Flightpaths

[ButterfliesnWaterfalls]

Hi,

Im hoping someone can help.

What does flight path 4+ in Maths and flight path 5 in English….

mean for Year 8 child with ASD and ADHD.

Is there a possibility child will be able to sit GCSEs in Yr 11 and get 5s?

Thanks in advance.

Each school has its own flight paths.

They aren't a national thing.

The report usually comes with some kind of explanation.

For example, my school used: excelling, mastering, securing, developing, emerging.

I am not a fan of flightpaths. Anyway @ButterfliesnWaterfalls don’t mean to be unhelpful. But they are fairly meaningless IMHO. Yes is there any explanation?

On the face of it your DC's suggests they are on target for at least a 4 in GCSE maths and a 5 in GCSE English. Is that what you would hope for? It's certainly a solid platform to go forward from. But I would ask the school for clarification tbh.

As per PPs, every school does this differently.

What flightpaths generally mean is that based on some metrics (probably SATs and/or any assessments the school conducted in Year 7) they think your child will get 4+ in Maths and 5+ in English. This is likely to be solely based on their starting point and them making steady progress throughout their time in secondary school. It's unlikely factor in any SEN, or any external factors or allow for a child that doesn't perform in a nice steady way.

In Year 8, pretty meaningless.

@ButterfliesnWaterfalls the flightpaths will be used by the school to set internal targets for the end of each year so they can track whether your child needs additional interventions or not. All schools use end of year targets, but not all use/publish flightpaths because they are a little controversial, implying a smooth, fixed path.

At our school, if a child meets or exceeds their internal targets their targets might be raised for the following year, but they are never lowered.

Thanks all. Much appreciated

When I asked the Sendco it was met with a vague response like “we can’t determine yet what he would get.”

And then something like functional qualifications if GCSEs aren’t suitable.

DS is already in enhanced provision where he’s placed with 3 other boys.

tbf they can’t say what he would get at this stage, it’s far too early and if he is ND then his progress may well not be linear.

Functional skills are qualifications for those who cannot achieve a pass at GCSE maths and English, for whatever reason. The L2 FS is regarded as at the same level as GCSE grade 4/C (although it has less breadth) and so it can be a really useful qualification to enable a YP to make progress to the next stage. If your school offers them then that’s great. DS1 had to take English three times before he could take and pass L2 FS English.