your child’s arbitrary target grade is this (that they should achieve in three years time). They are not meeting it yet. (Obviously) Your child will continue on this path and we will not deviate from it.

*test not Year, sorry

So teachers are actually saying that we should have no attempt at standardised assessment?

No. Standardised assessment is fine. A flight path is not a standardised assessment. That is the point.

But don't expect your work to go completely unchecked.

And I don’t want to go unchecked. I want to be checked more effectively. Flight Paths are not effective. Have a read of Dylan William’s work on assessment (he was the one who originally came up with the idea of the Key Stage 2 and 3 ‘levels’) I genuinely think that too many posters on this thread are posting when they don’t truly understand what a flight path is and what OFSTED have said in noblegiraffe’s OP.

Ms within securing individual SEN funding there is always an aspect of predicting future and long term need which involves establishing likely progress. A trajectory in other words.

Yes, this is incredibly problematic. However, in the name of fairness when what is defined as SEN demands a comparison with a child's peers, trajectories should be extrapolated for all children and the limitations fully acknowledged. Otherwise inclusion is further eroded as severity of need becomes completely distorted.

To give feedback to the pupil and parent, it is much more meaningful to say: this is what we have done, that is what was achieved. Let’s look at what the next step is.

That was exactly what my children's school did though whilst also using flight paths, just as a rough guide.

So if in yr 11 you want an A*, in yr 10 you need to be around here, yr9 here, yr 8 here.

They were also given an end of yr target plus aspirational target but they could be increased once achieved.

I absolutely trust the judgement of good teachers. What I am struggling with here is that the assumption is that all teachers are good teachers which we know is simply not true so how can anyone separate them?

MsRabbitRocks

With all due respect, Ofsted causes far more problems than it solves, what it promotes today it will be using to beat schools up with tomorrow.

And surely the best way is to collaborate between student, school and home? Why would teachers seek to remove parents from this collaboration by keeping them out of transparent conversations around their child's progress? What will that achieve?

Teachers don't want to make it up. They are told to. Assigning a GCSE grade to a year 7 student is not professional judgement. At best, it's unprofessional best-guesswork. At worst, it is telling parents and SLT what they want to hear. Both are making it up. Which version a teacher does is probably down to the culture of the school they are in.

I don't understand your argument about accountability. Schools, and teachers, are accountable for the results of public exams in years 11 and 13. In order to achieve good results at those points, at least some attention is paid in schools to other year groups.

I work in Alternative Provision and we do actually use commercially available standardised tests because we have tiny and highly variable cohorts with chequered education histories, and so they provide us with some useful information. However, I would not (and did not) use them in mainstream because they do not necessarily assess what I want to assess, and I want to make assessments for my curriculum, not fit the curriculum to standardised assessments. Also, cost...

I do agree with you about perceived effort and barriers to learning.

But it's clearly too late to find out in 11 and 13 that students didn't do as well as was hoped.

How can anyone know if that was Mrs Smith or Mr White that under performed?

And how do teachers progress their pay if they don't teach an exam group? Or is that on their own say so?

"had we stuck to reporting student achievement at the end of each key stage—which is still the only legal requirement—everything would have been fine.

But then schools started reporting levels every year, and then every term, and then on individual pieces of work, which makes no sense at all since the levels had been designed to be a summary of the totality of achievement across a key stage. And then Ofsted inspectors insisted students should make a certain number of levels of progress each year and started asking students what level they were working at, in response to which schools started training students to answer appropriately. And don’t get me started on sub-levels…"

Quote from Dylan Wiliam on reporting levels designed for end of key stage assessments before the end of that key stage...

That was exactly what my children's school did though whilst also using flight paths, just as a rough guide.

What you state below is actually the opposite, I’m afraid.

So if in yr 11 you want an A, in yr 10 you need to be around here, yr9 here, yr 8 here.* Unfortunately, what you were told would have been a guess.

They were also given an end of yr target plus aspirational target but they could be increased once achieved. and it is these aspirational targets that is causing so much anxiety and stress in young people that it is criminal.

cool and that method can also mask SEND problems until it is too late. I absolutely understand the point you are making but flight paths are not the only way of predicting future progress, which are currently causing harm in more than just SEND pupils and neither is only using teacher judgement. The problem with flight paths is that they were brought as a rush when the old levels were abolished. OFSTED’s comment might actually be the start of looking at a better way although I won’t hold my breath!

I'm not objecting to assessment! Assessment is how we make sure students are progressing. We do it all the time. It's the reporting of at best meaningless, at worst misleading, values of attainment that is the problem.

I assume you are a GP cool. I woould never presume to pass any judgement on how you do your job, or indeed what data you use to measure patient progress.

Children are humans. Volatile ones. Data tells a tiny part of the story. And many schools have become obsessed with it and treat data like Biblical truth.

I could recommend many books for you to read on the subject if you like.

And ,yes, there are all sorts of reasons why pupils yawn : but those complex students are exactly the ones for whom data is an almost pointless measure.

but flight paths are not the only way of predicting future progress, which are currently causing harm in more than just SEND pupils and neither is only using teacher judgement

The thing is methodology in securing long term individual SEN funding will always involve some degree of prediction (of need and attainment). Which assumes some sort of linear progression. Which is undoubtedly problematic. However, unless teachers are practicing making predictions on a regular basis, the problematic nature of doing this will not be fully realised. Which means too much store is put into individual professional judgement. At least with 'flight plans' the limitations are overt. Teachers and parents fully know not to rely on them. However if teachers rarely have to make widely publicised predictions then when they do this information might be overly relied upon because the limitations have not been so widely experienced.

. and it is these aspirational targets that is causing so much anxiety and stress in young people that it is criminal.

Do you mean rather than letting kids make plans for post 16 only to fall on their faces when GCSE results come in because nobody explained what they were likely to achieve?

And then Ofsted inspectors insisted students should make a certain number of levels of progress each year and started asking students what level they were working at, in response to which schools started training students to answer appropriately. And don’t get me started on sub-levels…"

And there we have it. Yet we are all now meant to get behind the latest edict from Ofsted which will simply be slung out when they realise that this doesn't work either.

Although the cynical amongst us might argue that it is simply a way to hide how truly shocking many of the MATS are.

It's very interesting to watch schools local to us. Achieving better in every measurement they were RI. Since being taken over and absorbed into MATS all GCSE Attainment and Progress, EBACC and actual have fallen. 2 have just been judged "good" by Ofsted. Weird huh?

Just read back on the thread. Apparently, you are not a GP. So , you also have no idea of what they may or may not think of data measures or 'evidence'. So, I'm not sure what purpose the analogy served.

I only teach complex students. I collect huge amounts of data. What I don't do is assign one value to my complex data that is beyond the scope of the assessment tool I have used.

So, I'm not sure what purpose the analogy served.

The question was what you would think of a GP who applied no standardised diagnostic methodology to their diagnosis of you. Because they claimed there were flaws in it. No, they apply the same criteria in testing anyone who they suspect might have a particular health condition and make decisions based on the usual pathology of a particular disease.

It was Prof. Dylan Wiliam who didn't want to get started on sublevels btw. Not me. Well, me too obviously, but that was a quote. I haven't seen his reaction to Sean Harford's views on flight paths.