When Are Predicted Grades Given - GCSE

[FiddleOnTheRoof]

General question here...

When did your school give your DC their predicted gcse grades. Spoke to a parent today whose child was given predicted grades at the end of each year’s summer report eg yr7 and yr8. Is this standard?

Does it vary depending on whether you attend a private or state school?

Can’t see how useful giving them that early would actually be. Year 9 seems about right, but what do I know!

What year did your DC receive theirs?

I quite like your idea teen but am not sure the Oxbridge crowd would agree. On the GCSE thread, you can see how many parents are upset/DCs are upset because DC was 'predicted' to get a 9 and got an 8 (or sometimes less). We need a better term than prediction.

To answer the OP , at my school, we give indicator grade sin year 9 or 10, subject dependent , which is based on KS2. At DS's school, they have MEGs , which seem lower than the indicator grades at my school, so that's what annoys me as school are measured against achieving these and one school is being notably less ambitions than another.

At my school, we then also start 'predicting' grades in year 10. In my main subject, we have absolutely no control over this : a data man does it. Not very popular with the teachers! We used to claim huge accuracy with this but I think this year,the predictions were out. I imagine the teachers will be blamed , rather than the methodology!

Personally I feel we should do away with gcses - all kids should study maths and english to 18 (but not all to the same level) and university applications should be submitted after the results of the final exams at 18.

MoreThanImFeeling
Because not all teachers make accurate judgements overall. Also, not all teachers teach A Level and so haven't the knowledge to know if a child will do well on the A Level course.
In addition to that, 6th forms take internal candidates from their school and external so entry grades for all are much fairer. Plus, a child might to well in class but do badly in exams; that might be a sign that a levels aren't right for them as there's even more content.

Teachers see 100s of pupils, it is disingenuous to say they have no idea of likely outcomes.
There was over 10 marks difference between grades over 2 years in my subject. How on earth would I be have been able to predict that?

As it happens, when I went through my GCSE results this year I would say my back of envelop expectations were correct in 80% of cases and there were a couple of real curve balls. I also know of many who've been surprised by how their class have come out (high and low). The grade boundaries are norm referenced for the national cohort and add in irregularities in marking then unless someone closely follows what lots of other schools are doing by having a professional network across a range of schools and regions then it's fairly hard to get an accurate picture of what the national bell curve is likely to look at. It's also worth saying, my interest in this is beyond the realms of reasonable expectations.

There are many ways of reporting. Personally I think full written reports are a waste of time. I like the 3 times a year data report with a current working level and attitude to learning level. From there a phonecall is much easier and useful.
In terms of written feedback, feedback can be verbal in class, written in book etc but it is mainly for the students to know how to improve. Feedback focusing on grades is fairly ineffective at getting students to achieve their potential. Moving away from that was the one of the best things I did as a teacher. Each child is told something they can improve when we do a piece of work, they have a go. I always tell the students, if they listen to task feedback and keep making the smaller steps then they'll do well. This usually means many students achieve higher than their target grades because we don't talk in target grades; we talk in terms of progress. Then when I talk to parents I tell them "this is their current working level, to move further they need to do X y z".

Current working level is a more meaningful piece of information than any predictions (and yes I say the same If SLT come round pestering everyone for predicted outcomes as every year people over predict on internal data).

You'll have current working levels on pieces of classwork.

You what now? You bloody well shouldn’t!

noblegiraffe
Many schools, mine included, will have marks out /8 /20 /30 etc on each question. On certain pieces of assessment we have provisional boundaries from a mix of the original information on how they were working grades out (the info we had prior to course starting), previous year boundaries etc.
E.g. If we do a June 2018 paper then there are grade boundaries for that paper.

Students are categorically told that boundaries are set after final exams and that these are indicative only. There's no talk about being "3 marks off an 8" the anything.

It's not a perfect system, but the alternative is having no current working levels at all and given that (as this thread shows) people want staff to have a crystal ball for final exams, no current working level would be daft.

If we do a June 2018 paper then there are grade boundaries for that paper.

Grades from past paper mocks sat in exam conditions is reasonable. But you were talking about pieces of classwork. Given the utter mess that is English GCSE marking, if trained examiners can’t even mark properly, how on earth can this be expected of teachers on classwork?

