New NC and Tracking from KS2-KS4

[mark80]

What are your school propsing for tracking kids from KS2 to KS4 to satisfy OFSTEDS current 3-4 Levels of Progress? With the disapplication of the current National Curriculumn and with it NC grades of the fine scale (4a,4b,4c etc..) what are your schools going to use to track students?

 

It has been given to the schools to decide on the tracking values in KS3 but the DFE/OFSTED have indirectly dictated the starting & ending points to which are to be measured. With this autonomy means that schools will no longer be comparable over KS3 as one school could use smily faces to indicate a certain level while others use biscuits, in theory it allows for differentiation within the school depending on the subjects.

 

Any suggestions?

[LosOjos]

Keeping my finger's crossed Gove is gone before it happens to be honest!

[mark80]

I like it, plan A is to wait for Gove to be committed to an asylumn.

[tombry]

I work in a three tier system - so for the last two years we have tested our students on entry and compared those to their TAs from the lower 2 schools, and then using a very complicated formula (hah!) convert that to a baseline GCSE grade that we expect our students to achieve 2 (or 3 depending on your KS2 level) over - so if you came in as a level 5 student on your TAs, and we tested you to be a 5, we'd expect you to get a C, if you were an average student, or a B if you were a high attainer.

 

Seems to work, our current Y10s are mostly working to on target, and gives us a decent spread of grades - the true test will be if it holds up next year when they take their exams.

[mark80]

Thanks - i have chatted with the Head and DH today and they have seen other schools grading children in Y7-9 with GCSE grades. So if you do get a L5 in your KS2 SATS your targets might look something like this.

 

Y7 - F

Y8 - E

Y9 - E

Y10 - D

Y11 - C

[CAM]

I'm concerned that it will become very hard to acquire KS2 data from other schools. I spoke to a primary teacher on Twitter the other day who was criticising Gove and he mentioned some sort of points framework that had no point to it? Either way it can be hard enough acquiring KS2 data now without having it arrive in different formats! Also tracking progress for OFSTED will be hit if data formats suddenly change.

 

We also use FFT for target setting (after a bit of SLT number shifting) so I'm unsure what FFT will do in response to sublevels vanishing.

[tombry]

@mark80 - that's basically what we went with - it came from looking at the progress matrix in RAISE Online, and working back from there - Ofsted seemed happy with it when they inspected us (if only they were happier with the rest of the school) so we feel somewhat ok using it with our students.

[LosOjos]

I think our plan should this actually go ahead is to test students in English and Maths on entry and work out their targets from there. We already started doing this last year after the KS2 black hole a couple of years ago and it works well. English and Maths are all given 3LP target, then we look to FFT for guidance on how other subjects measure up to English & Maths and work from there. We also find this more reliable than using KS2 data alone as certain schools provide TAs that seem highly unrealistic, we get kids who we're told are level 5 and it quickly becomes clear they're a low 4 at best - guess that's what happens when you publish league tables!

[mark80]

Cheers for the input.

 

OFSTED have already said they are measuring 3 LP from the KS2 SAT results, which is fine for Eng & Math, but what are other subjects lke Geography, Tech or MFL going to be assesed on? APS of the 2 SATS, or TA? Trouble with TA baseline for tracking is it allows the starting to point to be lower and therefore in theory make it easier to make 3LP, and an average of 2 subjects isnt going to be of any use to anyone BUT if OFSTED are going to use average APS then i suppose we do too. Trouble is OFSTED/DFE have not said what they will be basing 3lp for non Eng & Math!!!!!!!

 

ARRRGGGHHHH!!

 

I think as long as we set our targets using a mix of KS2, FFT, CATS and knowledge of the student the 3LP should fall into place

[LosOjos]

I imagine the problem is that OFSTED and the data bods at the DfE are also currently scratching their heads at this, quite possibly with a little blue air surrounding them.

 

No matter what your political ties are, I think anyone who works in education agrees - Gove needs to go, sooner rather than later.

[NormalDistribution]

On the main question from the OP this is worth reading:

 

A Unified Approach to Assessment | An Overflow of Ideas

 

On the second question: The interactive transition matrices show the progress made nationally for Geography, Tech etc etc for this they use the average of English and Maths as the KS2 baseline (include science in the average if it was a test)

[CaterinaAnna]

The average KS2 points score up to now has been available in the Key to Success searchable data and that's our baseline for non-core subjects, since that's the figure used in VA calculations.

 

Art shouts loudly about it being unfair - but not from the 'academic performance has less to do with this subject than talent' position that I would expect the PE bods (who don't argue) to take, but instead from the 'they didn't do this subject at primary school' perspective that would be more appropriate perhaps for the MFL teacher. Meanwhile she protests at the trajectory, but always gets them there - and beyond - in the end. Sigh.

