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

My Ds is at a state grammar. He has very high megs and it's caused huge anxiety for him for the last 4 years. He hates his reports, he can be 3 grades higher than a classmate but because his megs are high, can still be getting below on his report when they are getting above and extra praise.

Ds is also being assessed for autism at the moment and was very upset at his end of year 10 report as it had two belows on it one was for a grade 6 and another for a grade 7. Seeing Ds struggle with possible sen this year has taught me that although gcse grades are important, his mental health is also a high priority. I've stopped worrying about what the reports say.

I think it’s a good idea to try n teach this child revision skills yet me an dh have no idea how to do that
So any tip or websites we should start with ?

I get the reason out put what the target is and if they are reaching the target or not

But if they are not we need to know, well if that’s the case what level are they actually achieving

And as for no personal commmets whatsoever I think it’s extremely poor

As a teacher and a parent, I'd say you've been extremely harsh saying pull your socks up when they're working well in all their lessons. My own children often receive 'below expected' (because it's an absolute nonsense basing what a child's expected to get in art or RE on their SATS results, but it's what the school is required to do. I would have said I was very proud of them for working hard in lessons and shall we get into more of a routine or buy some books to support your homework? Bullying is no joke and the effects can be long lasting, I would be calling their teacher to check on their emotional wellbeing and not worrying about the report.

That’s fair enough but I do have a gut feeling this child could certainly do more and does have a tendency towards laziness !

I have twins in Year 7 in two different grammar schools - and I would be delighted if this was their report - look at how many goods he has for effort. In year 7 - after being bullied!
I have no idea what your schools grading system is but I think if you ring the school they might explain the lower than expected is because they have set him very high targets. Who gets a lower than expected for a 70 plus exam result? I'm guessing he did well in his SATS?
My twins both got 120 in their SAT Maths - but starting at different schools my son was given a 5 to work towards for maths by the end of year 8 and my daughter was given a 3 that she had to achieve in the same period. By term two my son had achieved a 3 but he got lower than expected on his report card. His teacher explained it was because she had given him a very high goal and that some children had been given two years to get a three (like my daughter) so despite his lower than expected grade he was actually doing well.

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 think the 9-1 ones are GCSE aren’t they? If he’s in year 7 you need KS3 books. Although I probably wouldn’t bother.

If you’re looking for revision techniques then I’d go with the learning scientists page. It’s evidence based. But I think my first port of call would be to talk to the school at the start of next year to see if they can help you make sense of the report. If there is an issue, you can’t really tackle it until you know exactly what it is.

That doesn't seem very helpful. I also think predictions based on SATs are bollocks. I did well in my year 6 SATs but there were other subjects I was crap at and got a really hard time for "not trying hard enough".

I'd maybe look at the homework which seems to be the issue. Does he have the time and space to do homework. Does he understand what's actually expected of the homework?

He'll have high target grades which are utter bollocks. Grades at key stage 3 are a complete waste of time and made up. Focus on the effort, check homework and support with revision- most kids have no idea how to actually revise. Watch some videos on YouTube for some good techniques

No it’s a state secondary and primary
Was an excellent primary with amazing teachers and not as good s secondary
With a lot of subs and stressed and unhappy teachers
This child saidvrecently when they asked a question about maths because they didn’t understand it
Got a bollocking for not listening
So it doesn’t really encourage a culture to ask questions

Thanks for the tips and advice, me and dh are disagreeing atm how to handle this so I’ll get him to read this thread
Also thanks for the specific recommendation on learning scientists page and I think that’s what we need specific reccomendations dl you have any specific you tube videos we could watch regarding revision techniques

I think I’m going to have to email the school and request a meeting as we just have no idea what level that is child is currently working at and it’s disappointing that asking for help leads to tellings off and it’s also disappointing to get a report with no personal info in whatsoever just numbers like a cog in a machine

I think this child got 118 in maths n English sats which is greater depth

I think the problem might be turning in homework that’s been done to the bare min l, but of course as we haven’t been policing it we actually don’t really know that

My son had a similar issue. His school has 3 "tracks", a high achiever track, the average one, and the non- academic one. Each track had GCSE predictions based on which track they were in and they were put in the tracks based on SATs results and info from primary school.
My kid got put in the academic track which meant his predictions became grade 7 or above across the board. This is equivalent to an old grade A across the board. I had many discussions with the school as my son is bright but not a natural whizz and he was never a "10 straight As" kind of kid (I have background in education so familiar with the grades etc). He's the kind of kid who should get 2 or 3 As, a few B's, maybe one or two C's.
The problem is he was too bright for the average stream where the prediction were 4/ 5s across the board (C's/B's).

