DD’s School Report

[LucyOCS]

I’m trying to think of a way to write this without coming across as a pushy dick. I’m not, I’m posting this as I’m interested, and how children are doing at school isn’t discussed amongst the parents at my school, so I genuinely have no idea how DD is doing relative to others.

DD is 7 (summer born) and in Year 3. She is doing well at school but seems to have gone backwards in her achievement, but I have no idea if this is due to missed time due to Covid, whether the school could be doing more to support her, or whether actually she’s just not as bright as she seemed initially.

In Early Years and Year 1 she was rated as working at a “greater depth” in about 50% of subjects. In Year 2 she was rated as working at the “expected” standard in all of them, and in year 3 so far again she’s working at the “expected standard” in all but PE, in which she excels. DH and I didn’t take the Year 2 reports too seriously as DD1 is exceptionally talented at sport, but exceptionally not talented at art, yet got the same grade.

Year 3 still, apart from PE, she‘a not showing the promise she initially showed. She tries so hard at everything and cannot be faulted for her effort so we are very pleased with her and cannot ask for more from her.

In her class there are a number of children who are very behind (I know this as the book bands many of them were on were in full display in the classroom) and as DD is not, tries hard, causes no issues, I wonder if she is perhaps a child that is not given any focus and is therefore not fulfilling her potential. Or maybe she is, and in fact it is just really really hard to get a “greater depth” rating and she’s doing great.

So it would be great to know from those in the know whether actually it’s really hard to get an overachieving rating. Am I being unreasonable to think that is what she should be achieving in the subjects she showed early promise?

Well you could try giving her some focus at home and see what that achieves but I wouldn't get too hung up about what was predicted in preschool. Some kids are early developers then the rest catch up.

DD1 is exceptionally talented at sport, but exceptionally not talented at art
I think parents often struggle to recognise what’s “normal” for children. Most children can run fast and throw a ball so every parent thinks their average child is the next Jessica Ennis or Wayne Rooney. Most children’s artwork looks like a cheap Picasso knock-off so no one thinks their child could be the next Van Gogh.

it would be great to know from those in the know whether actually it’s really hard to get an overachieving rating
This will vary from school to school and from teacher to teacher. No one here could possibly give you an insight into this.

What are you doing at home to support her? You seem to have listed two options: the school are failing her or she’s not very bright - what about the other options?

The idea that a child is working at greater depth in early years makes no sense to me . Surely at age 3 and 4 its about enjoying playing and being enthusiastic etc at taking part. I think you need to forget those reports

However. I understand feeling frustrated with the way childrens learning is described in reports. I think sadly mainstream primary with 32 children per class means as long as a child is coping they wont get much soecific attention

Why not just focus in stretching her learbinf yourself. More outings and readings and discussing interesting topics.

A lot of what kids learn at school is boring grammar nonsense unfortunately...i am often appalled by the dreary crap my year six son has to do. And even in year 2 and 3 its often very formulaic and boring

Its difficult to know just now i feel, I have 3 DDS, first 2 are in school.

DD1 showed how smart she was at a very very young age, she excelled in everything and was literally miles ahead of her peers, now shes 10 shes leveled out, still id say the higher end of her group but by no means out of this worst smartness which she presented with when she was young.

DD2 was below average when younger compared to her peers, nothing like her sister at all, didnt talk until really late and at that needed speech therapy, reading sisnt come naturally to her. Now age 8 she is at the higher end of her class, has found an absolute love for books and gets through a book a week.

DD3 is following DD1, infact perhaps even more so that DD1 but really who knows.

*this world

Have a conversation with her teacher about how she is doing in each subject, rather than focussing on grades. The school should have broken these down and given feedback on each subject (ours does for DS also in y3).

Also, as a op said some children peak/are advanced early in the first couple of years at school and then pan out as average for the remainder of Primary and onwards, some children do the reverse and catch up and outdo the early starters. Have the conversation and go from there.

@LucyOCS what do you do with her at home? To you know what the school curriculum is, what they are studying each term, get books out from the library on these subjects and plan a museum trip or similar related to the topic? These all help with learning about subjects in greater depth.

Or are you expecting the school to do it all?

Oh my god the grammar! My YR2 DD was quizzing me on compound phrases and past progressive tense last night..... didn't have a blithering clue what she was talking about and actually had to google it!

Said DD got exceeding across the board end of reception, but 'working at expected level' in Year 1, but then did 'mock sats' before christmas and got greater depth in all the tests, so not sure what happened at the end of Year 1!

@PollyPut how do you find out what topics they are studying each term? My son just started reception and i would love to do these things but I don't know where to get the information from. (I didn't grow up in the UK and often feel I am missing s piece of the puzzle)

@Bababababab we usually (and Ive been in 2 primaries with my kids now) get a sheet detailing the cirriculum each term - Im sure the teacher will give you one? Some schools have it online.

My children have gone through primary just constantly getting 'meeting expected' or whatever it is - with some exceeding - I think it's bollocks a lot of it sorry.

Teachers are busy and stretched and under ridiculous targets from Ofsted - if they got rid of the totally pointless Sats which test ludicrous grammar in bored children - they could focus on actually encouraging a love of learning, finding out what children are interested in and where their strengths lie.

I don't have faith in our mainstream system to tap into a child's strengths sadly - I think it's about ticking boxes of learning set lists of facts.

We don’t do a lot to be fair beyond the standard weekly spellings and English and Maths homework. I have three kids and work 4 days per week), but in the subjects I’m most interested in (Geography mainly) we do look at a globe and maps and talk about the countries she is studying. I’m not pushing her though by setting extra work, she’s tired enough from school.

