DS came back home from his first day in year 4 in tears because he has been put back onto white books after being at Lime A at the end of last year. His class teacher and I held back moving him up in July because he lacks confidence and wasn't likely to read as much over the Summer ( although in the end, he did, lots of David Walliams). I confidently assess his level as 3a "old style", verging on 4C, and his old teacher gave him that on his end of year report, along with 3 for everything else.
However, white is "old level" 3c / 2a. I asked him if he read to the teacher and he said "yes, for a few minutes". Apparently he did protest but was told he was White. She is an NQT and he is a child who already lacks confidence. His old teacher knew this and would garner his levels from guided reading, inference in class etc, not just from a quick "read to me". He reads beautifully at home and to people he knows but just dries up otherwise. His class notes should have made this clear as his last teacher was hugely conscientious.
I always allow for a little slippage over Summer in my own class but I would NEVER put a child back this much in reading or anything without first telling the parents. I have one day a week off on Monday and I am tempted to ask to see her. What do you think?
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Should I say something to DS teacher?
phlebasconsidered · 03/09/2015 19:38
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I'm surprised that she'd "assess" him on the first day and move him down for that, but then...our secondary school put them all through CATs on their transition day and pretend that's accurate. Meh. 
Give it time. She might just have been a little "overenthusiatic" with it, trying to make sure children are reading appropriate books. If it looks like your DS is still finding this difficult to deal with in a week or two, talk to the teacher and let her know. In the meantime, perhaps you could work with your son on understanding that he doesn't really need to worry about which colour he is on. (Seriously, is this a British thing?? I don't have any friends in my home country, who worry about this kind of stuff when it comes to their kids.)
I've gone through my class' book band colours once so far...in eight years of teaching UKS2, mostly to come to the conclusion that they didn't match my own assessment anyway. I had never previously been given book band colour information from another teacher. I couldn't care less what colour they are on and neither do my pupils after about a week. We happily ignore book bands in my classroom. (Much to my dismay, they seem very keen on them in my new school,...someone else is doing all the assessing, though. I still don't care.)
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DD2 came home and said 'I'm in red group (bottom) for maths, yellow group (2nd) for English, not sure about topic yet.
She had been moved up to blue group for maths last year, so I noted that she's moved back down.
My response? "Oh I don't mind which group you're in as long as you're working hard."
DD2: "OK, I'll let you know what topic group I'm in."
Righto....
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