Who decides what schools use for individual pupil targets?

[Miloarmadillo2]

My DD is in Y7. She did really well in her SATS because primary school did lots of prep and she practised at home. This has been used to set her targets at ‘mastery’ for every subject. She’s since done a CAT test with no preparation and scored 100 (bang on average) which would mean all her targets were achieving ‘expected standard’. Her reports are a sea of red because she’s not at mastery level in all subjects (obviously doing well in maths SAT means she should be a whizz at drama….) and she’s upset about it. We’ve said we’re only concerned about the effort grades but I can see this is going to be an issue throughout secondary. At the moment she can’t ever actually exceed the school’s expectations no matter how well she performs. Can I ask them to use her CAT score to set expectations or is it some central decree that SATs are used?

Schools are judged on progress. Your child came to them as a child exceeding expectations. Therefore, they should be aiming for her to leave them as a child exceeding expectations (7 or more at GCSE).

There is a certain amount of flexibility (for instance, some kids arrive without SATS scores) but it's unlikely the school will admit that!

I'm sure I'm not the only teacher who's looked at an unlikely target and been told by a colleague "oh, from X primary - that explains it'".

You could arrange to see the year or phase head, explain the problem and ask what's best to do to keep DD motivated.

One mitigation the school might consider is not printing this stuff in red.

The school decides what is used but it is all automated so they wouldn't be able to change it for one kid.

It is certainly worth reporting to the school that the sea of red is incredibly demotivating for your child. It's also worth noting that there is no requirement to judge a child against any target grade, and that target grades generated by computer should not be used for individual students as they only apply at a cohort level (i.e. they are only accurate when averaged out over a large number of students, they aren't accurate for individual students).

Oh, and the school is NOT judged against these computer generated target grades. They are not included in any school performance measures.

@Needlenardlenoo we’ve already had that conversation after she came home in tears after the first report. Shades of green would come across completely differently. DD had an epilepsy related brain injury as a baby and at one point we were told she’d never walk or talk. She started primary on the special needs register and she has worked SO hard to get to this point. To be fair to secondary school they are probably not aware of any of that because she wasn’t having any additional support by Y6. I will ask to speak to head of year. She exceeds our expectations every single day and it is so hard to see her feel like she is failing, no matter how much we tell her only the effort grade matters.

My son was exactly the same, did very well in SATS at school and therefore targeted as A for every subject. I was called into secondary school at the end of year 7 as he was “ failing” in some subjects. I asked what- art, PE, music and DT. The targets had been set using maths and English data . I had to explain that, as he was autistic and had dyspraxia, he might possibly struggle in the subjects mentioned!

@noblegiraffethank you.

Aw @Miloarmadillo2 I think that is important context the school should have.

How are these reports given out? Piece of paper to the student or email to the parent?

Are you able for instance just to pass on the grades to her rather than getting hung up on irrelevant target stuff?

@Cairneyes my eldest niece was always a straight A student in everything except Maths (my sister was similar) and PE (as she has my two left feet).

The PE teacher decided she had special needs...

It's OK not to be good at everything!

@Needlenardlenoogiven to the student. It caused huge upset after the first one because she thought we’d be angry with her. We’ve often been cross with her older brother who is bright but can’t be arsed to put any effort in so his reports tend to be ‘could try harder’. Her effort /behaviour is always excellent but she’s still getting the message school are not satisfied. I will try to arrange to have a meeting.

Yes it's worth a try. It may help others too. I doubt your DD is the only one who felt this way.

Ours are all computer generated based on SATs and some other demographic indicators. It’s hugely frustrating as a teacher as they’re so dependent on primary and we can sometimes see in year 7 that students are not going to get close to their targets. On very rare occasions, we managed to get them changed but the existence of Progress 8 means that it’s difficult. My dyslexic DD was prepared for entrance exams and therefore did fantastically well in her English SAT. My school would have despaired as she was never going to get an 8!

