Don't want to bore you but.. more writing examples.

[houseofboys]

My six year old is in yr one and not very long ago was given a certificate saying he'd 'got' level one in writing. Was a bit confused as a week or two before that his teacher said at parents eve he was around 2c in writing. He writes constantly at home - stories, lists and does beautiful cursive writing (much much better than mine!). Uses question marks, commas, colons, exclamation marks, speech marks and apostrophes correctly, almost always and full stops and capital letters are always correct. I think content of his writing is a bit immature, not surprisingly, but here's a sample which is v typical. I'd be interested to know what people think...

There was once a monster called Mini Monster, he was very small and very cute.
One day Mini Monster disided to go for a walk so he did go for a walk!
Then he saw a pie factry, it had lots of pies so he went up to the pie factry and ate all the pies! And then after Mini Monster had aten all the pies, Mini Monster went home and went to bed.

There are pages and pages like this lying around the house but I won't go on.

Yeah a firm 1A - would like to see more for a 2C though, maybe with more detailed description, eg what did the pies taste like? Possibly more exciting sentence starters too - suddenly etc.

I am on a levelling mission this evening, clearly on a roll from report writing!

Maybe they meant 'got level one' as in completed it - not as in started it?

ie he got the certificate for moving up to a level 2?

He hasn't had a level 2 certificate, so perhaps that means he isn't secure yet. From looking at writing criteria (which I had to do for a governors course) I saw that the technical ability he has - use of commas, colons, and fluent cursive - is a level 3 criteria but I guess the content is more important.

Sorry to be picky but he isn't using exclamation marks correctly really, it is fantastic that he knows what they are but certainly the first one should have been a full stop. I think you are right though, the content is what is limiting his levelling at the moment. Having said all that, he is ahead of the curve already and to have a boy who loves writing at 6yrs is a gift!

You are right about the level 3 criteria, you need great content and those structural tools to get a level three. The structural tools alone won't get you anywhere near a 3 (level 3 at the end of KS1 is actually a 3b).

I would assume the level one certificate means he has finished level one in which case he is starting on 2C.

I agree with the others I think that the certificate means that he has completed level 1 and is now a level 2.

My son is a 1b and his sentences are much shorter- his current writing target is to use connectives like and/but/because to write longer sentences.
He might use commas for a list, maybe an apostrophe for "don't" or "can't" , and possibly capitalise the name Mini Monster but definitely no question marks or colons in his writing.

there are several boxes to tick off, some wwith more than one statement in them... eg uses x, y and z in writing . they have to tick off the right combination of boxes too apparently. and they haave to show evidence in severaal types of writing (stories, reports, instructions etc)

in dd's writing at home she could do some level 3 stuff, quite a bit of the level 2 stuff 9eg x aand y but not z say) but without some boxes filled in at level one. she wasa assessed as 1 something reding upside down forgot to ask specifically.

I caan teaach her the technical stuff like speech maarks, but if the content is still sparse and immature she won't be assessed at a higher level. that will only come with time, and hen it does the technical things will be ready and waiting.