Year 7 results/grading

[cantstopstressing]

Just got DS's school report for the first half term at a private school. He got a mix of 4s, 5s, 6s and two 7s. The school use a 9-1 marking scheme with 9 being exceptional. What I am not clear about how well DS is doing. I know what these marks mean in a GCSE context, e.g. 7 is a low A, 6 is a B etc but do they mean the same here?

No one here can tell you - there is no national grading system and every school has its own system. You'll have to ask the school (and in fact it's pretty poor that the report didn't come with some sort of explanatory leaflet).

Every school is different but most seem to follow one of these 2 systems;

• flight path- this is a grade which your DC is on track to achieve if they were to carry on making progress at current levels

• actual - this is the grade your DC would get if they were to take the GCSE now.

You should have been told which one is being used but I would guess from those numbers it is a 'flight path' system as you would only be expecting 1,2 or possibly a 3 on an 'actual' based system.

Both systems are pretty arbitrary particularly at this stage in year 7.

Agree with pps. I had a discussion with the head of Y7 about my dd's 'grades' at some point last year and she said that it's a confusing system which all the teachers seem to use differently and spurns no end of queries from parents/carers to explain but no-one really can ...