Am I overreacting to marking of Year 5 English homework?

[alegre]

DS has just gone into Year 5 in a Middle School. We have first schools, middle schools and high schools here and Year 5 is the first year of middle school.
Anyway....DS has English homework every weekend which involves writing a paragraph or 2. When DS gets the work back, the teacher rarely comments about what has been written (whether it's imaginative, vocabulary used etc etc) but seems to solely concentrate on presentation. I must admit that his presentation needs improving but surely he needs encouragement to write as well?
Last weekend DS had to do a character study. He had to choose a character from a book he's reading, write notes out and quote evidence from the text. After this, he had to write out the character study and explain how he feels about the character (giving evidence from the text to prove points). I thought it was quite a lot really but DS did it and it took him a while.
Today I see that the teacher's comments are 'OK - but I would have expected better presentation. What a mess!'
I find that quite harsh and it's really annoyed me.Yes, his presentation does need improving but his handwriting is legible. Surely over the next year he could be 'encouraged' to improve presentation rather than be constantly criticised for it?
Is it really such a 'jump' from Year 4 to Year 5? Is a lot more expected of pupils? English is one of DS's favourite subjects and in Year 4 his stories were often read out to the class by the teacher because of the way they were written. I'm just worried that, with the pressure for perfect presentation, he'll lose interest in English.
Or....maybe I'm overreacting??? I've not mentioned this to DS and it doesn't appear to affect him.

You can't assess something you can't read or understand....perhaps she is making that point.

Get him to word process it and stick it in the book.
Explain that you are concerned that the excellent content is being hidden, and ask her to help him work on his presentation in lesson time.

Our policy is to tell the child what they have done well, then give a next step for improvement.

I think her marking was v harsh.

Scurryfunge - it is legible. However he did write it on plain paper and the writing goes up. I'll ensure he does homework on lined paper. Might make a difference.
Goblinchild - like it but not sure if it's 'allowed':o. However, I might ask for tips on how to help him improve his presentation (keep her on the right side).

Yes Feenie, that's how I understand 'normal' school policies to be. I don't think this teacher is primary trained although she's teaching primary children. When I once mentioned how different middle school seems to primary school (i.e. streaming in maths and English, moving around for lessons etc) she sounded very surprised.

Don't know, maybe it's the jump that's expected from first school to middle school in this particular school.
Maybe I should see how it goes and how DS develops rather than react like a defensive mother.

How old is he?

If he's Y5, he will be having his tenth birthday this academic year.

Ask to see their marking policy.

Get him to write it out again as neatly as possible and give it back in with a note apologising for the sloppy presentation, e.g. Dear Mrs X, I'm sorry my homework was so messy this week. I have tried very hard to improve it. Please would you re-mark it so I know whether the content was good enough. Thank you very much and sorry for wasting your time. From alegreson.

Sounds harsh to me if his work was legible. I think it's important to include praise as well as constructive criticism, maybe apart from where the pupil has obviously made no effort at all. But it sounds like your DS did make an effort... I'd be concerned that somebody else could get better comments by writing very neat drivel?

By the way, I didn't mean to sound like he should apologise, just trying to think of a way to make the teacher concentrate on the content without confrontation ... appears grovelling but you know the message behind it.

Agree that the marking is extremely harsh - seems little point wasting time on the homework if the content is ignored.

Agree with swill - good idea. Would just point out tho' that my eldest son (who is now doing A levels!) has always had poor presentation skills and actually had a very nasty shock in his GCSE mocks when he was told that an external examiner would not bother to try to understand messy work but would just put a line through it. It was hard for him at that age to try to really change the way he presented everything so maybe this teacher is coming down hard on your son to try to help him avoid problems in the future. Agree it could be rather demoralising for a child, though, to have work dismissed like this.

That sounds like real cop out marking - almost as poor presentation is an excuse for her not to really look at the rest. That said, presentation is important but as part of the overall piece of work. Taught Year Six for years - teacher should have commented on presentation and decent comment on content.

