In tonight's staff meeting we were discussing tracking: how well are the pupils progressing through the national curriculum levels. The main purpose of the meeting seemed to be to show off the fancy computer software they use to highlight any potential under-achievement. In order to demonstrate this point the senior staff picked a random student, who we will call Claire, who just so happens to be in my top set year nine class.

'If we look at Claire's tracking for maths we see that her level, a 7b, is highlighted red. This means she is not on target to meet her predicted grade for the SATs of an 8c.'

hmm, well possibly or perhaps the teacher was being very cautious in the hope that things will look brilliant when their pupils make massive progress throughout the rest of the year. Or maybe the teacher is just plain incompetent, who knows?