She was set a competitive timestables challenge a few weeks ago and was so determined to win it that she now knows all of her timestables with her eyes closed, which I know is exceeding what she should know in year 3, but there must be other areas of maths she’s not so good at.

She is genuinely good at sport (plays in a premier league team football academy and is also a talented hockey player), but perhaps I am being too hard on her art work 🤣.

It’s worth looking at the difference between the Early Learning Goals (many about social / emotional / physical development) and the ‘subjects’ your child is now being assessed against.

In a way, you are comparing apples and pears in comparing Early Years ‘exceeding’ with subject-based ‘greater depth /exceeding’ later in your child’s school
life.

It is definitely worth a conversation with her teacher if a specific academic subject has gone ‘backwards’ - eg if Reading was ‘greater depth’ in preceding years and us now ‘expected’ or ‘working towards’. However, in many cases, it is because the nature of what us assessed - or sometimes how it is tested - has changed. Reading can mean just ‘decoding’ early on, but will then become comprehension including inference, and may have been assessed verbally initially and then through written test papers. These differences may mean the precise result will vary over time for different children.

Our schools have (usually) sent out the curriculum highlights. They were always very helpful. It can depend on the teacher, but if you ask the teacher to start with, or possibly someone higher up then they might plan to send parents a curriculum overview every so often.

Teacher here. Children develop at vastly different rates. It may be that others have caught up with her. Especially if you pushed literacy and numeracy activities at home at the preschool age whereas some children didn’t have as many advantages at home but had as much potential and are catching up and thriving at school.

It’s worth having a discussion with the teacher if you’re worried. Rule out anything that may be holding her back like eyesight, hearing or dyslexia.

I would also say that in subjects outside English (all aspects), Maths, there absolutely no indication of what ‘exceeding / greater depth’ might be - and except in SATs years it us by extrapolation (educated guesswork) even for English and Maths.

Therefore, for subjects like History, Art, PE, Music, it may well be the school’s policy to
give ‘expected’ to the vast majority- they met the objectives in each taught lesson. A gew genuine standout children may get ‘exceeding /GD’, and a few who find a subject very challenging may get ‘working towards’. It is important to realise that, unlike Early Years, and unlike SATs results in limited subjects, these labels have no agreed meanings across schools or even perhaps between classes.

Apologies for typos.

We were recently told that the local schools had collaborated on marking schemes and the school had concluded that they were marking too nicely on writing. The knock on effect was that it would appear children had not made progress where in fact they had, it was just that the goal posts ha dmoved.

To be honest I think it’s a bit early to tell whether she’s exceptionally gifted or not. I really wouldn’t read too much into it. Personally, I think reports at that age are mostly a box ticking exercise. She’s happy, she’s not behind and she’s trying her best. It’s totally normal for achievement levels not to be completely linear.

I focus my attention on reading/writing/maths and DS' targets, agree with pp that greater depth is less relevant for other subjects.

By year 3 I'd say you should have a good idea of your child's strengths and weaknesses, and be in a good dialogue with school about what areas they may need to work on next.

In my case, ds has always been excellent at maths, so I would know something was off if his rating dropped to expected. In reading/writing, I'm aware of some issues in handwriting and how that affects his ratings. You need to get a better understanding from the teacher about where they are at.

It's then up to you whether you do further work at home to practice techniques at home.

I agree with the general trend in the replies so far. Some schools seem less keen to give 'greater depth' than others.

That said, if your DD was scored as working at greater depth in YR and Y1 in many subjects, and is now mostly at 'expected', the school ought to have picked this up as it will show up in their internal progress reports. Covid can't be blamed for everything, surely.

Do you have parents' evening coming up? If so, I would ask the teacher whether she's on the cusp of greater depth or has apparently dropped a little, and if so, why. You could even ask whether there has been a change of policy within the school that might explain the apparent dip in her attainment level. Perhaps ask for suggestions on how you could support your DD at home.

In any case, if you're no longer reading with her most nights, I would suggest that you find time to do so, even though you're busy with work and your other children. Even if she can already read well, it's such a great way to build vocab, inference skills and general knowledge. So many people stop doing this once the basic reading is in place, and I think it's one of the best ways to enrich their education at home. It's also fun once it's a habit!

All that said, I suspect there's no cause for concern at all. She'll do well because her parents care.

Both mine are clever - eldest in top sets at Secondary and youngest is in Yr6 and exceeding expectation - but will see how the SATs go. Both seem to have had a downturn around the Year 2 and Year 3 mark - still exceeding in some areas but I think the transition between KS1 and KS2 is quite a leap. Not as big as the one to KS3 though!

Thank you. Yes she was ahead at EY stage with her numeracy, largely down to collecting those Sainsburys Lego / Disney cards that were numbered up to over 100 so she got very confident with counting and reading numbers through that. She couldn’t read at all before school but flew through the book bands in EY and Y1 but completely stalled in Y2.

At the end of the day she's 7. A baby.

Imagine reports never existed.... Would you have been concerned if there was no way of knowing her levels?
Or would your impression still be that she's a happy little girl that likes to go to school and is learning new things and playing with friends and eager to explore the world around her?

Get some perspective.

Thank you for your really helpful reply. Yes we do read with her every night however it is almost always my DH as I am still breastfeeding her brother to sleep (for far longer than I intended 🙈). I know he doesn’t pay as much attention to her reading as I do, but I’m not going to criticise as I’ve not been doing it at all.

We do speak to her teachers at parents evenings but DD is always there (and would be at school pick up too) so it’s hard to have that conversation about exactly how she is doing as DD is trying her absolute best and that is all we can ask and expect of her. We only ever talk to DD about her effort grades on her report as that is the important thing really.