Grades gone down from year 6 to year 7, is this normal?

[elliejjtiny]

Ds5 is in year 7 and we have just got his mid year school report. In year 5 he was age related expectations for half the subjects and foundation for the other half. Then he got an ehcp and in year 6 he was greater depth for maths and music and ARE for everything else. Now he is ARE for half the subjects, greater depth for music and foundation for everything else.

Is it normal for this to happen as he is getting used to different expectations of being in secondary school?

he has an ehcp because he has autism but he doesn't have any learning disabilities.

There will be some benchmarking and settling of standards between the 2 settings too remember.

I recollect that schools give lower expectations when you go in so their own stats look better when they leave.
Like with Year 2-3 and 4-5 there is a big jump between infants/juniors and upper and lower juniors.