1st day year one

[Elm72]

My daughter has started year 1 today and seems to have been assessed for literacy and numaracy. She has been placed in to different groups - animal for literacy and a shape for numaracy. I'm not sure what these mean and how these tell me what level she's been assessed at.

Does anyone know if the groups are standard across the country or specific to the school?

The groups don't help me to know where I need to support her learning.

Every teacher will have their own naming convention for groups so you won't be able to guess where they are at from the name of the group. You should have received a report at the end of Reception though stating where they were up to so that should still be relevant. Your child may well work out who gets the harder/easier work before long though.

Each school/teacher does it their own way. DD has had groups ranging from whales to seahorses, where the larger the animal = the higher ability and maths groups from circle to hexagon, where the number of sides of the shape indicated ability level. The teachers try to hide it to a certain extent but the children tend to work it out fairly quickly!

Well my class won't have any names because I won't have any set groups

Thank you for your responces - I know of 2 groups for literacy hedgehogs and badgers. And for numaracy triangle and rectangle.

She's in badgers and her friend who's in hedgehogs who has been sent home today with 2 books but nothing for my DD.

I have no concerns from her school report last year and know that she's got a long way to go in terms of her education. It's just confusing especially at this age. I want to support my DD as much as I can to give her the best start i can with her education

Let things settle for a few days, then ask the teacher what you can do to support her.

They tend to label them with names so you don't know which group "ability" they're in. They may not even be ability, just a convenient way of separating them.

The other child coming home with 2 books may just mean that their group reads that day and your dc will get her books on the day she reads.

Although on the maths my dd2 had one teacher for who I very quickly worked out the groups were shapes and the more (or fewer, I can't remember) sides that shape had, the higher the group was in ability .

Some children will pick very quickly which order the groups are in. Dd1 could tell you from the start, dd2 didn't usually have a clue, and ds wouldn't have even noticed who was in his group. let alone anything else.

Dd1's best friend always used to claim she was in the top group, whether she really thought she was or whether she was just trying to please her dm I'm not sure. I had an interesting conversation where her dm was telling me how great it was for her to be in the top group, when I was fully aware that it wasn't. I decided not to be the bearer or bad news and let her find it out for herself. Not sure if that was the right thing to do, but I couldn't work out if there was a tactful way to say anything in the time I had.

I'm really sad about them being put into ability groups so young.

Why sad chestnut? The groups are normally pretty fluid and if say a fluently reading child and a child who knows no letter sounds are in the same group, then neither can really be helped effectively for the short time that they have the teacher/TA's full attention. It makes sense to me to group them and help them accordingly.

I understand what you mean chesnut

I also think its a shame to label children at such as young age, as runoutofideas states children do need to be put into groups of sorts however in our school groups are not fluid and lots of assumptions are made about various dc very early on which then becomes a self fulfiling prophecy and continues throughout the school years.

It is the lack of fluidity and the self fulfiling prophecy. Children learn at very different rates at this age and they are being labeled at school as able vs less able at 5 (yr1). The fact the kids will soon realise really gets to me. DC in a class of 16 and has a teacher and TA so I really think its unnecessary.

Why do you consider children need to be put in groups mrsshears?

When i say children need to be put into groups i suppose what i mean is children need differentiation (which i appreciate isnt what i said and i didn't really make that clear)

DD has been sent home with her second set of books and homework. seems happy enough in herself. Trying not to make a big deal of the groups and have explained to DD that it's just so there's no arguments when they have to sit and do table work.

Any idea what P1-9 means in her reading record?

it means she read pages 1 to 9

Page one to nine - that she has read to whoever has heard her read. Probably.

The seating / setting / table names will be roughly based on their EYFS; the teacher has not assessed 20-30 children for literacy and numeracy on day one.

There is a huge push towards Year One being more of a play-based year, transition from Reception and taking the new framework into account; give it a week or two and see how she goes in terms of 'work'.

They came home from school on day one with a piece of paper with group for literacy and numaracy

There are 4 animals and I know of 3 shapes. Just which teacher has sent home some sort of guidance for the parents

I am just replying to your part of the OP re: DD being assessed- she will have been observed and had notes made about her since pretty much day one at reception, not to mention nursery - that is what has informed the setting of groups, not a rush decision by the teacher on day 1 of Year One.

The groups could/should change or tweak every half term, if not by actual content (children) then at least by name. So once you get the hang of it, they will become insects and colours, then oceans and plants etc etc...

You have may years ahead of this fun. Consider bugging your child / fitting them with a wire, it's the only way

No groups for DD last year in yr 1. Don't see why they should do that si young.

I've never understood why parents think group names are supposed to be hidden codes. They're not. Most children will work out on the first day whether they're given the "easier" work or the "harder" work, and their parents will do the same.

It's not a secret code, it's just that if classes have groups then they need names, and I'd rather call them hedgehogs/triangles (etc) than "the genius group" or "the slow group."

In our school we move children up and down the groups all the time, depending on the topic and how much support the child needs.

Elm72, your daughter's teacher will not have assessed 30 (?) children in literacy and numeracy on the first day of term. The groups will probably be based on the EYFS scores.

Hi Elm72

I agree with Badgercub - the likelihood is that the groups right now roughly reflect ability level as assessed at the end of YR. Probably best to see this as a starting point. In our school groups always have 6 children and there are always 5 - which realistically really can't be possible. I'm sure that children 1 and 2 in Group 2 probably can do as well in Group 1. But the teachers always make a huge point of explaining that there often is very little difference in ability between groups.

Every school is different but hopefully from this point there will be some movements between groups as children progress (sometimes it can seem like jumping) up ability levels.

Although I can understand that there is a desire to understand precisely what the groups mean, in reality the real issue isn't what group they're in but how they're performing in themselves and against general expectations for that age group.

Bear in mind that each class is different and that some years Y1 children are very bright and all working to higher levels and other years, when for whatever reason, a group of Y1 children might be really struggling. The teaching, organisation of work groups in literacy/ numeracy and homework will all reflect that.

If it helps, Campaign for Real Education prepares statements on what should be covered by year/ age here: www.cre.org.uk/primary_contents.html. Please bear in mind that this is 'gold standard' and your school (and your child) may not quite be working to this, but at least it lets you know what could be possible in an ideal world.

The important things to understand as a parent are:

What does the school need you to be helping with at home right now.

What areas need more support/ practice (for instance might be o.k. at adding numbers to 10, but needs work on numbers up to 20).

Keeping a good routine of regularly reading - the more reading at home you can be doing with your DC the better.

HTH

do schools really work like that?

My classroom (Year 3) has 5 tables. I can't sit all the children round a single table, and having several smaller ones makes life easier. However, just because I have children sitting at separate tables doesn't imply rigid, immovable 'groups' which children 'progress up' or 'move down'.

A child may sit at all of the different tables during the course of the day for different lessons, and for a particular subject may sit at a mixture of the 5 during the week. Sometimes they will get to choose where they sit (on their own or with a talking partner), sometimes they will not (because I want a mixed group for that task, or a group who have shown that they need a little support to make the next step, or a group who are using particular resources in that lesson which it is easier to place on a single table). Sometimes the whole class does the same work, sometimes some of the class or a single child may work on something different for anything from a couple of minutes to most of the lesson. They may work independently, in pairs, in groups, with a TA, with me. They may often work in a similar group, or may move between very different groups over the year or between different subjects or between different aspects of the same subject....

Like what, mrz?

Five groups of the same six children for every activity every day?