If Year Eight were working at their end of year targets during today's observation...

[DrSeuss]

Then doesn't that make them showing progress in excess of expectations, not in line with expectations?

depends on who is observing and what they want/expect to see

not LOL

It does. I tried to explain to the guy employed by the Head to do OFSTED style obs that the targets on the front of books were for the end of the school year but he wasn't interested. I made progress in line with expectations, it seems.

there's always an agenda. 10 years into this and i am starting to wonder if children are learning in spite of school/the education system

your school employs someone to do obs? ffs ours get done by slt and hof. so they know all the ins and outs of targets and other such shite important hoops to jump through matters.

Two of them, all this week. OFSTED are due and SMT are running scared. Outside bloke's judgement overrides Deputy Head who was with him and pleased with lesson.

It sounds as though your end of year targets are too low!
How could they have reached them 4 weeks into a new academic year?

If OFSTED are on the prowl- how are your PPP doing? Make sure all of you know which your PPP are, and what interventions are keeping them making expected progress.

Do the End of Y8 targets allow for them all to have made sufficient progress from End of KS2?

I have no say in targets, they are set in stone by SMT.

But if they're meeting them now, that is a clear sign that something is awry. Do you know if they were set based on End of KS2 levels, End of Y7 levels, a baseline completed at beginning of Y7, etc?

MFL, no Ks 2 levels.

Ah, MFL a little trickier, but do your pupils do baselining when they arrive at school? MIDYIS, or something similar?
Were they all very far ahead of End of Y7 targets in July?
(in which case, why weren't End of Y8 targets revised? )

I am not a teacher, so feel free to ignore/correct me.

I thought the lessons observations were about making progress within that lesson . So a child could be ahead of expectations in terms of their target, but make less than expected progress during any one random lesson?

And speaking as a parent, if a whole class are already working at their end of year target level, I would think the targets weren't nearly stretching enough.