School not giving any context around exam scores.

[PenceyPrep]

DD is in Year 7 and has just taken a set of year-end exams. She has been coming home with exam results, but in most cases, this is just a standalone number, eg. "75%", with no indication of what this means.

I really don't feel the need to know how every other child did, but it would be good to have something to contextualise it.

Kids are told not to discuss their results to other pupils, and when they have asked for the class average, they have been told they are not supposed to be given this anymore.

Is this normal?

Our school does this. It's meaningless without a benchmark of some kind. I do email them and ask whether I should be reassured or concerned about DC's marks.

My DD is usually told the average. (Really, you need the standard deviation as well to make sense of it, but that’s never been forthcoming; the most we’ve ever had is a mean and a range (lowest-highest). I suppose it’s hard for the kids at the bottom and that’s why they are reluctant to publish this?

Oh Wimpole, you are a hat after my own heart. I would love a nice mean and SD (or perhaps median and SE). We can dream...

Yes, I'm sure it is to protect kids who are struggling.

I know they do MIDYIS at the start of Year 7, so they should be able to say whether kids are achieving their potential too. No hope of that though...

No, this is balls. When I give test scores back I also give the class average and the top mark, so they know how they compare to the group (I don't give out the lowest score as that's not fair on the pupil who got it).

Utterly meaningless otherwise.

Surely they at least need to know what bracket they fall into (eg 5% of the class scored 80% or higher, 25% of the class scored 70-79%).

Thank you everyone, it's good to know that it's not just me being nosey.

I'm on the fence re whether to contact school and ask for more info. I suppose we may get something more in the end-of-year report, but I've not been impressed with their communication so far, so I'm not holding my breath. Also reports come out on the last day of term, so if the info isn't useful, it's too late to do anything about it.

WWYD?

@noblegiraffe would your colleagues roll their eyes at a parent who pushed for this info?

It's an independent school if that makes any difference.

Thinking about it, when out school does those CAT standardised tests, those scores are all based on a normal distribution( they explain the scoring and actually implicitly give you the SD. Is MIDYIS the same? If so, you could ask for it “in a similar format”? I can’t see how it looks nosey that way; you’re not asking for any other child’s individual results, just a bit of wider context.

That's an interesting idea WimpoleHat. Suspect it might flummox them a bit though...

As it's an independent school I'd definitely push on it.

Dd is year 8. Also independent. We get a percentage score and the children are given grade boundaries so they can see if they are an A*, A, B etc. dd says it goes down to E!! Grade boundaries are different for each subject so I presume they grade on a bell curve like external exams. I'm not certain though.

Do they not also give some indication of whether they're on track or not? They should be able to say whether each student is above/below/on track, compared to how they should be doing. We don't give levels at KS3 anymore.

Thanks @QueenMabby and @ToadiesCouzin , it's really useful to get a feel for what happens in other schools.

What I am picking up is that other schools have systems for this. It seems to just be down to teacher choice in ours. So, the science teacher has agreed that it's meaningless to give no context and is going to give them a median (but hasn't yet). Another subject has given some sort of pseudo GCSE grade boundaries - e.g. over 65% is a 7, over 80% is an 8 etc. Another has given out the top score, and another has said anything over 75% is very good. Most nothing though.

I'm starting to think I'm too much of a systems person to cope with this school much longer.

Dd is at an independent school
that used to give out top and average marks, but stopped as the young people (and, I suspect the parents) were getting unhealthily competitive over them. I am happy to trust the school to tell me how she is doing via reports and parents evenings (and I know I’d I have any concerns I will get a quick and comprehensive response to an email), and I’m not that bothered about KS3 exam results. For me, they are about learning how to revise, exam technique etc.

I’d wait for the end if year report now and if that’s as unhelpful, contact them for more info before the end of term.

My daughters school, for each test they do, gives the kids their score, percentage and also has a scale system that is supposed to align with GCSE grades if you keep achieving at the same rate. It seems to work well and was accurate for my sons GCSE grades. Have you not had any parents evenings to give you an idea of how she’s doing?

Hmmm they give reports out on the last day of term deliberately so you don't have time to query! I'd get your email in now and see what they say. I don't think asking for a benchmark is unreasonable at all.

Is it not usual to get reports on the last day of term...? (DD has been at this school since Reception, so I don't have much to compare with).

Argh. The assessment nerd in me is triggered by this thread. My MA is in education assessment.

1. Those parents who want to measure their children up against the rest of the class are doing very small scale norm referencing. It's weird and almost as meaningless as the random '75%' this school is giving out. All you're doing is boosting the egos of the top students because they can see the faces of those losers who are weaker than them. It's arbitrary Victorian rubbish. It gives you the measure of where your child is amongst their 30 peers, yes. But it tells you nothing, really, because if you want rankings then it's telling you nothing about where they stand outside the bubble of the arbitrary measures designed by their teachers.
2. Oh my god I'm just going to say 'A' and 'B' as other meaningless measures. It's not relevant to this thread but I've seen independent schools still randomly assigning letter grades for no apparent reason, unquestioned by either parents or children and based entirely on 'vibes'.
3. The only useful measure is where your child is against themselves. So, flight paths (much as I hate them), or KS3 grades still based on GCSE criteria.

OP I'm dying inside hearing about this nightmare.

You have emboldened me @noblegiraffe. If you reckon it's a reasonable request, that's good enough for me.

I will email tomorrow.

Why do you care what your child scored against other pupils?

Genuinely bemused

Sorry to have caused such inner turmoil @Curioushorse !

But it's strangely reassuring the find that a clear expert thinks it's a bit crap too.

@PenceyPrep definitely ask them. In my experience independents can be very dodgy indeed about assessment. They aren't held as accountable as state schools and don't always have someone overseeing a 'system'. But the data you've been given really should have meaning for the teachers, or what was the point of doing it?

I don't really @Clymene. But just getting a bald, two-digit number is useless. They might as well have told me that she scored 'purple'.

As @Curioushorse points out, there are clearly ways of doing this that respect others' privacy but give pupils and their parents a sense of whether they're achieving to their potential.

Last day of term? That’s rubbish. In both primary and secondary school, my kids reports have never been given out on the last day.

My daughter gets her end of year report on July 8th this year. They break up on 19th.

The only useful measure is where your child is against themselves. So, flight paths (much as I hate them), or KS3 grades still based on GCSE criteria.

😭 nonononononononononooooo these are bobbins

I think you and I could have a lengthy and wide-ranging discussion about assessment!

However if a school is going to give a child a percentage, they have to give them something else too, like the class average (class average useful in maths as we set). On another thread a child got 22% in their maths exam which sounds extremely concerning until the parent got the additional information that the highest mark in that set was 38%. So a v difficult exam for that group puts a very different spin on things.

My daughters' school (independent) used to give exam results plus the average (median) for the year group. The only other context we were given was the child's age compared to the average.

I never felt the need for anything else because the comments expanded on the marks. It was always clear whether or not a particular result was anything to be worried about, where any weaknesses lay, and what they needed to do about it.

My kids' comp give top mark and median.