[Ecclesbury]

This is an absolute mine field isn't it?

 

It's probably worth mentioning at this point that I heard recently that the DfE will no longer be producing the transition matrices for KS4 and KS5. So my nifty calculations based on national conversion rates are now useless. Excellent.

 

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the future lies in bringing everything "in house" as it were. The pattern seems to be an ever dwindling amount of national data for comparison. So for me, the most robust...but also most risky...method is to put faith in the schools own departments to accurately monitor progress. This would start with effective baseline testing in ALL subjects at the start of Year 7, and the targets generated from a combination of these baseline tests and historic attainment data. All progress through KS3 would then be internal. Any comparison to national data (in order to show that students are going to end up with "outstanding outcomes") would be extrapolated from historic KS4 data (the only data that seems unlikely to disappear from the national picture.) So, for example, as a school last year's GCSE cohort achieved 85% 5A*-C (inc E&M.) We know this was outstanding. If we track back this year group's attainment through the previous years we can "assume" that this attainment will eventually lead to outstanding KS4 attainment. Doing the same thing for the past 3 years will start to produce a picture of what outstanding attainment/progress will look like in future years (taking into account fluctuating prior attainment and factoring in appropriate challenge.) This could generate group level targets and classroom teachers would be left to use their professional judgement to issue individual targets.

 

I genuinely believe this is the best way to go about things, but it is very risky and has to put a lot of faith in the schools teaching staff. The senior leadership would also have to be VERY confident in the plan to convince OfSted.

 

On the other hand, I'm warming to the idea of biscuits in stead of levels. Or maybe I'm just warming to the idea of biscuits.

[mark80]

@ NormalDistribuition - thanks for that

 

@CatherinaAnna - This is what concerns me with averaging 2 subjects to extrapolate out what they will be getting in non core subjects. Its the equivilant of saying "If you are excellent in Maths and poor in English you will be average at History"

 

@Ecclesbury - Your "in house" thought is what will happen. National data will still be available as national testing at KS2 & KS4 remain under the control of the government. It feels to me that the Conservative government are giving schools what they want in terms of autonomy but not what they need (guidance). Schools think they want the freedom to follow what they like but the government know that a lot of schools are not capable of doing this and will subsequently fail OFSTED for not being able to track effectively. Plus dont forget although they are scrapping NC Levels, it doesnt mean you cant use them.

 

I know you will all probably have something that does this but i have a 2-5 levels of progress matrix if anyone is interested just PM me. It uses KS2 grade, adds 8 NC points for expected progress, the extrapolates to the GCSE grade based on this article from a SIMs user. An Easy Way to Calculate a Pupil’s Levels of Progress from KS2 to KS4 | SIMS Assessment Manager Blog

[CaterinaAnna]

Oh I agree the targets set based on KS2 APS are often dubious, not just because of the averaging but also for the reasons the staff I referred to above advance (at least when the appropriate reason is given for the subject concerned), but since it's what the powers that be use we play along.

[SouthCoastSaint]

Not quite the same question - but we are having problems reconciling the Prior Attainment Bands used on Raise with the ones we had assigned for current Year 12s. We have now been advised that high 3s can fall into the Medium category, similarly high 4s can be High... (We have also been told that current Year 11 will be the last year to use Science in the APS calculation). The problem we are finding is that we can't match the decimal KS2 numbers with anything we can find to ensure that our current students are banded correctly.

[NormalDistribution]

Low, Middle High is banded off the average sub level or the APS of the student. Confusion can occur when english, or maths is banded, that is not correct it has to be the average.

 

The quickest way to do this I think is to load your Y12 UPNs into Keytosuccess and from the KS2 file find the field called cvaaps - this is the APS.

 

Then less than 24 = Low

24-29.999 = Middle

30+ = High

[SouthCoastSaint]

Of course! I knew that and couldn't see the wood for the trees today. Many thanks. Still have an issue where one of our 3cs has been classified as Mid PA, but that's another story.

[Steven_Cleaver]

We well mostly our MIS Officer also set targets based on mix of data so KS2, MIDY's and Department Baselines for Year 7 but also look at FFT for KS2-3, and set again at year 9 using KS2,KS3 and Yellis using KS2 to KS4 expected progress as a minimum but push targets up where Yellis and KS3 suggest higher progress all this is done and discussed at target setting with departments to try to get departments to sort of take ownership of this and feel involved and have good understanding of the reasoning why. As long as the achievement and expected progress at the school is high which it is in all measures (luckily) feel this will be ok but I have been here 3 and a half years and we haven't yet had an Ofsted so will be interested in what they think.

[mark80]

Found this useful for starting point of English KS2 https://www.raiseonline.org/contact/faqData.aspx?faqId=32