Refusing to put dc on next reading level or even assess

[Blueschool]

Dc in in year 2. Has been on same reading level since September.

My dc may not be good at a lot at school, but reading is dc strong point. Not the top of class but quite advanced. Not just my opinion but her previous teachers and helpers.

Her current level is not a challenge anymore. Mentioned this weeks ago. Given a huge list basically telling me why dc is a crap reader in teachers opinion. Very surprised as one area always was praised on reading.

Took it on chin and we worked hard to resolve the issues like "not enough expression".

Dc reading is just fine. I can not find not fault.

My comment I wrote last week was the "book was not a challenge". Teacher took a whole page up in dd reading record to again tell me how crap dc is.

I felt the comments were utterly unfair and do not reflect reality at all. She also told me I could buy books to read at home! Very unfair assumption dc reads for pleasure all the time and has 100+ at home.

She said IF she wants she will assess her after Christmas she will.

My issues are

• I thought parents and teachers were meant to be in partnership with education. How is this a partnership?

• IF dc is genuinely reading badly at school WHY? Why is there such a difference? Why is her educational environment not making her feel confident and supported to show her real abilty?

• Another parent has told me they have had similar issues as the teacher gets herself stressed. Im sorry, but holding a child back because you are stressed is quite something.

What should I do?

Nor do I mrz. It was refreshing on our summer holiday not to have internet access. Both DH and I (and DS..) read more. Got home and back to our wicked ways.....

But I read all day long, on Mumsnet.

Hi Brycie (and others),

I?m a Year 2 teacher, here?s my timetable:

8:55 ? 9:05am: Registration
9:10 ? 9:35: Assembly
9:35 ? 10:35: Lesson 1.
10:35 ? 10:55: Break time
11:00 - 12:00: Lesson 2
12:00 ? 13:00: Lunch
13:00- 13:10: Registration
13:10 ? 13:30: Guided reading
13:30 ? 14:20: Lesson 3
14:20 ? 14:30: Break time
14:30 ? 15:10 ? Lesson 4
15:10 ? 15:30 ? tidy up, read a story, give out book bags, coats, lunch boxes, letters and line up to go home?

We are fortunate enough to have a flexible timetable meaning we can teach any subject at any time (apart from reading as it?s a whole school thing done after lunch)

I TEND to do this:
1 hour of maths in the morning
1 hour of English in the morning ? 10 minutes of which HAS to be phonics (school policy) so in the other 50 minutes I do reading, writing, speaking, listening, drama, grammar

After lunch:
50 mins before second play and 40 minutes after second play and before we get ready for home: 1hr 30 minutes to cover:
Science, Art, DT, PE, Geography, History, PSHE, RE, ICT and Citizenship 10 other subjects that, by law, I have to ensure are being taught in my classroom. This isn't a moan, it's just a statement of fact.

I get round this "not enough time dilemma" by teaching as much as I can in a cross-curricular way so I might do an English lesson where we write and film news reports about the Chicago fires or a diary entry as if we were there.
30 minutes of reading 1-2-1 in the morning AND the afternoon? Where? Please do advise!

It?s also worth point out my year group is a bulge class so 3 form entry so my hard working TA is split 3 ways. Also before anyone questions the five minute gaps ? my classroom is in another building to the assembly hall and infant playground. I adore my job, I work all hours there are at it, 11 hours in school each day and additional work at night to make sure my lessons are tailored to the specific needs of my children.
Very interested to hear your solution as I joined Mumsnet after reading this thread.

Blueschool,

Not all schools assess children regularly. Some do it more often, then there is more chance to put them on higher level (both at seating and choosing books).
It is worth to read the school's OFSTED report and the League Table results of the school (many years back to compare). My school's Ofsted report mentioned that the school's recent low LT results are caused by not assessing children properly. So let's say those children that used to be High Achievers but are not any more kept their HA places...

Other idea from somebody was to look for other reasons. Does your D's school have enough books, TAs-LSAs? Is she the only child on that level or are there many others?

All schools should be assessing every day it's called Assessment for Learning

Or how would you know what to teach?

thanks mrz im intrigued by that.

Only because dd did 8weeks term 1 at school a.
she moved after half term
parents evening in school a was 1st week back
dds freind sparents got told uptodate levels.

2weeks in school b still not heard from school a
wherees dd receords?
teacher at school b phoned school who gave grade from year 1 only
nothing for year 2
They said they did assessment 1st week back and dd had moved
personally feel this is really poor.

in process of hassling school a for all workbooklets and work from term 1
as teacher has very little eveidence to assess her writing
shes been at new school 3weeks
readings and phonics been assessed
was told last week shes strong at maths which school a said shes weak at.

old school said reading comprehension week new one say fine its fluency.

hoping by last week term we finally have some idea where she is and if shes made any progress in year 2.
I think she has but its bugs me even teacher said they do assesment continually.

Dds sister I know diffrenet as early years but have regular learning stories and assesment dont understand why would be condensed to a a specific time.

I wouldn't expect most children to progress a sub level in half a term, so if Y1 assessments were accurate then it is perfectly normal for a child to be still at that level at half term of Y2.

"old school said reading comprehension week new one say fine its fluency."

It's pretty subjective and depends on expectations

well according to dds freinds mum shes gone up 1sublevel.

Im not sure when year 1 assessemnt were must be good few months ago.

Did a lot of work with her over summer.

Im hoping shes progressed to 1a or 2c.as target is 2b end of year.
shes got new teacher after xmas so teacher no 3.

Think old school being very unprofessional delaying sending records and just making things difficult.

Making a sub level progress in half a term is possible but the expectation is 3 sub levels in 3 terms ... children progress at different rates and progress is rarely linear. The jump from 2C to 2B is almost a full level in itself whereas 2B to 2A is a much smaller step ...

Mam,

I do 'formative assessments' (ie what the child needs to do next) every day. 'What the child needs to do next' may be to move onto a new reading book level, as for me this comes 'between' NC levels - ie they have to move onto the new level, then show all of that new NC level's skills using that level of text before I would record them as being e.g. a 2b if they had been a 2c.

However I only do 'summative assessments' (which give a child a level in terms of NC numbers) at 7 points in the year - on entry [almost always lower than end of previous year, due to the long break], then every half term.

The previous school has given the new school the previous summative assessment for your child. They will have loads of 'formative assessments' [many in the teacher's head, on post-its, on group record sheets, in marking in books] but those are not used day-to-day to apply numbers and letters to your child. To ask a teacher to create and communicate a new summative assessment after a child has left ... well, I might do it, if I felt that there had been very significant movement since the last summative assessment. But it wouldn';t be top of my (always endless) to do list.

(I should say that the 'summative assessment' I do for reading levels is from the accumulated evidence from daily formative assessments - it's not a 'one off' test-type thing, it requires sitting down and weighing all the evidence)

Absolutely teacherwith2kids - up until that first half term I would only have formative assessment. This week, for example, we were doing bar graphs - after the first lesson I went through their work and what I had seen in the lesson and worked out their next step - so lesson 2 was based entirely on what they needed to learn. Nothing was written down, apart from a couple of post-its of children that had made similar errors. And that is how most assessment works. It is used to feed into planning. Once a half term or term there is summative assessment but if those hadn't been done by the point DD had left I can completely understand how there wouldn't be any official assessment data to send.

Thanks for explaining way I been informed is

school a not sent records

they asscess at end or start of new term so 8weeks without assessment.

term 1 teacher did say dd doing well
she was moved up literacy table few weeks before leaving
she was top group phonics as it was based on who passed year 1 phonics test and those who dident.

She ended year 1 on level 3 ort-on tables thats lower than 2b
ended on ginn level 5 so sort equivilant 8
So i do think her readings progressed.

Old school said shes struggles with maths new school says shes quite good?
As she got 1 b in everything sceince, writing, reading and numercacy I wasent sure what to ficus on.

Got grades mid july so guessing grades assessed in june its no nearly december.

we did extra reading in summer hols
we did maths factor website
dident know where she struggled with science and how to improve that.

