Y7 assessements - any Secondary parents/teachers able to help?

[SarfE4sticated]

hi there, I hope you can help. My DD did quite well at her SATs, mostly due to the supreme efforts of her teacher and the staff of her primary. She has since started our local secondary which is very academic, and they use their y6 SATs scores to set their targets for the year. My DD has been set the highest target (I think) for every subject, and has got pretty terrible marks for everything in her first secondary school report. Her friends who have been set more moderate targets have got the same marks as her in the assessments and got lots of 'on track's and 'above expected's.
I guess my worry is that DD will either brand herself as 'rubbish at science' because of this, or will spend her school career being judged against a standard she won't meet.
So, will this target stay the same throughout the school, or is it adjusted each year? Obviously they want to see progress but they won't want to set her up to fail will they?
DD is very conscientious and like most 12yr old girls she is going through a rather emotional stage, and I want her to feel motivated and excited by her new subjects and teachers. Not like she has failed in her first 6 weeks there. What do you suggest I do?
Thanks in advance

As far as I’m aware all targets for secondary are set by year 6 SATs. The yr 6 SATs are what’s used to predict target gcse results. Bonkers I know. Not sure what you can do but I’m sure you’ll have a parents evening soon and you can discuss it then.

OMG! I haven't spoken to many other parents, but none of her friends have the high targets she has, and she certainly wasn't the school brain box at primary!
There is a parent's evening soon so I will mention it. I'm all for having high expectations, but I went her to feel she is doing well.

At DS's school the grades are based on the SATs results. In his class person A can get the highest mark in the class, be given a "meeting" mark, whereas as others can score less and get an "exceeding". DS and friends have decided that if they had done enough in SATs to get a decent mark, their lives would be a bit easier than having gained very good marks.

Yes Ihatecobwebs I think my DD wishes she hadn't done so well now!
What is weird is that these high targets are also for science, languages, RS and pe, subjects she wasn't even tested on for the sats.

The school are measured against the progress from the SATS. Therefore if your DD got high SATS, she will be expected to get high GCSEs and will be pushed for these. If she makes below expected progress it will reflect in the school's Progress 8 score.

The targets are averaged for the subjects she didn't do at SATS. So if she got say 106 in English and 100 in Maths, they'll average at 103 across everything else.

i think i preferred it when I was at secondary, you were able to just get on with it in during the first and second year, and then you made your choices in the 3rd year and the pressure hit in the 4th and 5th year.

It just seems sad that she might never feel like she is doing really well. I might start putting money aside for her therapy bill now!
Thanks Calamity and Chocolatecake

Sad to think that her primary teachers haven’t done her any favours by coaching her so well to score highly in her SATS.
Definitely worth asking about at parents evening but what you’ve been told already about targets and value added based on SATS results is right afaik.

Her primary teachers are all part of the same system Muchtoomuchtodo. She worked so hard and was so proud of herself for doing so well in her SATs too. Gave her confidence a real boost.

Oh well, it's only the first term, hopefully things will get better.

I appreciate that, but scoring highly in SATS is very different to being assessed in a whole load of new subjects a few months later.
High scores in SATS don’t necessarily put the kids at any advantage as you’re seeing. It is great for the primary school though who are no longer interested in her targets or progress.
It doesn’t mean that she’s not doing well, but her bar has been set higher than others and it sounds as if that’s not boosting her confidence at the moment.
Hopefully it will settle down and even out.

Actually, I have just found an image of a 'flightpath' on a random school website, and it seems to say that if she hits the school's projection for her, then she will get all 9's at GcSE. That's a lot better than DH or I managed at school. Maybe I just need to 'lean in' and help her get there.

I do agree with you Muchtoomuchtodo, it's a pretty flawed system.

They do set them from the SATs and they won't lower the predictions, unfortunately. It's one of the reasons I declined any extra tuition for my own DD for SATs, I didn't want her to have any extra pressure in secondary.

