yr 3 effort grades ???

[mel38]

how much notice do you take of them at this age ?

Personally I take them with a pinch of salt because I work in the same school as my Y3 daughter and I know the rush and panic in which those figures are forced onto the system before the deadline.

But I'd say about 90% of the parents take them so seriously you'd think it was the end of the world if their child gets a solitary 'less than satisfactory effort' on their card - I'm talking phonecall, meetings with the teacher, the works. I've seen parents yell and I've even seen parents cry. Boggles my mind!

TBH I take more notice of effort grades than attainment ones.

Our school started doing half termly effort report cards last year, when my eldest two were YR1 and YR3. After the 2nd one of DD's (yr1) that had a 3 for effort (sometimes puts the effort in), I made an appointment to see her teacher.

For me the effort is the important thing, as I want them to have a good work ethic really.

I agree with mankyscotslass.

We always notice, praise and reward effort grades, above anything else.
And generally take them quite seriously. If a child is getting mediocre/poor effort grades at this age, it's a problem IMO.

Agree with Roisin. Effort grades are important at any age. At year 3 they are laying the foundations for the future. Plus they often come round half termly or at my DCs school every 3 weeks which lets everyone know how they are doing and more importantly that they can put more effort in if necessary and then see the difference. Effort grades given out solely at the end of term are possibly not as useful. The only caveat to the above being how seriously the teachers take the effort grades when preparing them as manic mentioned.

Sorry Manic but I would be that parent asking questions (not yelling!) if my DCs effort grades went down as it would mean to me that a teacher was flagging up an area that could be improved on.

Agree completely. At my boys' school (secondary) every piece of 'assessed work' [at least 2 pieces per half term per subject] is marked with a sticker with a grid. The grid has 3 rows for below/on/above target. But it also has 4 columns which correspond to the effort level assigned to the task.

So students know on a week-by-week basis whether their teachers are happy with their commitment levels or not. It's not just a big surprise when the reports come out.

I don't take any notice of them at any age. All I care about is attainment

If my DS gets top grades without putting in any effort - why should he put in more effort?

If my DD gets bottom grades with putting in good effort - doesn't make up for the fact that she hasn't made any progress this year.....

Besides, how does the teacher know how much effort they've put in? Kids all learn in different ways, and what looks like daydreaming - might be listening - or might be daydreaming......

Effort grades are at best completely erroneous, and at worst very damaging to a child's self-esteem. They are almost always inaccurate.

The only person capable of assessing a child's effort is that child.

Too often, effort grades are used as a 'compensation' for low-achieving students, or those with SEN; but what message does a low attainment and high effort grade actually send out? You are trying your hardest but you have performed badly- or No matter how hard you try, you will only achieve this grade. They can end up sending out precisely the opposite message they were trying to.

I wrote my thesis on effort grades when I was training to be a teacher, and have seen nothing in my subsequent career which suggests to me that effort grades are anything other than a meaningless and inaccurate arbitrary 'mark'. Nothing more than teacher guesswork.

In short, pay no attention as they are a load of old bollocks

Completely agree with Indigo and tether - at DS school, far too much significance is apportioned to effort rather than attainment, so this eg House came top in effort for the third time in a row, but actually came BOTTOM in acheivement. Why is this a good thing? DS very clever but lazy, has all A*s and As so far in GCSE modules, very average effort grades... We don't really care if he gets good grades.