GUIDE TO PUPIL ATTAINMENT AT KEY STAGE 3

Transcription

1 GUIDE TO PUPIL ATTAINMENT AT KEY STAGE 3 YEARS 7, 8 AND 9 DET U R P O N S MU ND O

2 1. How is attainment at KS3 measured? During Years 7, 8 and 9 we make use of the English National Curriculum levels to measure the attainment of all pupils across the curriculum. English National Curriculum levels range from level to 8. National Curriculum describe a range of skills that a student working at that level can do in a particular subject. All subjects have attainment level descriptors related specifically to their subject. Your child s teachers assess the level they are working at in their subject on a regular basis. This may be from classwork, homework, a leveled assessment or for some subjects a combination of several of these. Each subject for each year has an assessment outline showing what assessment will be used to determine the level given on each report. 2. How is information about my child s attainment at KS3 shared? For parents, these levels are shared with parents via Termly Progress Reports to show you how your child is progressing. For students their teachers will use National Curriculum levels on major assessments and provide written or verbal feedback. On formative assessment (classwork etc) levels may not be shown but feedback comments will. This, along student self-reflection, should help to indicate the areas they may need to work on, or have been particularly successful at. 3. On my child s report there is a letter next to the level. What does this mean? Each level is quite broad so each one is divided into three sub levels, e.g. 5a, 5b and 5c. Essentially these can be defined as follows: 5a The student is secure in the learning objectives in this level 5b The student has a good grasp of the majority of learning objectives but still has some misconceptions 5c The student is beginning to grasp the learning objectives but has misconceptions 4. Should my child go up a sub level each time I get a report? No. There are a number of reasons why this is not expected. The main reason is that students are expected to make 2 sub-levels of progress in one academic year so we would not expect to see a sub level change every report. In addition not all pupils progress at the same rate, nor do they progress evenly. You will most likely find that your child will remain at the same level between two sets of reports for some subjects or they might progress only one sub level. 5. Why is my child s attainment in some subjects so much lower than in others? There are many reasons why this may occur. The most common reason is prior experience. Your child may not have studied some subjects e.g. French and Spanish for as long as others such as Maths and, consequently, their attainment will be lower.

3 6. What levels are students at DCS expected to achieve? The three tables below outline the expected typical progression of DCS students during Key Stage 3 (Years 7-9) in the various subjects. Please note that these are broad guidelines only and that the end of year target grades for each subject are more specific and appropriate to your child. in the early part of Key Stage 3 will very much depend upon how much experience students have in each subject prior to joining the Senior School. Key: Below Expected Expected Above Expected -EXP EXP EXP+ National Curriculum English, Maths, Science, History, Geography, Chinese as a Native Language 8 EXP+ 7 EXP+ EXP 6 EXP+ EXP EXP 5 EXP -EXP -EXP 4 -EXP 3 2 National Curriculum Music / PE / Art / Drama 8 7 EXP+ 6 EXP+ EXP 5 EXP+ EXP -EXP 4 EXP -EXP 3 -EXP 2 National Curriculum Modern Foreign Languages (inc Mandarin) 8 7 EXP+ 6 EXP+ EXP 5 EXP+ EXP -EXP 4 EXP EXP 3 EXP -EXP 2 -EXP

4 7. What levels are students nationally in England and Wales expected to achieve? At the end of each Key Stage, children are expected to reach certain levels of knowledge, skills and understanding in each subject. The nationally expected Attainment Level for children in England and Wales at the end of Key Stage 3 is as follows: UK National Expected levels of Achievement Year Group In English / Maths / Science 6 4b 7 5c 8 5a 9 6b As a selective International School our students are usually of a higher academic ability than the typical student in England and Wales. As a result our levels reflect the general ability of our students. This is due to the fact that students will have different prior levels of exposure to the three groups of subjects in Junior School. Therefore they will typically have different start points in Key Stage Three. For example, in Modern Foreign Languages students have no leveled assessment before joining and start at the beginning of level 1, while in other subjects students may already be at level 5 on entry. Please do not be alarmed if the Modern Foreign Language or other non-core subject s levels seem low (this is to be expected given they may start Year 7 at level 1). By the end of the Key Stage students will be able to access the highest levels in languages, as with all other subjects. 10. How do the levels link with the I/GCSE programme? It may be helpful to look at the equivalent GCSE grade for each National Curriculum level. This is a rough conversion as the assessment systems at KS3 and KS4 are different. It should only be used as a guide. An aspirational target is to aim to make two levels of progression from the end of KS3 to the end of KS4. Thus, a student who achieves a level 6 at the end of Year 9 should be aiming for a grade B by the end of KS4. Again, please note that if the student has had less exposure to a subject at Key Stage Three and thus attained a lower level it does not mean they cannot attain the highest grades in their I/GCSE as their progress could be more rapid during this period. National Curriculum I/GCSE Grades Equivalent at end of KS3 Predicted Grade for I/GCSE at end of KS4 based on 2 levels of progression 8 B A* 7 C A 6 D B 5 E C 4 F D 3 G E

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