Scottish Primary: P2 CfE level - school report

[albachiara]

Hello,

we have moved from England to Scotland 1 year ago, and I am struggling to understand what the final year school report means...

Could anybody give me their comments on these levels:

DD(9) is in P4 and has all Second/Developing comments
DS(6) is in P2 and has all First/Developing comments

I think DD is doing fine, but I am a bit worried about DS, as he is one of the youngest in the class, and he was struggling a lot at the beginning of the year (he could not read words or spell them, while the other children in his clas could).

The teacher has told me that he has improved a lot, but I don't know if this means he is doing as well as the average child in his class, or if he is still at the bottom, but doing better than at the beginning of the year. I tried asking the teacher, but she never gives me a direct answer (such as : he's in the bottom 5 % ! or something like that). I don't want to push him, but I don't want to ignore him if he should do some extra work to catch up with the rest.

DS has lots of friends in the school, and he's very happy there. I know this is the most important thing, but I don't want to have to realise too late that I should have helped him a bit more.

Can anybody help me?

Thank you!

the problem is that the levels are so broad i.e. Early covers the pre-school years and P1, First level covers up to P4 and second level covers up to P7. Our reports didnt really tell you where they were compared to the rest of the class but pointed out strengths and areas to be worked on.

I would ignore the Levels - as Seona says, they are so broad as to be meaningless.

What does the text say? The teacher is not going to give you a ranking; what she will more concerned about is whether he is working to his ability and whether he is making an effort.

You could try asking her the direct question: is there any particular work that she would suggest you doing with your ds to support him?

If she says no, then stop worrying. If she suggests doing a bit more reading out loud with him (for example), then you know where to put your effort in.

FWIW: ds was a late developer with reading. The school said some kids (esp boys) just don't "get" it until they are 6 - and in fact, ds was 6.75 before it finally clicked. At the beginning of P2, he was given 6 weeks of extra 1:1 teaching from the depute to try and keep in the top language group (he had been learning things off by heart rather than actaully reading / blending) before we mutually agreed to drop him into the middle group. He stayed there for over 2 years - the last 6 months when he was way beyond the middle group but not yet ready for the top group, so we had him doing "different" reading at home.

He is now 10, happily ensconced in the top language group and more importantly, is free reading and free writing (he's writing a book at home!).

Thanks a lot for the suggestions.

I will read the text a bit more carefully and see what I should concentrate our effort on. However, I would like a ranking! Numbers are more clear to me than words.

Also, how can we know that he's working at the best of his abilities. Maybe he's a bit lazy, and maybe he could do much more than what he shows... A lot of times he asks us to read signs/ads to him, while we know he can do it himself (we ask him to try to read, and he reads them!). I also think he thinks he's not that clever, and prefers not to try, rather than trying and failing.

Or maybe I should just leave him alone, and let him play with his Legos all day long. I'm sure he's learning a lot from that!

At this stage, a ranking honestly doesn't help. It would move about too much 'cos kids are at different stages of developmental readiness.

Read the text closely - I know our school put a lot of effort into making sure there was a lot of information there. You may need to read between the lines though. Is there anything in the report which suggests that he's rather not try rather than try and fail? If so, you could ask the teacher for her suggestions as to strategies to address this.

If you suspect that he is not working to the best of his abilities and this is not reflected in his report, then go in to the school and explain to the teacher why.

We have had ongoing discussions with the school over the years about the fact that ds on occasion has not been sufficiently stretched at Maths/numbers. We don't accpt their argument that "the top group is doing maths a year ahead" - if he (and the others) are not being stretched and get bored, then you should be giving them more challenging work.

However, the key thing is this early stage is for your ds to enjoy learning (and not even necessarily know that he is doing so). Have you tried him with the Captain Underpants books (or Super Diaper Baby)? That's a "fun" way of encouraging reading at home - and he could then try writing his own cartoon stories.

I've tried with different kinds of books (but failed - Beast Quuest is too hard for him, so we ended up reading them to him). He picked up a Horrid Henry book (the easiest version around) from the bookslehves at home and loved it. I think it had the right balance (for him) between number of words on each page and funny pictures. I will go on Amazon and have a look at Captain Underpants and Super Diaper Baby!

Thank you!
Any more suggestions?

Thank you Prettybird! I have just reserved the books that you suggested at my local library! I will pick them up in a couple of days. I hope they are a success!

From what you have described about his level, probably a bit too soon, but once he is reading a bit more confidently, then the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are very good.

Also any of the "Horrible Histories".

Next one on from Diary of a Wimpy Kid, would be the Skulduggery Pleasant series.