I'd agree with that noble. there's also lots of people on the GCSE thread saying their DCs were predicted 8s or 9s, say, in school for English and 'got 9s' in mocks as if these are concrete bits of evidence. I have tried gently to point out that the teacher may not have been marking 'accurately'. It really is a problem in English. But for teachers to tell parents this, runs the risk of making us look a bit shit.

We also shouldn't be extrapolating grades out of one class assessed piece out of as little as 30 (even sometimes fewer!) marks, but we have become obsessed with assigning a grade to everything. Many exam boards don't even grade separate exam papers.

noblegiraffe
We split down the questions so for example, we might do some work on non fiction and then do a couple of short questions from a past paper in class and then grade it. Or we might work on writing skills and then do a section B and that piece of work would get a grade. Neither are full mock papers but it gives us an idea where students are working at. These set pieces are collected internally and we use them as benchmarks for intervention etc. It's an alternative to what some schools do which is endless mock exams. We have y10 exams, y11 mocks and then the final exam and we don't do a full GCSE in any of the exams/mocks due to workload. Some schools I know get y10/11 to do multiple full mocks, which for English is 7 hours of exams per mock session.

I think as long as everyone is clear that this is indicative and are aware it's a system with flaws then sometimes you do what you have to do. I tend to find that being honest to students means they understand. I tell them openly how the boundaries are worked out after each exam, the bell curve, norm referencing and they are fine with it.

Piggy is right with the obsession with grades. I'd happily put no grades on any piece of work other than formal mock exams and would probably be happy to have the mocks feedback only with grades in my planner, but alas that's not the world we live in.I can't stand hearing on threads when people say their DC has been told they have a 9 (or worse they've been at a 9 for 2 years and came out with a 7). Every school I know only goes up to 8 in their internal data.

Stuff that is done purely to feed the spreadsheet and because parents expect it, especially stuff that is of dubious validity should go in the bin. The DfE did seem to be suggesting that this should happen with their workload reduction suggestions.

My school definitely predicts 9s. I only predicted them for my slam-dunks though. Way more than that actually got a 9 - not sure if I’ll be pulled up for underpredicting even though I was told to err on the side of caution

I don't disagree with you on that front noble, but you and I both know that how some of us would like things to be ideally is a different world to the reality of working in many schools.

I do think there has to be a way of tracking or commenting on pupil progress though KS3/4. Life after levels has been a mess in many respects, issues with GCSEs mean we can approximate but that's it. I don't think it's unreasonable for parents to want to know if their child is doing ok.

Even under the current format, I have picked students up where teacher A has much lower standards than me (the sort of person who still argues there was nothing useful in the wasted years report and won't accept what is taught in y5/6). If left to them to tick a box saying all is good then they'd tick whatever they needed to for an easy life, whilst spending most of y11 priming the department with excuses about why they can't be expected to get various grades.

I haven't got a solution though.

Ah but Lola you’re mixing monitoring of teaching with reporting on student progress.

cauliflowersqueeze
I probably wasn't clear, sorry. I think there is an overlap in my opinion between teaching and reporting progress.

E.g. Using GCSE materials to mark and grade for indicative progress isnt perfect (and many of us on this thread know the issues with it), but whilst it's not perfect, it's probably a better way to judging where a student is at currently than asking staff to pluck a figure out the air based on what they think a child might get.

Hypothetical example, I might draw my prediction from information I know about bell curves, allocation of grades, question level breakdowns, where I think individuals will lose marks, what I know my students are doing Vs what I've seen other schools awarding similar marks to in teaching forums, discussion with colleagues in different regions where we've compared the contradictory advice from examiners leading training (whole other issue there) and think "Child X is most likely going to be in the top __% of a national cohort so overall a grade Y would be realistic".
Meanwhile colleague A (who has form for downplaying demands of exams, pretending that KS2 hasn't actually taught skills that have been taught, who talks about progress in terms of self esteem e.g. I can't give a 3 because that'll dent their confidence/ it's not fair to say Danny isn't making enough progress because he was on holiday for a fortnight so couldn't make progress and it would be mean to penalise him, he couldn't help it etc) is much more likely to make their predictions based on what they think will make them look better as a teacher and what they think will make students feel good.

