Dd's report is shockingly bad

[callmeearly]

Dd year 12 (Northern Ireland.) Before lockdown this year was on track to get good GCSE's go to six form college and wanted to do primary teaching in University.

She didn't engage well with online learning. Her latest report is shocking. She has gone from A in some subjects to F. (we are still on letter grades here.)

Any advice? I will need to contact the school but what will I say? She is very upset.

I find it difficult to believe that someone originally heading for an A could go down to F, except in the case of a coursework subject with no coursework completed. Even if she's skipped some topics completely, there must be some knowledge there from the first half of year 11. I think you need to ask some questions about how the grades were assessed and what she needs to be doing. It may be that they had tests on what they should have done during lockdown, and she did badly on those but is doing okay on new material now - in which case some solid hard work on catching up the missed topics might make a significant difference.

If she's upset, hopefully this will be the kick she needs to make the effort to catch up the missed topics. Find out if the school subscribe to any revision sites, get the revision guides, make sure you know what she needs to cover. Talk to the school about priorities; she can't catch up every subject by Christmas, but work out a plan that will make the most difference. Different subjects work in different ways - for instance it may be best to focus on something like maths first, because later topics build on earlier topics, but if she didn't really tackle one history/geography/EngLit topic, that might wait a little longer.

The teachers may have deliberately been quite pessimistic in order to give her a kick up the arse. And if she's really upset then maybe it will work? If she has ambitions and was previously a bright hard working students it should be possible to rescue this. Is DD determined to put the effort in to turn things around?

Do you mean she wasn't motivated to do online learning or that she didn't learn well that way. It's really tough but I expect she is not the only one. Positives are that she is capable. Now she needs to not panic, talk to her teachers, and work out how to do the learning she has missed (she can't revise what she has not learnt). Focus on key subjects. She might have to mentally 'drop' some subjects in terms of work at home. Not time for everything. And she still needs breaks and some free time. If she can move up some grades, great. If she doesn't it's not the end of the world and you can make a plan B.

It seems to be completely based on end of September and October assessment. The subjects which she has slipped most in are ones with a different teacher for year 12 than year 11.

She just realised struggles to engage online. In school she has a statement (we still have them here) and assistance from a TA in some classes.

I really hope the teacher didn't mark it harshly because if Northern Ireland decides to follow Wales and go with teacher assessment it will affect her overall grade.

I would get in touch with the school and arrange a meeting. What can she do to improve? Can the school support her differently?

Is this the first time you’ve heard there are issues?

If so I would raise this- why haven’t they been in contact before raising the alarm as such!

Yes I will contact the school. They haven't raised it before.

Well that’s shocking they’ve let it to to mid November without speaking to you.

I had this with my daughter, her grades starting slipping in year 11 (England) and mocks were not great, she really picked back up and just before lock down was back to an 8 in a couple for subjects, then bam, exams cancelled, her school averaged the grades so she came out with much lower final grades, my daughter has had to do a couple of resits. Read this to your daughter because it has caused my daughter to not be able to do one of the A-Levels she wanted to do for Uni, her grades were not high enough.

She went from the top 10 % to the above and we had a lot of tears.

@FAQs that is so tough. My Dd can knuckle down and do really well when she wants too but needs routine and to be in school regularly at assembly and hear the "this is a really important year" message often. She is currently off self isolating for 14 days so that doesn't help either.

My son is in year 8 and despite scoring meeting In his maths baseline test they've moved him down a set. He's really upset and doesn't understand why meeting targets would get you moved down sets. Any ideas he's lost a bit of confidence in himself 🙁

"Meeting expectations" isn't about meeting the target for the group, but meeting some individual target the school has attached to each pupil. My DD is top of her year for maths and has never had more than "meeting expectations" - because her target is high.

It may be that those with the same target are split between the two sets; he may be meeting the target, but some others are more than meeting it, and so they've swapped them around. By all means ask, and hopefully they can explain - it may turn out that he's been at the bottom end of that set for a while, and that somebody in the set below has made great progress and needs to be given the chance in a higher set.
Ask what he needs to work on; there's bound to be a chance to move up again in the future.

(I was once involved in a situation where quite a number of students had to move down a set without actually having got any worse. Due to an employer relocation, we gained about six very able kids in the same year, and the only way we could fit them all in the top set was to move kids down across the year group. We did go to some lengths to explain to both pupils and parents that it was a redrawing/redefining of the sets, rather than judgement of the pupils.)

From my very limited experience (as a parent) school are very reliant on CAT (which is some kind of computer based ability test.)

The meeting expectations is measured against this. Dd started with a CAT in the high 120's but over the years her enthusiasm for engaging in the CAT test has waned and she currently has a CAT of around 100.

Ds has a receptive language issue and can't understand the oral instructions for the CAT and he chooses random answers. His expectations are therefore extremely low and he exceeds them by some way.

Schools appear to either not see the difficulties with these tests or perhaps it's the system.

It might just be us but this system doesn't seem to work for either of my kids.

There is also the factor of the jump between GCSE level and A level which happens in yr 12. Without any pandemic to contend with I went from being an A grade student to a C grade at this point. The work level is harder and you need to up the level. Could this be involved too?

Year 12 in Ni is the same as Year 11 in England for any confused posters.
She must be feeling quite overwhelmed & apathetic at the same time.
I wouldn't worry too much about CATs, the teachers shouldn't be making predicted grades based on them. Loads of kids lose interest in them too, they see through having to do them every year! But 120 at some point in time would just that she is capable of a good batch of gcses.
I would take a three fold approach. First get in contact with the school and make sure she is getting fully supported in all subjects & that she's not behind in any controlled assessment work. Maybe she's had a few really confusing topics at the start of the year and a one off one to one with a teacher might help. They might identify if there's a particular subject she's really struggling with as well - maybe it would help to drop one?
Second- I would hone in on her aspirations. What would it feel like in the summer to have a good clutch of grades? Does she have her heart still set on primary teaching or is it something else? Look up the courses in Stranmillis or St Mary's or wherever she is thinking of to see the high grades needed. Really emphasis though that she is a whole person anyway with loads of talents and interests outside of school.
Third - I would physically help her. Get a big lever arch file for each subject. Go on to Ccea or whatever exam board website and print off the specifications. Organise her handouts from school into the file and use the specification to break down revision into small chunks. She will most definitely need your help with this - few 15/16 year olds are strong at this. Just be really encouraging, have her revise small sections at a time, make notes in whatever way is best for her & then test her. Obviously a lot of work for you at the start. Then highlight what she did on the specification so she can see it build up. Past paper questions are available inside most ccea textbooks that she probably has from school, otherwise teachers will give them to her or available online.
Concentrate on covering over what is needed for the mocks. If she really struggles with a topic during revision, maybe send her to school with a note asking the teacher to go over it with her.