A piece of DD writing, friend thinks it's excellent... What do MN teachers think please

[Minimaxkids]

I've seen others post writing on MN so here goes.
The name S is spelt correctly but is distinctive so just left it as S.

onec a pon a time there livd a Prinsess called S. One day she was going to mareey a prinss but S coodonte choose wich Prinss. At larest S choose the perfict Prinss then they mareed. Suddenly a witch zoomed in and took the prinsess to the witches castle and tied the Princess up the End.

Part of my reason for asking is she did this at school during one of the endless colouring in sessions her teacher does. We have been v unhappy with this teacher for many reasons. She is so bored of colouring in she wrote a story instead. It's neat and well formed on lined paper.

She is in Y1

This is great and what I would expect from the more able third of a year 1 class. As a y1 teacher my class would be writing every day as directed by a teacher and at other times through choice , have you raised it with the teacher? Say you we're impressed and wondered how often she writes like this? This might give you an idea of what is really going on my class rarely do any ' colouring' but lots of drawing with different materials.

What do you want to know?
She's spelling phonetically and using graphic knowledge for some words. I am surprised at the range of spelling ability - 'suddenly' and 'witches' are excellent spellings - there is a possibility that words like this may be displayed in the classroom She has used a recognised story starter 'once upon a time.'
Obviously the story is simple but I like it! It is fine for year one standard wise I think (disclaimer: haven't taught year 1 for a few years).

Thanks, wasn't expecting anyone to be up yet!

That's great to hear it's a good standard for her year. I think her spelling is good too but because of only having ORT sent home and the word suddenly is endlessly used in it. But interesting to me she spelt princess wrong but later right. Is that normal?

Yes perfectly normal, same with reading sometimes they will read a word on one page and not the next. Baffling but common!

I would be very proud if my dd produced work like that - well done to your dd!

What a sweet story . I doubt very much that they have colouring in lessons though ?

DD is also yr 1 and that's about what she would produce. Have been told she is in top third of class. Massive variety of abilities in the class though!

It's lovely and is what a good y1 pupil would produce.

Very similar to what dd2 writes, also Y1, also top third of class.

Lovely story

The writing is good, but sounds like you are unhappy with the colouring in. Is there anything else she can do (apart from write a story) during this time? Worth a word with the teacher?

Some children don't like colouring.
Dd1 didn't like colouring-she saw it as a bit of a waste of time that she could spend doing more interesting things-like write a story. Sometimes she would come out with her colouring sheet labelled meticulously with the names of stuff, or a story written about the picture. Her teacher was happy for her to do this to a certain extent.
Ds doesn't like colouring-or really most forms of art in school.

For both of them, doing some colouring was good for them. It helped their pencil control and fine motor skills. That in turn helped their handwriting.
For ds (currently in year 1) the teacher sort of tricks him into colouring with using different things. For example he brought home a piece of paper with a beautiful picture made up of coloured in squared. It gave coordinates and told you which colour to colour that square in. He didn't realise he'd coloured as he was too busy being interested in the maths.

Dd loves colouring in. Sadly so does her teacher every Tuesday and every Friday for far too long. Dd brings home sheets and sheets of the damn stuff, all beautiful and meticulous.

So long story is I have been most unsure of quality of teaching, but Dd is still doing well so that's a relief. It's a temp teacher but contract is for entire year. Don't think it is being renewed as job advert is up.

Slight detour - Do any of you use schofield and sims mental arithmetic books? Can they be roughly attributed to NC levels?

It's lovely piece for a reception child but personally I would expect much more from a child in my Y1 class.

But not necessarily if they had chosen to write independently during colouring in time mrz, rather than being directed by the teacher with more focus?

And more to the point mrz, what do you think of spending 2 longish sessions a week colouring in in Y1? .

I would expect more from Y1 independent writing freetrait ... considerably more if it were teacher input.
I don't do colouring in unless it was a focused fine motor intervention for specific children.

Funny you say that mrz. I have my own school books, handily dated on front covers. My standard of writing was actually much better at the same age as DD.

I still think it is good for a reception child's independent writing and you should be proud of her.

but the OP's daughter is in Y1 (?)

I think it is quite similar to my reception daughter's writing, she often just sits down and starts writing something at home. we have just had a story about an elephant who liked spring cleaning with a feather duster. but having said that my daughter is one of the oldest in the class so some Yr1 children won't be much older although they will presumably have had a lot more writing experience at school.

cool. well done her

DS couldn't write that well in Reception but can write a lot better than that now in Y1.

Missed that in OPs post sorry ... I would expect more in Y1

Peri she is fairly young in the year, May. Even so, she is a bright button.

We just had a debate about reading school books as she is finding them dull as dishwater (ORT jackdaws level8 so white level) and won't do her reading homework. She is however sitting in bed reading rainbow fairies quite happily

DS is October. His writing really took off in Y1. I put this down partly to his maturity, but also due to being taught very well. Perhaps the latter hasn't been the case with your DD .

Never had the pleasure of Jackdaws, can you write a note to her teacher to move her onto something else if she finds them dull?