Flight paths never change?

[sahbear]

We recently received DS1s Y7 report. The flight paths he has been assigned are so unambitious.
Tutor says they are based largely on KS2 results, gender, and birth month. He is a summer born boy who found the literacy Sats hard (dyspraxia). This means that his flightpath for all subjects apart from maths and ICT are on a predicted gcse grade of 3-5.
However he is thriving at secondary school. Test results etc put him much higher, but the school says his flightpath cannot change (even in ks4) although it is great he is exceeding it.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Is this normal (or it just our school). His flightpath seems to appear on assessment sheets and other everyday pieces of paper at school, as well as the report, but just doesn't reflect what he is capable of.

Our school offer targets based on Sats and Cats and teachers based on how the kids are working on a good day or something like that - to be honest it's really confusing and in my experience neither are great - even the bloody effort levels are seem slovenly prepared at times causing a bit of grief when homework has always been delivered on time and with great care but the teacher just gives a blanket good grade for everything - I honestly cannot get my head around what they hope to achieve with the nonsense they send us - we are forced to discard the teacher's opinion because it makes bugger all sense!

Thanks all.
It is useful to know this is a national issue. I think it should all be explained a bit better to parents as it has taken me a year to get my head round the flightpath, and the way they grade (exceeding, meeting etc).
I am realising we are lucky that DS1 doesn't have a flightpath which he can't reach, as that sounds awful.
However some of his subject reports are pretty meaningless, if he exceeding 'developing' but it doesn't tell us by how much. He says he got mastering in history and science, but all we can tell from his report is he is exceeding developing. The Aspiration grades seem a good idea.
I just would like a clearer sense from his report of his progress, and ideally I wouldn't like him to have developing on every piece of paper irrespective of his progress, but it sounds like that is the norm...

But sometimes a lack of progress is not a symptom of something going wrong and sometimes kids just need to be allowed to take it easy for a while - before their brains get ready for a developmental leap.

OP
Going into these things with a teacher hat on I would be thinking:
Is my child doing their homework and showing a positive attitude?
Do I trust the school to help my child achieve their potential?
Do I trust the school to contact me if they were concerned?
(At GCSE) Are they where is typical for this stage of a 2 year course?

If the answer to all of the above is yes then I wouldn't be worried. I'd probably want to have a look in the books to double check every now and then at ks3 (as some staff let ks3 slip and it's not on).

DD’s school allows flight paths to move up if a child is progressing well. But not down.

@LolaSmiles
I guess being Y7, and my eldest child, I don't know how much I trust the school.
I have been a secondary teacher myself, but last taught nearly 20 years ago.
I guess time will tell.
I am concerned that they underestimate DS1, but he has been much more studious than I expected too.

With your background I would trust your judgement and but feelings.
You'll know standards at primary have got tougher and that secondaries were told to raise their game at ks3 some time ago but otherwise a fairly diligent student with supportive parents will get on well just like they always have done.

If in doubt you could always share concerns or topics on the Staff room board and some of us in the classroom still could probably give you a rough idea of if it's reasonable or not