What are your thought about this year 7 child’s school report ? Is it awful ?

[Lardlizard]

This is the report of a year £ child who did very well at primary
Got greater depth on all sats this it was possible, has had a bit of a bumpy ride starting secondary due to bullying
Which I’m told by the child and the school has been sorted
Though of course I’m keeping my sensors up
The child seems to have settled in ok now and bullying seems to have stopped
I’ve said, right you’ve had your first year to settle in, but going back in September you need to pull your socks up and work harder

What do the letters mean? The grades are probably meaningless. The Art one is based on English SATs performance I believe in many cases (for example). I am pretty damn good at English but I can't draw for toffee. I'd be paying more attention to the other columns. Is effort good? Is behaviour good? If so, it's a good report.

I'm not a teacher so just giving my opinion based on not a lot really. What strikes me is that most of his individual marks are good or exceptional, suggesting he's working hard, and yet he's below the expected level or worse for most subjects. I wonder if he's suffering from having particularly high targets set because of his sats?

Just saw the key at the bottom. I would focus on homework organisation next year. But those codes look like a good student. The 'grades' look like nonsense.

I think the effort grades are what you need to focus on. The other grades can just be based on one test on one day (for example, my year 7's geography grade has hopped around this year from "below" to "exceeding" and back again - just an exam result on a particular day.

You can't tell a lot from that really.

We don't know if almost everyone gets exceptional, in which case your report looks bad, or it is truly exceptional to get that, in which case it looks very good.

What I'd be most concerned is the Bs for homework.

Focus on the effort grades and the actual test scores - ignore the ‘minimum expected grade’.

To me this looks like an able student who is making reasonable efforts/has good organisation in almost all subjects, but isn’t maybe pushing him/herself, so could do better in a number of subjects.

I wouldn’t be overly concerned, particularly as it’s Year 7, but it might be worth asking your child to identify 2-3 subjects which they can improve next year.

Looks fine to me, maybe needs to pay a bit more attention to the insufficient.

Looks a lot like ds1's report. He has extremely high targets and therefore fails to meet them any time he doesn't score over 90% in any exam. We just look at his effort grades and forget the symphony of reds and oranges.

This looks like Sims generated colours

Sorry, pressed post too soon!

I meant that it looks like teachers input the scores and letters for attitude to learning etc and Sims producing the coloured outcome depending on the minimum target grade for that subject. Would explain why Computing is below expected but teacher has put Es for most things. I would say it is a pretty good report.

Ignore the grades

Look at the effort and attitude to learning. If they are good then your child will be fine. From what I can see, homework needs sorting and they are probably a middle of the road kid attitude wise.

We did wonder if this child’s megs were making throw report look so bad
But I do think it’s attitude and putting in homework that gets its done but perhaps does the bare minimum
We haven’t been policing homework at all just leaving this 12 year old to crack on with it themselves hoping it would encourage self discipline and tbh we don’t really want to, but perhaps we should be

Another one saying look at effort and attitude to learning rather than grades.

Flight paths are nonsense, genuinely. I say this as a parent of a year 11 who on his predicted grades from year 6 would be about 2 -3 grades lower than he should get (based on 3 lots of mock exam results.)

Attitude to learning is a good indicator and effort. This becomes more important later. Celebrate his success with his English and if he enjoys computing which is suggested by the report, he can widen his knowledge over the summer. School can direct him on what to look at. Also a little bit of maths every day will help him, again school can suggest what to do to increase his grade.

Secondary is hard for some and it takes them a bit to find their feet.

Is it expected to himself - in effect he underachieved against his own predicted grades?

For example History and Geography he is predicted an 8 yet got insufficient and below expected but in English its a 7 and exceeded. I think he screwed up his exams - did he revise for them. That his work was good all year apart from homework and revision.

I hate to say it OP but it looks like from that report its the home bits he is not necessarily hitting - homework and revising in order to do well in the exams - as such he failed to hit expec

It reads to me that the child is trying their best (hence the majority G) but isn't managing (progression not as expected)

Well I do this child has done enough revising at all for the end of year tests
Are the year 7s suppose to revise for these tests ?
But as parents you get next to no communication from the school
For example his is report is all the report says
No mention whatsoever about how this child is fairing socially or emotionally
Or any personal comment whatsoever and now there not really anytime to discus it with the school
Dh has decided the dc needs to do extra work and has today bought some of those letts stage 9-1 maths and geography ?!

I’ve said sure we are better off enforcing home work is done to a higher standard ?

Thanks for all your advice and taking the time to give us our thoughts
Kind of you

My son is quite dyslexic and his grades were quite poor, however his attitude to learning, effort and organisation grades were all very good with a few excellent!

We underestimated how much revision was required (so know for next year!) And always check the homework once complete to nudge for more content if necessary...

I would focus on his good efforts and perhaps monitor his home learning when he moves into Y8

That's a reasonably OK report for year IMO, particularly since he had a rocky start. I wouldn't bother getting him to work over summer, there'll be enough drudgery to come over GCSE years.. The marks for behaviour/attitude in class are all good, so he's making a reasonable effort at school, just needs to put a bit more time and effort into his homework when he goes back.

btw my dc also did really really well at primary, had a rocky start at secondary, and ended up saddled with 8s as targets for all their subjects, which is probably not realistic for most of them. so as others have said, take some of the target projections with a pinch of salt.

I don’t under stand how he’s rated exceptional in computing but is below expectations? Take the report to next parent /teacher meeting and ask for clarification.

Christ, is this what reports look like these days?! We used to get a grade between A* and F, an effort score between 1 and 4, and maybe a sentence or two to say what we were particularly good or bad at. I can't make head or tail of that jumble of letters and numbers, plus the colours make my brain hurt. If the minimum grade is 7 and he's getting 64, that seems bloody good - but somehow they've awarded him "below expected" so those numbers must not be connected.
Sorry, OP, no help at all, but dreading mine bringing something like this home for me to decode in a few years!

I think the predicted grade based on his work through the year was a 7 but he only got 64 on his exam which meant in his end of year test he didnt achieve his expectations - I dont know for sure but its the only logical reading of the data set of the report!

But where they get the targets from I dont know

Pretty standard reporting from a teacher's view but I would have expected that you would at least have got a form tutors comment to cover the non academic side of things. Good is exactly what it says really. In order to be better than good the student would need to be doing additional research for homework, regularly contributing to class discussion off their own back etc. As far as tests are concerned, yes revision would be expected but not hugely. In future help your DC organise their revision to manage time and focus on the important bits. Revision skills are something that needs to be learnt so starting now is good preparation for more important tests in the future. I would have expect a student who got greater depth across the board at KS2 should have target grades of a minimum 7 however some of these subjects will be almost entirely new to your DC so its not unusually to not be naturally talented in all areas. Something I would definitely be questioning is the target grade 6 in Science. Why isn't the target of a greater depth student higher?

JonnyPocketRocket and Quart2208 the predicted grades come from GCSE 1-9 system (9=A* equivalent) scaled down for each year group. These predicted grades are based on KS2 SAT results with non assessed subjects usually community Ng from the students average grade.

Daft thing is say geography is insufficient
And way below target
Doesn’t actually give us any clue whatsoever of what this child is currently achieving
Would be more helpful to say this child has a target of say an 8 but at this current progress is currently a level 4 or whatever

As to us this is no information at all
Regarding what levels this child is actually currently achieving