j4ckos mate

My daughter has got a 5C,
can someone explain what it is and if its a good mark or a bad mark,

j4ckos mate

hellooo id feel awful if i told her to knuckle down and she did well.

LanCat

Been trying to figure this out ourselves, as far as I can tell it depends on the age (right down to the month they were born).

A 5 at age 11 would be "beyond expectations" but at 14 would be "at level expected". Within level 5 there is a further grade of a, the highest, to c, the lowest.

Personally, I think it's part of a teachers plan to **** with our heads.

speedking

The horse's mouth.

TimmyboyWRX

have sent a PM jackos mate...

For anyone else, the level quoted here refers to a national curriculum (NC) level.

core subjects are graded according to these levels in KS2 and KS3 ( im a secondary teacher so will be talking about KS3 from now on)

In English the levels go from 5-7 with 5 being the lowest
In maths the levels are from 5-8
In science the levels are from 5-7 again

as each 'level' can cover quite a range of skills, each one is split further into 3 sub catagories, a-c with c being the lowest and a being the highest.

e.g level 5a is slightly lower than 6c, but not by much, there are just certain criteria that the child hasnt met yet, certain thinking or analytical skills that they may not be able to cope with etc....

Age has a certain bearing on the score, if the child was in year 7 then a level 5b would be a good score, if in year 8 it would be average, if in year 9 it would be a low level score.

The benchmark figure for schools is that every year a student should be able to be advanced, through teaching, by about 2 sublevels, so a student starting year 7 with a level 5c should be on 5a by then end of year 7, byt then end of year 8 they should be on a 6b, and in year 9 they should be on a 7c ( as you can see this makes the child one of the best attaining should they progress in the correct way)

Im sure thats made it as clear as mud! but perhaps marginally clearer than before!

LanCat

That's clearer than I said it

It does seem hard to find a good explanation anywhere.

I tried because my lad, who's in reception (just turned 5 last month), was given the same test as the 7 year olds at his school just this week and scored a 2a which they told us was good for a 7 year old. It took some looking to get a reasonable explanation of what it meant.

j4ckos mate

anyone work at bletchley park who can decipher that post

TimmyboyWRX

Yeah youl often find that teachers will talk in acronyms and things, and just assume that you know what they are talking about! ( mainly because our managers do it to us lol)

Dont worry about it too much, if you have a child at school then you can always phone up the class teacher and ask what a grade means and they will help you out, you should usually find a target grade on a report card, and if the target and the current grade match up you know your child cant be doing much wrong!

j4ckos mate

got it now she is in year 5 so its good then
thanks for your help

speedking

Is it too much to expect these things to be aligned? For example why not make the attainment levels match the year. So the average child in year 5 is expected to get a 5b. Thus if in year 6 and getting a 7b everyone knows that is good without having to cross-reference to tables etc. What good is a measure of something if no-one understands what it means?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

It's done like this because the Tories wanted to copy the AMERICAN system, (God only knows why).

They even went as far as calling the years by the same numbers as the Yanks did, and since our kids START earlier, we are in the ludicrous position as having to refer to our reception kids as "Year 0"

And as for teachers fekking with our brains, it's nowt to do with them.......it's the government AGAIN, interfering.

The constant interference, and new goals p*ss teachers off more than parents, believe me.

Alcazar