Foundation Spanish in year 10 - is this normal?

[Ferniebrook]

Hi all,

So my year 10 son has just had mid year exams and got a high grade five in foundation Spanish. Some of his peers are doing higher already. The teacher says she is not sure yet if he will go to higher end of summer term or in year 11. If he is getting the top grade now should he not move up??

Thanks for any advice or sharing any similar experiences

Octavia

Hi OP MFL Is my subject. Well done to your DS on gaining a strong 5 in his F mock.

So I have taught classes where it has been clear from the start of year 10 that some or all of the students should do F level. Others where it's clear who should be taking H. The issue is when a student is a strong 5/maybe a 6 on a good day. I do think middle of year 10 is early to decide that tbf.

I am not sure if you have understood (or your DS has) how it works - it's not about moving up to higher "already, in the summer, in year 11". You either sit higher or foundation, and it depends on what grade you are likely to get. If you are planning on students sitting higher, you need to be teaching them the H content from the start really, as there is more vocab and the expectation of a higher level of skill.

If a student should be sitting F level, then they won't "move up". And that's fine. It's not clear if your DS sat an actual foundation paper, or (perhaps more likely) an F version of the work done so far. If the latter, then a strong 5 is a good predictor of his final GCSE grade. If a student is likely to achieve a 5 then IMHO they should certainly sit foundation. It's a lot lot easier to gain a 5 on F than H btw. And unless a student is planning to take their MFL further, a 5 is fine. It's a strong pass and it appears as a 5 on their GCSE certificate, not mentioning which paper they took.

Is there a reason you would especially like him to sit higher OP?

Thank you so much for that very detailed reply!

it’s a bit of a long story. I realised the Spanish results at the school were poor and was also worried about the lack of progress he was making. I talked to the school about it and they said they have an issue and have some vacancies. His teacher only sets homework occasionally for example. I have a rusty A level Spanish so started doing half an hour or so with him every week to try to rescue the situation - he has improved a lot. We’re a family of language speakers and he is on track for 7s/8s/9s in most subjects so I don’t want to see him drop right down in Spanish.

To cut a long story short teacher has said he is on a current trajectory for a 7, could get more, although I think 8s snd 9s are almost unheard of in that subject at that school. So teacher is clear he will do higher but unclear whether he will do higher paper in m exam at end of this year or not until sutumn. I am worried if he doesn’t shift until autumn is that enough time to maximize his chances.

i love languages snd want him to do as well as possible so will keep plugging away at home!

Appreciate your advice!

OK, sorry my message was mostly irrelevant!

I've never come across that way of doing it. If I thought, as a teacher, a student was capable of a 7, I would be doing higher work with them, and they would be sitting (a modified version of) the higher paper all through GCSE years.

The papers are quite different in structure and to do otherwise would be confusing IMO. Like I said, it's not about getting through F and then moving up to H.

In that case @clary should the OP be saying back to the teacher 'we would very much like DS to sit the Higher paper in the end of year 10 exams' ?

Thank you.

I have said that. Teacher came back with something vague about how she just wanted to make sure because some children in his class did higher this time and did very badly.

I’m with Clary though, surely he needs to be getting used to the format. The book I have at home has higher level practice questions so I’ll do some of those with him. The school’s Spanish results were so poor last year, this is all just making me concerned that they haven’t got a well thought out approach..,

Yeh I would ask that. Or get DS to ask that.

The writing paper for example is quite different between H and F assuming AQA btw). There is one 90-word crossover question, but otherwise H students have a 150 word essay and a paragraph of translation - both quite meaty tasks. In contrast for F they write sentences about a picture (a fairly easy task), translate some short simple sentences and write a very scaffolded 40-word paragraph.

IMO they need to get used to the unstructured H paper asap - esp the 150 word essay which only has two bullets rather than four for the other two.

Thank you - that is very helpful. If needed maybe I could get him to do some higher questions at him and then show it to the teacher. If he only starts on those longer questions in year 11 that leaves him with very little time to improve at that level.

ps it is AQA

Also, for the foundation higher writing paper he just did he got 48/50, the highest mark.

*home not him

Sorry couldn't reply before!

Yes good idea to try some H level essays and other questions too. The speaking paper has the same format of photo card, role play, general convo, but the H card and role-play are much less structured with harder questions (less: what hobbies do you have? and more: why is it important to keep fit?). The general convo obvs finds its own level, but the mark scheme is set higher – so a skill that scores 9-10 in F speaking scores just 3-4 marks in H.

The very easiest questions in the F reading and listening are obvs absent from the higher papers.

Make sure you are targeting the topics he has covered tho - which won't be that many at this stage - as he won't have the vocab knowledge for others.

There are limited past papers on the AQA website but if you dig around you can find the older ones. Obvs don't go back before 2018 when the spec changed (tho legacy papers are useful for revision nearer the exam - a listening task is a listening task after all).

This is another thing that is causing problems. They are not indicating what topics the exams are covering, just say revise everything! I can check what topics he has done. He is at least two thirds of the way through but I imagine quite a bit needs revisiting/ deepening.

He came second in foundation in his year and I am worried that the teacher won’t let him do higher in the summer. She is hostile to me since I complained about the lack of homework etc and isn’t very amenable. Do you think I should I should push it if she doesn’t? I found out over half the children in the year got a 2 or under so I imagine they are primarily very worried about getting a decent number of 4s and 5s and not concerned about higher grades..

I really appreciate your help!

Well I would expect him to revise everything they have done tbh.

Did they start GCSE work in year 9 or how on earth are they two-thirds of the way through the topics after only six months? I would expect to still be learning topic work in Jan-Feb of year 11 tbh.

Still, if they are nearly done on content then there is time to work on the higher elements. Or does the teacher teach the higher aspects next year? Very odd. It's not as tho there are these four discrete foundation topics and then those four discrete higher topics. All topics are covered in both, but for higher, in greater depth, with a wider range of vocab and more language skills needed. So you can't easily add on the higher work later.

Anyway I would let your son advocate for himself. I am sure the teacher doesn't dislike you. If there is no HW he can do his own revision work.

Thank you that is very useful advice. They started the topics in year 9. Children doing foundation and higher are doing the same lesson work apparently - it’s all quite mysterious.

I appreciate your help.

Not a languages teacher, but if these are "mocks" not topic tests, then I would say it's good that the teacher isn't indicating which topics to revise. He won't get a topic list in Y11.

The higher/foundation thing sounds very odd, and I would perhaps ask to speak to the head of languages about this. The overall scheme of work and which assessments are done is more likely to be down to a head of department than individual teacher.

I wouldn't complain about the teacher, just ask for some clarification- explain you're aware the format of the exam is different, and shouldn't he be practising higher papers now? There may well be a method to what they are doing which the HoD should be able to explain clearly.

If he's in a middle set, or it's organised by option blocks rather than sets, then it isn't unusual to have students doing higher and foundation work in the same set.

Thanks. Head of Dept sadly leaving and they are struggling to recruit a new one so likely to have a vacancy..I have complained previously because he was making no progress and the testing was v chaotic. Headteacher was open they have major problems in that department but were trying to address them. Sadly now they will not have a head of MFL either. I am less worried about what they are doing and when, he is making good progress with self study, but just want to ensure he was time to adjust to higher tier so he can get the 7 or above teacher says he can get. Hard to trust their approach when their results are so poor: