Year 10 predicted grades for GCSE. Far too low. School wont listen

[starbucksluvver]

Hi everyone. I have a bit of a predicament. Am making myself a bit of a pain with sons school but they have really angered me. He came home, start of Y10 and said he was predicted to get C grades in his core subjects. I was astonished since he was 3 grades higher than expected at end of KS3 and on the right level for maths and science. In KS2 sats he got all 5's. I therefore thought, in conjunction with all reports home over the years and all feedback from teachers at parents evenings, that he was on course to get A's. I have battled this out with school and they tell me that these grades are worked out by people in an office somewhere in Wales who feed stats into a machine and that they are highly probable of what he will achieve. He is really upset since he wants to do so much better and all school can say is that from what they know of him he WILL get A's. If this is the case, why has he been labelled as a C grade student ? Because of this he was excluded from an activity last week where pupils with A and B predicted grades got to visit a university. This all seems wrong to me. Whatever happened to the days when a student was assessed by a teacher and they were a person not a statistic ?

Thanks for listening to my rants !

Hang on - if the school haven't sent anything in writing about targets are you sure DS has got the info accurate? For one thing, schools often talk about C+, meaning the whole range of grades from C to A*. So it is possible that your DS has been told his class are expected to get C+, and more accurate predictions will be shared with you?

Also, without question a 7a at KS3 would give rise to an A target so there's been a misunderstanding somewhere. In fact, I'd be concerned that the school hadn't moved him on from his KS2 levels, particularly in Science.

It is very unfair of you school to only let those with predicted A and B grades. When my DD's were at school if there was a visit to a uni planned then all intreseted pupils went no matter what thier predictions were. Also a C is still good pass in GCSE and they can go on to take A levles with that Grade. DD2 didn't do as ell as we expected at GCSE she got didn't get higher than a B ( although she told us too late to appeal that she got one mark off an A in Drama)and only she got 3.5( the .5 was for a short course RE) B grades and 1 C and the rest wre D's and F's. But she went to college did her A levels and came out with 2 A's and a C and is now at university.

I don't think it has much to do with the schools tbh - the funding for a lot of these things is ring-fenced and can only be spent if certain criteria are met; the provider of the money gets to set the criteria, not the schools.

My son was predicted a string of Cs in GCSES at begining of yr10. He did much better in actual exams and is doing maths & sciences at A1. I know that some trips at his school were for G & T only. Some of these pupils got lower grades than DS at GCSE.

Check he's being put in for the papers that allow him to achieve the higher grades, if he's capable of getting them.

Then encourage him to do his best and prove the computer wrong.

This is a prediction, it does not mean the certificates have already been printed.

good luck.