Target grades are made up. They have no validity. Nobody can defend them. They've also helped create a bizarre orthodoxy in which we discuss what grades kids "should get" which is just insane. Just have a think about what nonsense that is. The "grade they should have got "

GHheymrshallahan.bsky.socialAug 16, 2024 2:34pm

Essentially, one in five schools giving GCSE target grades to year sevens. Results in @teachertapp.bsky.social today. One for @bennewmark.bsky.social Check out the other results onelink.to/teachertapp

Here is how a student should do based on about 235 minutes of assessments, they sat over 4 days, several years ago. Oh, and depending on where they went to school they may have had wildly different levels of preparation. Targets sadly more often act as a subconscious ceiling as opposed to a floor.

I’ve just come from the gym so please excuse this poor analogy: I have gym sessions written by a PT. I get to decide targets for myself (e.g I want to do a 100kg deadlift) with his agreement and help. I am not a naturally athletic person but the PT doesn’t say ‘Oh Louise, you should only go for 80kg

I wrote about this some years ago. I don’t mind the use of %ed target grades from standardised tests. As in, ‘20% of people with your score at age 11 got x grade at GCSE’ etc. That’s not inherently invalid. But it can lead to weird behaviours and assumptions. cfey.org/2011/03/so-t...

"So the data says 20% of my students are under-performing, what can I do about it?" - Improving Intervention

In my daily work as a classroom teacher, and LKM’s work with middle and senior leaders, we are increasingly asked to support colleagues with ‘making sense of’ data.  Schools collect an enormous – thou...

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My daughter’s school had them at y7. Most secondaries do now I thought - their ‘flight path’

Totally! When my eldest started secondary she was given target grades of 9's across the board as she came with level 6s from primary (this was 9 yrs ago). 9s for subjects she had never done before. The funniest though was for PE, she hated any type of sport! Total garbage

I don’t particularly rate the use of target grades although we have them, especially as they fluctuate with coefficient changes every yr. But I do like the use of internal data for tracking, we definitely don’t pigeon hole kids based on ‘targets’, we just push for every student to do their best.

I wonder if it's part of modern trend of over relying on data for pretty much everything. Football? All about goals and assists now. Health? Stats on a watch. Reading? Numbers on a shelf. Education? Achieved a "target". I often find people who know very little overly rely on data.

Strong agree. Absolute nonsense.

Would be grateful for answers to this question pls: with a large cohort without target grades, how do you identify which students need priority in limited resource intervention? 🍎🎓