Sorry… I’m a Primary School teacher… and I don’t mind levels.

I happen to think that National Curriculum levels are okay. There, I said it.

Not perfect, but not quite the work of the devil, either. It’s true that their use has too often become corrupted, that in too many schools they are too often a driver rather than a measure, and that they have their failings. But in among all the cheering and shouting about their demise, it strikes me that too little attention has been paid to the reasons for that.

The Attainment Target levels are broad and relatively vague. That was probably deliberate. When you’re only using them to judge progress over periods of two to four years, a best fit approach with broad bands makes perfect sense. The problem comes when you try to use them once a term, or worse, once a week or once a lesson!

But nobody required that. The National Curriculum did not…