She's probably focusing on the assessment levels for English. It's totally stupid but if a child's work doesn't have correct presentation all the way through (as in, very obvious capital letters, absolutely correct full stops etc) then they get stuck at one level and can't move on, no matter how imaginative or well written their work is.

It ridiculous in my view as I now have children who have a complete complex about their writing and miss out hugely on marks due to poor presentation that is due more to clumsy hands than willful neglect. My DH has a PhD and his writing is totally illegible!

We all focus on assessment levels, writerofdreams, but that doesn't preclude also telling a 9/10 year old what he's done well as well as what needs to improve urgently. And the op didn't mention punctuation, which is a totally different kettle of fish to presentation.

Are you seriously saying that junior school kids have to present/punctuate well or they don't get good grades even if the content is brilliant?!

Yes AYAFOTD
When DS was in year 4 his content was excellent. Teacher said that it was the work she would expect in yr6 and wanted to mark it level 4, however because of punctuation and spelling she could only give it a level 2.

Also DD was a very messy writer and at a lot younger than that the OP's DS her teacher refused to mark her work.

Afraid so, AYAFOTD. Presentation is important because if a child writes for example The boy Went To the Park, you can't say that they have a grasp of capital letters and that's a level 2 skilL, so they're stuck on level two. As a result the best writer in my class (who has a beautiful way with words) is stuck (due to inability to hold the pen well) while the kids who write There is a dog. He is brown and black. get a higher level.

That seems so unfair. I can understand being marked down for bad presentation etc but that shouldn't mean the content is ignored. What about the kids with physical problems that make it hard for them to write neatly?

Is this a new thing BTW or has it always been like that?

A child couldn't be 'stuck' at a level because of poor presentation or poor punctuation. The level is awarded on best fit. I have level 4 writers who either forget capital letters or write so untidily it looks as if a spider dipped in ink has reeled drunkenly across the page, much to my annoyance. It would, however, be an urgent target to work towards.

Punctuation is very different to presentation - it's use is grammar, not appearance, and as such it affects how a reader reads a text and is quite important. However, if a writer writes untidily and cannot use punctuation correctly, then yes, their level would be affected.

The op did not say her ds's work was poorly punctuated, and it's entirely different to presentation, so am as to why it's being discussed, tbh.

its use

Handwriting has always been assessed as part of writing, areyouafreud, but children cannot be held back because of it.

i would have a word with the teacher and ask her if she can give comments on content and presentation - you realise that presentation is something he needs to work on (which you are doing) but it would be good to get feedback on whether the content is good. also mention that you want to encourage and not discourage him. keep it lighthearted when you have a chat.

You don't get marked DOWN on presentation (it's only 3 marks for handwriting in the Sats), it's more complicated than that - three bands - one for things like the content and style, one for sentence structure and one (sometimes - it's merged for short write) for the structure of the text as a whole. So you can get pulled down in one aspect but not in another and so on. It means they won't do AS well as someone who's got it all right - so yes, in a way it drags things down slightly.

I've also got a big cautionary note scrawled on the front of one of my Sats markschemes from the team leader that year "BEWARE OF SCRUFFY BOYS" - basically not to judge something's content in terms of superficial content. On the other hand - I do mention and reinforce to kids that when they go up the school their work IS going to be sent off to someone somewhere else in the country to mark for Sats and GCSEs who might not know their handwriting, might not realize that the way they write 4s looks almost like number 5s but not quite, so it's the time to sharpen up - not asking for Lindisfarne Gospels levels of caligraphy - but for writing that can be read by another person who isn't as "tuned in" to their handwriting as their usual teacher.

I think that's a bit harsh, although I can see where the thinking behind it lies long term.
On a purely practical note have you tried the pens and pencils that are chubby in the middle with finger grips (they do left and right handed) so that it's easier to hold for him? I found they worked a treat in 'neatening up' my left handed son's writing over the last year or so.