I am a teacher and this is precisely what I hate about our data-driven education system. Why can't children just get along with advice she encouragement from the adults around them, rather than being strapped to a bunch of grades like it's a noose around their necks?
Hopefully your daughter will rise above the anxiety this is causing her. If it was really concerning, then I'd contact the form tutor for a meeting outside of the scheduled parent's evening just to talk through area a of concern, or even with the subject teacher directly. I'd be delighted if parents of my students were so keenly involved in their children's welfare as you are.

I didn't have the option to decline chiccauldron all of the boosters were just part of the school day.

Oh well, we will just need to get on with it and make the best of it.

Yes as others have said this will be used for her GCSEs as this is what schools are judged on. I would just encourage her and help her to aim high. You can’t do much else.

Flight paths are a load of bollocks though - nobody makes a smooth flight path of progress.

Ours were an hour after school so were easy to refuse! Not much you can do about the ones in the school day. We also live in an area that has super-selective grammars so a lot of children were tutored for those as well.

They do retest in y7 at dds school, and will move accordingly if needed. That’s first half term of y7 and the result from that can influence SATS flight path, but not for many.

Nine of my dds were tutored but good at maths. They both struggled the first term of maths, lots of tears. I thought it was because I didn’t have them tutored that they were really behind, but caught up by Jan.

Thanks Rath I agree, it's a bit of a blunt instrument isn't it.

I will speak to her about it, and explain it to her properly. Not sure what happens if you get too many 'well below's on your report. I guess we will find out at parent's evening. She loved her music and drama classes and came home buzzing after the lessons, but got 'well below' for both. I just don't want her to get put off so early on!

Parenting just gets harder every year doesn't it!

We're in London, so if we wanted grammar we would have to travel to Kent and tutor for it too. We purposely just wanted DD to go to our local school with no pressure (and no tutoring), so she could find her own way. Seems like our local school has other ideas!

All schools are under the same pressure.

If your daughter did excellently in SATs and then just average in her GCSEs the school would be blamed for not ensuring she met her potential. They are all measured in the same way so it would have been irrelevant which school she went to - in none of them can students just settle into their own rhythm and find their own way I’m afraid.

That is some consolation at least cauliflowersqueeze

Dd got high mark's on SATs after some very good teaching in yr6 and yes she did get set some very high targets. Some were ridiculous as anyone who has seen her in PE will attest. At first she did find it frustrating that her friends had lower targets but she has risen to the challenge. I think it helps that she has naturally taken to secondary school subjects such as humanities and science which tended to be brushed over in primary. The school is also motivated to support her and give her additional support. She is now attaining or bettering her targets in most subjects now she has selected her GCSE options. We did have the same talk in yr7 about SATs being the reason for high targets and that although it can be frustrating it might also mean the school are more motivated. Your dd seems to respond well to clear focused revision. She could not have done so well if she was not fairly clever and with additional support from the school she might actually thrive. We did make it clear to our dd though that those were the school targets based on government expectations and what mattered to use was that she was putting in effort, was well behaved and respected the teachers.

So glad DD didn’t do SATs. She is at a high achieving state school Y10 and being stretched but nothing like the noose you describe OP. The progress 8 measure won’t count my DD as she didn’t have SATs but it will include her in the achievement 8 result. Or that is how I read the government secondary measure guide.

It sounds like your DD has such a supportive environment OP and she will be fine.

My ds is in year 10. He did a test at school when he got there in year 7 and got the highest score in the year. His targets have been all 8s (they wouldn't predict nines because back then they didn't know what they'd look like) and like you I was worried when his reports were showing that he wasn't meeting his targets. I spoke to his teachers and they basically told me that he shouldn't have done so well on that test! And his reports will look like he's not doing so well for a while.

He's finally getting the on targets and exceeding but it's taken all these years! It's a huge amount of pressure.

It sounds like I'm boasting about him, but he's great at tests, not so good at essay writing and the test didn't seem to account for that! He also can't draw for shit, isn't remotely musical and hates school PE.

Shit system really!