How to subvert target grades

Target grades are good aren't they? They must be otherwise why would Ofsted be so damn keen on them. Consider this: how would Monsieur d'Ofsted respond when asking an unsuspecting student in your class whether they're achieving their target grade only to be told that their teacher didn't let them know what their target grade was? Doesn't bode well, does it?

Here’s a somewhat contentious piece of information: if you grade (or level) students' work you are actively preventing that piece of work being used formatively. That's not right, you may be thinking, I can provide formative feedback on a piece of work which helps students make progress whilst also giving them a grade as a useful signpost to measure their progress against, can't I?

I’m afraid to tell you that you can’t. Grading work (extrinsic pressure) is often used in an attempt to improve results. But it doesn’t work. Dylan Wiliam says, ‘when students get marks and comments, they first look at their own mark and then at their neighbour’s. They hardly ever read the comments’.

Even worse, 'target' grades are nothing of the sort. They are a fiction which we collude in. What we ponce about blithely referring to as targets are in fact statistical likelihoods. They are not predictions and using them, baldly, as targets is a nonsense.

But what about Ofsted? Well, if we accept that giving grades undermines student progress should we give a monkeys what Ofsted think?

Grades can also have a pernicious effect on mindsets. It seems clear that formative assessment encourages growth mindset whereas grades (especially target grades) encourage students to have fixed view of their intelligence and potential.

One tip is to hassle your school’s data manager to provide you with the statistical underpinning of the students’ target grades as suppled by FFT:

G	F	E	D	C	B	A	A*
1.%	1.%	1.%	6.6%	31.7%	39.2%	18.2%	3.5%

This shows the statistical likelihood of the student achieving a particular GCSE result based on their achievement at Key Stage 2. The point is that this is, or can be, highly motivating. Take the time and trouble to alert the observer to the fact that you have supplied all the students in the class with this information by saying something along the lines of, “Now children, turn to the inside front cover of your thoroughly marked exercise books and refresh your memories of the statistical likelihood of achieving a grade higher than your target grade. [In the case of the student above this is the number highlighted in red] Remember that the biggest difference between the students who achieved an A instead of a B is that they worked harder and wanted it more. You too can be one of the 3 and a half people in every hundred who achieved an A*. The only thing that’s holding you back is you!” The students will then luck up in awestruck wonder and work their metaphorical socks off.

Unless they have something like this stuck in their books:

G	F	E	D	C	B	A	A*
7.8%	19.6%	34.5%	29.4%	8.4%	1.%	1.%	1.%

Knowing you’ve only got a 10% chance of getting a C or above can, unsurprisingly, be demotivating for some students. So, what to do? I’ll let you into a little secret: I make it up! In the case above (and this is real data from a real student) I simply changed it so that it appeared thus:

G	F	E	D	C	B	A	A*
4%	7.8%	19.6%	30.5%	29.4%	8.4%	1.%	1.%

Is this ethical? I’m not sure. But I do know that for this particular student, his chances of beating his E grade target have dramatically increased. He now has something to work towards and believe in. He may or may not be one of the 8.4% of children who, despite the low prior attainment end up with a C grade but I’m absolutely convinced that if we really must damage students by sharing their target grades with them we can at least use them in a motivational way.

Related posts

If you grade it, it's not formative assessment

Is there a case for summative assessment?

Controlled assessment and why I hate it