So he has spent year 7 8 and 9 getting reports which consistently give him excellent effort grades but an academic grade that is "below expectations" because he's on target for a 5 or 6 rather than a 7, when really that is what I expect of him. It's an incredibly soul destroying message to send to a kid time after time after time, that they aren't good enough - even when they are good enough! It's a huge problem for the borderline kids in these ridiculous systems. And compounded by the Gove papers which hugely favour the academics. My boy just got about 20 percent in his maths mock, I thought it was a dreadful result until his report comes and tells me it was a 3+. So almost a pass. Imagine the experience of turning page after page and not being able to do it and what message that gives you about your skill in maths - and actually you are on line to be average. It's a pernicious system and it's damaging to kids self perception and mental health.

I agree this can be very damaging to a child’s self perception and confidence

It seems like a lot of stress for a year 7. It's a hard year for some of them. They ought to have some slack cut, plenty of time for preparing for GCSEs later on, better to focus on behaviour and how they are settling in at first.

The report is generally very good (attitude 7 behaviour), apart from the homework.
So he either underperformed in exams due to lack of revision / technique, or he 'over performed' in his KS2 SATs.

I'd leave it for the holidays and then for year 8 focus on checking/discussing homework and revision for tests.

I think that report is quite hard to interpret - there's no commentary, no explanations and no what grades he is getting. Test performance scores are given with no guide to what a result means.

I would imagine he's fine but I would query the science - what does good mean? Does that mean he's at a 6 or could he be at a 7?. Why is the science target lower than the others especially if he's planning on triple science.

Our comps report are also lots of data with no explanation added by different teachers using different methods and the quality of end result is dire. We have GoForSchools so I can see everyday and in some subjects were teachers are entering a 0 for a test where child was absent there is massive volatility in grades - DS has gone from 9 to U in a year according to their system in one subject and we've had 3, 4 inbetween - we've asked teacher and she said 7, its really pick a number though teacher estimate is probably the most accurate of those.

I don't think it's bad for year 7, and the effort is really good. Just a bit of tweaking on homework, rather than "policing". I'd bring it up at your next parents' evening with the particular teachers and ask for areas for improvement - what did they say at your last one?

It looks to me like your child has a good attitude to learning and makes a lot of effort, so you should be telling them that they've done well this year, it's a big change, it will take a while to get used to being organised for homework and revision - it's only Y7, plenty of time!

BTW, our school stopped doing written reports (we just get grids like yours) as they were just too many to do (especially for RE teachers who have to teach absolutely everyone), they instead started to do parents' evenings once a term, which is better, I think, because you get more regular, personal feedback.

I do think you're being a bit over the top to get him doing extra work when you don't even know what it is he needs to improve on, by the way. I'd be a bit crestfallen if I'd worked hard all year (all those "Good"s!) but my parents decided I was actually rubbish and didn't make enough effort based on a progress system that they didn't understand. Give the lad a break!

If he got greater depth in SATs, he'll have to achieve really highly to meet expected progress. And of course they were in English and maths so don't necessarily extrapolate to other subjects anyway So I'd ignore the progress and focus on the effort and attitude which are brilliant!

Why is progress below for subjects where effort etc is all good or excellent? I would be asking what he needs to do to improve x

Progress is below because he's being assessed against made up flight paths.
Plus our experience is every teacher interprets things differently anyway. DD achieved the highest possible attainment grade in one subject on her report, it was way above her target and her teacher still marked this as expected progress. And in other subjects she was meeting her target and being marked as below expected progress. That's why I suggest ignoring the progress value!

The predicted grades are based on the SATs. It's really not unusual for y7 not to be achieving their predicted grades, especially those who scored well as the expectations are high. Secondary school work can be very different to primary school, they're taught to the SATs in y6 but Maths and English curriculums at secondary are different and can take some adjusting to. Also the variety of subjects, the moving around the school, different teachers etc. Y7 is really more about making sure kids get used to the school environment and that kids from different primaries all have the same basic knowledge in eg science or geography.

Agree that 9-1 revision guides will be too advanced, they're for Gcse years, you need KS3 guides.

Also agree that given the attitude grades are good, and the bullying earlier in the year, there really isn't anything here to be concerned about.

What on earth is the point of giving these grade predictions in Year 7?? Why does it benefit a Year 7 child to be told "We're expecting you to get this in four years time." They're either going to feel incredibly pressurised or complacent.

My DD in Year 10 is predicted 6s and 7s - she doesn't believe she is capable of getting 6s in Maths and Science and basically doesn't put in the effort as she just thinks she will be disappointed. She may well end up with 4s rather than the 5s that should be well within reach. Being constantly told she "ought" to be getting a 6 rather than just encouraging her to try her best has done no good at all.

I would say this is an excellent report with the slight exception of the few subjects marked down for homework which is something that can be worked on next year. Ignore the column about progress as that will be based on Sats results. I'm guessing this child scored highly in year six Sats and therefore has very high target grades.

Almost all predicted grades are 7 and 8 (equate to A and A* in old measures) so the child's target grades must be mainly 9's hence the progress showing as below expected.

Year 7 is a tough transitional year and this child has done well. I would expect that a little more focus next year will result in a few 9's at the end of year 8.