Did focus on writing as ofsted mentioned the school was weak wuth writing.

My freinds whos child was same year at school a
was diffrent class last year as she was 15youngest as july born.
freind said she got 1as and couple 2cs not sure how they were split.
when she went to paents evening 2weeks ago the year 2teacher at school a said she was at 2b in everything-could be freind being dishonest she does think shes gifted.

Yet seen her dds writing its not as neat as mines
her dd was one book level above mine at end of year2
dd could have caught up if reading had not be restricted to 4pages a night.

I gues my worry about year 2 is sats unlike year 6 its not a formal test its teacher assessment,

dd will have teacher no 3 in jan
shes on her 2nd school within year 2 done term at each by xmas.
term 1 was longer term of 8weeks
teacher did say se leave her books and work in reception we tried to pick it up twice.

i was told records go pretty quick and electronically.
its same lea.
instead new year 2teacher having to chase up and us.
Shes been there at school b 3weeks and been pout into handriting/phonics group and guided reading but

have no idea how shes is at science. shes repeating one science topic as schools doing in diffrent order.

new school works diffrently in maths lots of manipulatives dd just had number sqaure in old school.
shes also repeating a history topic on castles which she did in year 1.

Booked appointment before breakup at xmas hoping by then they have chance to give her fair grade for new teacher to work on.

Head did say when we looked roun that they checked after xmas abyway and if intervention needed presats then that will happen.

Not even sure when sats happen and how much time we have to work on any weaknesses as some say its continous teacher assessment.

even for year 2teacher to speak to new year 2teacher and say look not done formal assesmmnet but based on my work done term 2/obseravtions i would say shes about-would be useful.

Sorry... I know brycie has banned me, but....

We have loads of movement at our school, and we would expect end of year summative assessments to arrive from the previous school to enter on our data tracker. However, end of year targets are set on our assessment of the children.

We also like to have a thumb through old workbooks just to get an idea of the current level, although this is sometimes difficult as group/class support is not always recorded. We keep end of year reports (although these don't tell us much at all, except what a treasure the child has been in his/her last class).

Mam, you say that you are:
'in process of hassling school a for all workbooklets and work from term 1
as teacher has very little eveidence to assess her writing
shes been at new school 3weeks'

3 weeks should be more than enough time for a teacher to have assessed a writing level. Don't they do writing tasks at dd's new school?

Although we have national writing criteria, it appears (IME) that there are significantly different expectations in different parts of the country, so I would always level writing against our own school expectations.

Agree with alcofrolic - mam29, your dd's old school sounds dreadful, from reading your many posts on the subject.

Thanks guys

I thourght kids move all time must be used to sending records.
old teacher promised her work be in reception to collect 1st week back.

New teacher said of course shes done a little written work but not of huge depth or length yet.,I took story book dd wrote over summer in.

Will hopefully get term 1 work tommorow as know she did lots written work as saw it breifly when we had chat with old teacher.

new school have assigned a reading level
shes in supported guided reading group
handwriting and phonics been told shes strong as they tested her she knows all her sounds.

We missed parents evening at new school as that was end of term one and old school was at beggining of term 2.
hence why im clueless as both yera 2teachers telling me diffrenet things.

Im hoping her 1b be out of date and reflect hard work we and dd have put in.

shes gone from pure year 2class -bottom of it to

mixed year 1/2class new schhool has no immediate academic concerens.

I feel old school dident work to her potential shes bright girl no specific special needs/learning issues.

I have her end year written report doesnt tell me much..

Many of you questioned that this child was assessed or properly assessed (maybe he was shy, tired). My child was assessed before the end of this first term. Since then she was moved up twice. There are 6 children in a group, so it is very unlikely that she suddenly overtook 12 children. I already written a letter to the head teacher and if we disagree with the class teacher I will find other ways to assess her.

anita, I think the OP has gone off because this thread has been running for so long. I don't understand what you mean by you'll find other ways to assess your daughter. Say for the sake of argument you could come up with an assessment of your daughter what would you do with it? Surely assessments are tools for professionals and institutions. Parents don't need to assess their children we just read and write with them, surely.