@Miloarmadillo2 Did the report come with explanatory notes, or is there info about it on the school website?

If your school is part of a mult-academy trust then the targets and report format will be defined at trust level. If it is a maintained school or single academy trust then they will be defined by the school's own leadership team.

I'm a school governor and former parent. Until we gave feedback, which was acted on, our school had a similar sea of red on Y7 reports at this stage of the year. The explanation was simply that they were being measured against their target for the end of the year, and were only half way through it. If they had already achieved end year targets by this stage then their target might actually be increased. This was well intentioned, but the messaging via the report was clumsy and demotivating.

As I said, in our case the feedback was acted on. But ours was a small MAT with responsive leadership.

Btw, the initial target for year 7 may just be based on where they need to get to by the end of year 11 (to meet Government expectations), divided by 5. If so, its a very blunt measure because children develop at different rates, not on a smooth "flight path".

Btw, the initial target for year 7 may just be based on where they need to get to by the end of year 11 (to meet Government expectations), divided by 5.

Just to note, because it’s a common misconception, the government doesn’t set any expectations about where a Y7 should end up in Y11. These targets are generated by private companies, not the government.

Well, yes, they're generated by the Management Information Systems that most secondary schools use, based on aggregated data, but all ultimately pegged to Progress 8 targets. Progress 8 is a Government measure.

@behindtheline thanks for your response. It’s part of a MAT so it may be the case they have no discretion. The report gives SAT scores, CAT score then for each subject where they are wrt age related expectations (two levels of below standard, at expected standard or mastery ) then a colour coded column for whether they are at their individual target ( green for above , orange for on track, red for below) then a colour coded ‘behaviour for learning’ (poor, ok, good, excellent ). My concern is that even where she is at ‘mastery’ that’s orange , and for lots of subjects she’s at age standard but that is red. Incredibly demotivating for a child doing her best. Behaviour for learning all either good or excellent .

Progress 8 isn’t a target. It isn’t a measure of how close students were to predetermined targets. It takes the pupil’s actual performance in GCSEs and compares it to the performance of other similar students in the same cohort. It’s a measure that is created after the exams are sat, so pupils cannot be told in advance what they need to get for a good progress 8 score because that data doesn’t exist yet. Certainly doesn’t exist 5 years before they sit the exams!

Spoken like a true mathematician.🙂 Yes, you're right, but most schools treat it as a target, without necessarily recognising it as a moving target. Most School Development Plans will have stated objectives along the lines of "P8 to be above x", "P8 gap for disadvantaged students to be less than x" etc, etc. Schools are therefore planning for these targets from year 7 onwards. When students arrive with very high SATs results they need to set high targets for them, and strive to meet them, or else risk a low future P8.

Yes, this happened to my DS. His primary school coached him with extra tuition to improve their SATs results, which I thought was a good thing at the time, and he basically "failed" through his entire secondary career because his targets had been set too high.

@Topplacehow did it work out for him in the end? DD really wants to do well, bless her, she did lots of practise in Y6 - both at school and workbooks at home. She works hard, I have no doubt she’ll achieve whatever her potential is, I don’t think telling her all the way through secondary that she’s not good enough is in any way helpful.

We don't have any of this on our KS3 reports. The students get an attitude to learning grade and twice a year, a percentage based on assessments (with a year group average to compare).

This is a school in a small multi academy Trust that regularly appears high up on league tables.

Schools do have options. They have to collect this data. They do NOT have to hand it to year 7s!

Take it to the governors if you can, OP.

I'm shocked to hear that children in any school are being set target GCSE grades based on SATs that are actually communicated to them, and then used to judge them forever! It's just initial data. There will be a huge amount of movement at the per child level because SATs (shock horror) don't actually tell us much at all about what children will excel at, or be inspired by, in the future. Individual expectations should be constantly refined and redefined based on personal, individual experience. No one should have to effectively keep looking at their SATs scores throughout secondary school!