So it appears that my recent post about not grading topics has made a few people sit up and listen. Lots of people mentioned it to me yesterday but it was usually quickly followed up with “but how do we predict outcomes? What do we tell parents/SLT/students?” I don’t have all the answers but some people are suggesting that they can just give the students past GCSE papers and use the same grade boundaries and using some rough figures convert the old grades to new numbers. This is very rough and ready and should be done with extreme caution – the assessment objectives in the current GCSE have different weightings to the new GCSE. Be wary of this approach … I’m not saying don’t do it but you need to know about the possible issues.
Don’t get me wrong I know we’ll have to do some conversions but it’s still early days and at the minute my focus is on teaching the students as normal. We grade our students incrementally within each grade boundary so we have 4 increments within each grade (i.e. we have D.0, D.3, D.5 and D.8) and the plan will be to map to the new numbers based on discussions with the “powers that be”. In the short term, nothing changes for me at the coalface but I’ll be sure to keep you all updated as we start looking at this more deeply … there is no rush!
In terms of setting students targets, and again there is rush – from conversations this weekend it became clear how few subject/key stage leaders access FFT Aspire themselves and rely on someone else to provide them with the FFT (or other) target data. I’m not saying that every HOD should access it all the time, but with such a massive change to the grading structure I would suggest that you need to understand where the targets are coming – if you don’t you may end up setting targets (or agreeing to PM targets) that are just unachievable. There are implications for choosing the different options of FFT 50, FFT20 and FFT 5 and in the same way most HODs knew the implications of FFT “A” and FFT “D” you need to get a handle on these new measures.
Anyway … I’m on the case and David Miles, an Assistant Headteacher (Data, Assessment and Exams) at Sir John Leman High School (who also drives the Mathematical Association twitter account ) has kindly put together the following guest blog post as a way to get you started with FFT Aspire:
Setting numerical targets for the reformed 9-1 mathematics GCSEs
Mel asked me to produce a quick guide to assist mathematics subject leaders and senior leaders with setting numerical targets for the reformed 9-1 GCSEs. I am going to assume you have access to FFT Aspire – this is likely to be the case for Local Authority schools and multi-academy trusts although some stand-alone academies may have decided not to purchase the package.
FFT Aspire unveiled their 9-1 target setting system on Monday 21st September so it is ‘hot off the press’. The prior attainment at Key Stage 2, gender and month of birth of each of your pupils is used as a starting point for the calculations.
The first thing you need to do is to ask your School Administrator (this will usually be your Data Manager) to set you up with a FFT Aspire account. This can be done immediately.
With luck, your School Administrator will have already set the defaults for Year 10 Mathematics, English Language and English Literature to 9-1 grades. If you find they haven’t done so, you have the facility to change it temporarily yourself.
Senior leaders in your school will have made a decision (or be about to make it) about which set of benchmarks they want to use. The choices are: Average Progress (50th percentile); High Progress (20th percentile) and Very High Progress (5th percentile). The benchmarks are based on the progress made by similar pupils nationally between KS2 and KS4 in 2014.
To view your Year 10 mathematics figures, sign in and click on ‘Target Setting’. Select ‘Year 10’ and change the ‘Indicators’ to ‘% Grade 4 or higher’ and ‘% Grade 5 or higher’. Scroll down and you will be able to see Average, High and Very High predictions along with a fourth indicator labelled ‘My School’ – this is based on a three year weighted average of the progress made by your former pupils.
To view targets for individual pupils, click on ‘Target Setting’ and select ‘Pupils – benchmark estimates and set targets’. Select ‘Mathematics’ and ‘Year 10’. Click on ‘NEW Key Stage 4 grades’ and check the toggle is pointing to ‘9-1’. You can now view targets for every Year 10 pupil. You may switch between Average, High and Very High targets if required. Clicking ‘Export’ will produce a .pdf file. It is also possible to export the data in a spreadsheet format.
Similar targets are also available for pupils in Year 7, 8 and 9. If pupils are missing or have left, they can easily be added or deleted by your School Administrator and their targets will appear instantly.
More information is available if you click ‘?’ and select ‘Help Centre’ in FFT Aspire. Feel free to contact me if you get stuck! XDJM@sirjohnleman.co.uk
MEL: Thanks David I am sure this will be appreciated by lots of people! You are a superstar.