So under a teacher best fit prediction home to parents, my student could get told they're working at a 6 but likely to get a 7 in a year and they'll probably get the 7 because we've focused on progress and making as accurate a judgement as possible in a flawed system, whilst another student in colleague A's class could be told they're on a 4 currently but will get a 5 (when the reality is that they're currently on a mid 3, have regular attendance issues, aren't catching up on work so they're missing large sections of the content). The child who thinks they only need a 4 to get to college now thinks they're ok in our subject and will get to college and so directs their time and revision to maths more because they're on a 3 in maths. The school see that the child is on a 4 and on track to get a 5 so that child doesn't meet the threshold for some of the catch-up intervention. That child's parent have a limited amount of money to support a private tutor where they are really struggling, but English isn't a problem according to the report so they'll get a tutor for maths and science.

Colleague A's inaccurate judgement and focus on trying to boost esteem / avoid their predictions looking low probably limits that child's chances of getting the 5, puts the 4 in danger and the child falls through the net because the school has allowed personal opinion to triumph over some attempt to get a reasonable picture.

I think we can agree that Colleague A is a plonker!

The intervention thresholds and the sixth form application process is certainly difficult I agree.

I think predicting within a narrow band is probably the fairest way.

Oh but I hate the word intervention. Massive contributor to teacher workload, almost impossible to prove its efficacy. Just teach and teach well!

I did zero intervention with my GCSE class and the results from the particular subject were the third best in the school...

Also, my predictions were spot in, and this is the subject where data guy doesn't interfere!

Colleague A is a plonker. I find when thinking about things it helps to think about unintended consequences. Much as I'd love to be able to say that everyone would make accurate judgements, we know that's not the case.

I like the range idea, but would want that coupled with moderation of classwork and quality assurance (much to people like A's dislike). I'd hate for someone weak in English have someone like A say they're on track to get 4/5 when the reality is they're unlikely to get it, but also wouldn't want a situation where staff are judged by comparing predictions to real outcomes because we all know there's a farce in some places with marking. Equally I worked with a colleague who used to brag about getting lots of A/A* but would put the class under awful pressure and always under mark them so they'd panic and revise his subject more. It seemed quite cruel to me

For me, there is a place for assessed and moderated classwork as it gives some form of coherent language between staff.

Oh but I hate the word intervention. Massive contributor to teacher workload, almost impossible to prove its efficacy.
Just teach and teach well!
Time and a place for appropriate support to me. E.g. using departmental float time to support GCSE students is probably useful, but expecting staff to do hours of revision and catch-up is silly. // Giving someone with weak literacy some additional input from someone trained in literacy support is probably helpful, but creating a sink group who've dropped MFL in march of y11 is a waste of time.

Teach and teach well is spot on though. What I don't get is people who rush the course and material and then spend ages revising and recapping. I moved to slowing down with less revision time a few years ago and it was such a good move.

While the English teachers are here! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3679262-English-isn-t-a-Real-Subject

That's what I'd like. We are made to finish in February! which I ignore

I didn’t do any after school revision or intervention with my top set this year, they didn’t need it.

However next year I’m going to have a group of 3/4 borderline kids and while I might say ‘they should have been taught better (or more likely worked harder) further down the school’ that’s not going to get them over the line so I’ll be throwing everything at them that I can.

We need a better term than prediction.

DS's school uses 'aspirational grade' and it's explained that's ducks in a row & has a good day.

That would stress me out piggy.

For all our assesment system at ks4 isn't perfect, it's a level of flawed with reasonable intentions and an openness to the flaws that I'm happy to accept given the other freedom we have not to do tike consuming box ticking intervention, reasonable timings on text coverage etc.

Purposeful, reasonable support is the aim of the game.

I never do intervention either, although I spent a bit of time with 3 students going through something after school they didn’t get. But that’s it.

Much as I'd love to be able to say that everyone would make accurate judgements, we know that's not the case.

So do you moderate every bit of marking that’s graded?

That's not possible noble but we moderate samples regularly.
I'm not saying it's a perfect system, it's not, but in the absence of a system that is perfect or close to it departments have to do what they can.

Out of interest, what would be your solution that's workable in schools at the moment in the current climate? I've read some really interesting work from schools that don't do any written marking, but they haven't said how they keep parents in the loop. How would you be reporting progress to parents? Genuine questions because I see the problems in what we currently do, but I've asked around and every school i've spoken to has similar challenges.