Meeting Expectations - What does this actually mean?

[forestdweller11]

My year 8 DDs school report is generally good. But a lot of the comments are 'meeting expectations'. But I can't seem to find out from the school what that expectation level is . It is linked to her SATS from year 6. I understand that the different subjects will have different expectations - so that a 'meeting expectations' in French will be different to that in Geography. But how do I find out from the school what they actually expect? They've fobbed me off in the past with reference back to SATS scores. I guess I'm wanting to know where they 'sit' within the school setting, and what's she's good at, what she's poor at and where she actually needs support and more encouragement. The 'meeting expectations' measure seems woolly and I'm concerned that the schools expectations might not align with our expectations!

Welcome to the world of Secondary. Every school is different now NC levels have gone.

Most of the data reported home to parents is meaningless.

I'm assuming there is a scale, something like above expectations, meeting expectations and below expectations. It totally depends where your dc started and where they are now.

It means what the school wants it to mean.
It might be defined by year group or by individual child.
It might be based on SATs related targets or your child's individual performance.
And in my experience this varies from teacher to teacher and term to term.

(my daughter has just gone from consistently "exceeding expectations" in Year 8, to "below expectations" in half her subjects in Year 9. She is not working any less well, the school have just moved the goalposts.)

I'd suggest focusing on the attitude/effort/behaviour mark and looking at end of topic tests to get an understanding as to how your child is doing.

How did your DD do in her SATs?

The time to be concerned is maybe if they are 'meeting expectations' and did poorly on SATs (however you personally define that) as it means they maybe aren't 'closing the gap' to where you want them to be.

If they're referring back to SATS I would assume they mean she is performing within average range for someone with her SAT scores. If she performed very well in SATS the expectations would be higher than someone who did averagely well or below average.

In my kids' school, it's against the baseline assessments they gave them at the start of year 7.

Just a bit of a minefield....
We have below expectations, meeting expectations and exceeding expectations. I wouldn't mind if we knew what those expectations were.

DD is mainly meeting (with a couple of exceeding) which is better than her year 7 report. But that might be because the goalposts/teacher etc have changed. I don't think its because she's trying/working harder. It would seem that the only way to get consistent 'exceeding expectations' comments is to have had poor a SATS result which was a blip.

Ref her attitude/behaviour marks vary between good and excellent, so we don't have too many concerns there (yet!). Her end of topic tests seem to be okay as far as we can tell, and her teachers give good feedback at parents evening etc. Plus her attendance is >99%.

I would say that she's probably not too bad a student (I would say that though....)

I've emailed the school (again) to see if they can give me something more concrete.... I just want to know what the expectations are!. I don't want to get to the end of year 9 and find out that actually she was rubbish at German (or whatever) and she therefore can't do that subject to GCSE when we thought she was meeting expectations, when in truth the expectations were quite low.

I'm getting a bit over obsessed with the whole thing. I could be becoming 'that parent' ....

DS picked his options in April last year. (Year 9)...am assuming your school does the 3 year GCSE's so she'll pick this year.

We had a general talk for parents and students on how to pick their gcses (pick subjects you enjoy and will work hard at) and then followed a normal parents evening where the teachers all said how they were doing in the subjects in relation to their target grades and whether they thought that subject would be a good fit for them.

And the government got rid of levels because they said levels confused parents

It's a shame that more schools don't do what our DS's did. In the end of year reports they gave the mark for the end of year test in each subject and in brackets behind it, they put the average mark for that class. You could see at a glance whether DS was above, below or around average compared to his class mates. We found it be really good feed back. Obviously not 100% foolproof as it clearly depends on the class itself, but it was good to know where he stood as regards his peers.

Well the deputy head has just rung me.
They look at SATS from year 6, which puts the child into an initial band (out of four).
They then look at year 7 end of year test results (and subsequent years) v the initial band, which then gives the -/=/+ banding later. So a child will usually remain in the band they achieved in the SATS, and the 'expectations' bit is where they are currently in that band at secondary. They might shift the bands if it's obvious that the child is in the wrong band but not usually.
He did talk about percentages, but apparently they found that a low percentage (hard paper) v a high percentage (easier paper) was confusing/not leading to good year 10 choices.

I think I'm clearer now...
They do two year GCSE.

It is ridiculous reporting tosh like this, (well that apart from a myriad of other head-banging annoyances) that sent us running for the independent in the proverbial hills.
Box ticking and ‘computer says no’ were determining my daughter’s dire outcomes at KS1, and this was for a gifted child who went on to score top 1% at 11plus. How we have loved the transparent honesty of comprehensive & thorough reporting, that not only tells you where your child is in national terms, but relative to her class peers too. It’s clear and simple and the goalposts don’t move. While my friends at the local schools, are scratching their heads, wondering what it all means. How on earth they concocted up this system, is really beyond me. Sorry, I know that doesn’t help. Can only sympathise!
As previous poster has said, the SATs will often determine what the expectations are, so if they were high...her expectations will be higher to match. Means little of course, as a child with average SATS at primary, can do far better in secondary..and vice versa.

DD is in year 7 and her flightpath (so eventual GCSE grade) is linked to her SATs results. So as she got exceeding in all 3 areas her flightpath is an 8 in most subjects. However the SATs only covered the main subjects but I guess they expect them to be of similar standard? So if my daughter is meeting expectations it means she’s meeting the level they expect her to be at for her flight path. What is expected in each year in order to achieve an 8 at GCSE I don’t know! It’s all confusing

Well there you go. She is performing in line with her SATs.

So if she got 100+ in SATs she is in line to pass GCSEs as far as they can tell at this time.
If she got 115+ in SATs she is in line to do very well (say 7+) in GCSEs as far as they can tell at this time.
If she got

What is expected in each year in order to achieve an 8 at GCSE I don’t know!

Yeah the teachers don’t know either.