Emerging,secure,confident confused?

[Pineapple5678]

My son is in year 4 and has ASD.
At school the levels are below, emering, secure, confident , met and surpassed.

During year 3 in reading, writing, maths and science he started the year on emerging then next meeting he was secure and at end of year confident.

The same pattern is happening this year currently at secure in all 3.

I have spoken to the class teacher through out the year and am left confused. She has said although he is yet to meet many expectations from the year 3 curriculum that is no longer relevant as they are only judged against year 4 criteria. He is 2.5 years behind in spelling and is unable to predict outcomes of science experiments or use language to explain what he has done. He has messy unjointed up writing and as yet does not regularly use punctuation or grammar. He isn't secure in his 2,4,3 times tables.

I'm beginning to think that they are just working there way through the levels as it shows good progress, however it's very unhelpful to him as if he isn't making progress or is behind this doesn't help highlight it.

Does anyone know how these levels work and with what I've described above can he realistically be at a secure level in year 4?

[mrz]

We start by looking to see if a child is achieving any of their year group expectations then move "back" to the previous year's expectations

[user789653241]

Mrz, doesn't it cause problem? If the child is secure with current year's expectations, but missing some understanding in previous year's expectation, does teachers able to find it out and fill the gaps?

[mrz]

They can't be secure if they haven't achieved key criteria from the previous years.

[user789653241]

But in this OP's case, the child is getting secure for YR4 level even he isn't secure in previous years expectation. I thought to meet yr4 expectation, you have to be secure in 2 to 12 times tables at the end of YR4?
I would be really worried with how school is assessing him.

[mrz]

The curriculum builds year on year. each years expectations rely to a certain extent on the child having mastered the previous year's expectations

[KateBeckett]

I'm unsure as to how he could have been judged at the end of year 3 as 'confident' (assuming that is your schools terminology for working at greater depth in the curriculum) if he isn't actually secure in some of the year 3 objectives... Although, the objectives for year 3&4 are strongly linked in the new curriculum.

[Pineapple5678]

Thank you for all your replies.
The definition of confident is ' confidently applying secure knowledge to the curriculum '
The next level up after confident is meeting end of year expectations.

Where is spelling marked? is it in writing ? Can he be secure if he is over 2 years behind?

[KateBeckett]

No, I don't think he can be assessed as secure if he's 2 years behind as that would mean he hasn't met the expected standard for ks1 spelling?

[user789653241]

Yes, I agree with Kate. I think there is something really wrong with assessment system your dc's school/teacher is using. You really need to speak to the teacher and find out what's happening. I can't see why a child who is clearly behind can get "secure" or "confident" for something he hasn't mastered yet.