NC levels - going backwards not forwards

[york33]

Ds ended infants on nc level 3 for writing. This equated to a 3b apparently. Tbh I did think this was a little generous. In year 3 he remained on level 3b. I was concerned by lack of progress. However, teacher was happy progress was being made and report indicated he was working above expected level.
However, ds now in year 4 and has recently been levelled at 3c.
We have parents evening next month so I was looking for advice on how to approach this.
Thank you

I had exactly this this one of my DC. I had a word with the teacher and was a bit (sceptical) when she said it was because the previous teacher had levelled too high!

However the following year, with another teacher his grades were back to where they should be. Or rather where the 1st teacher predicted he should be. It was very confusing for him too.

Lots of stories like this on MN.
Ignore the levels, do you see for yourself that he's going backwards or does his writing seem better to you now than 18 months ago?

If your DS was a 3b at the end of Y2 then he is expected to achieve a 4b at the end of Y4.

I would make an appointment to ask the teacher how the 3c was arrived at (if it was just a single piece of work because he rushed it and forgot to punctuate or whatever, or whether he is consistently working at that level), whether he is likely to achieve the 4b target at the end of the year, what might be holding him back if not, what is being done in school to support him, and what you might be able to do at home (if anything) to support him.

No point in talking to teachers they will tell you anything to shut you up and get you off their back

Their not ever going to say 'yeah we made a mistake' are they.

Their professionals.

You need to ask details.
Did he get the lower grade for a one-off piece of work? Or was it a test? Was it done first thing in September when he might have been rusty because of the summer holidays? If so what sort of level work is he producing now?

I would go in with the approach that you want to understand the reason for the level he now is and to identify the areas that the teacher feels he is not strong in that have put him at that level rather than higher. It could be that there are just a couple of small areas that are holding him back which you can then concentrate on and if he is stronger in the other areas then he will make quick progress through the levels once that sticking point has been sorted. E.g. he could be 3a for almost all the points but at 3c on a couple of areas - so therefore he is graded at 3c.

In previous parents evening I have been shown an evidenced based approach where the teacher highlights each of the key points under a level - once the whole column was highlighted they were deemed to have achieved that level. But that did not stop them having made progress on the next level too - so they had 3 c, 3b and 3a all on one page and would have highlights for quite a lot of things in 3c, a fair few in 3b and then maybe a couple in 3a - over the year they would get more and more highlights and whichever columns were fully marked off would be the level that they were deemed to have achieved. So could have 95% of all the bits on the page highlighted but if you still had one to achieve in 3 b and 2 in 3a you would still be a 3c.

Thanks for your tips.