Welsh Government Literacy and Numeracy Testing

[hettybee101]

I have just been informed by school that all children in Wales are going to be tested in Literacy and Numeracy yearly between Y2-Y9, starting this month! Does anyone have any further details on this or ideas on how I can help my DS prepare? This all sounds quite scary to me!

This is indeed true. I have seen an extract of the 'mock' papers that they will be using as I'm a governor.
I know that our school aren't too keen, because as they use learning through play until the end of year 2 they don't expect the children to be able to sit down quietly for an hour to do a test, as they will never do so in their normal classroom situation.
They will be adding more tests each year e.g. this year's numeracy is fairly simple arithmetic, but when they have had time to write them, by next year there will be a problem solving paper too.
It is basically a rushed response to the fact that Welsh grades are consistently lower than England's so WAG want to start testing to improve levels.
I'm personally not going to do anything to prepare the boys as I think that will blow them up in proportion.

I don't know if it is of any use to you but you can see what they are expected to know in each year here on the literacy and numeracy components links.

Thanks for the information and the link, really useful. The school is also holding a meeting next week to give parents a heads up but to me it just seems like the gov have suddenly reintroduced SATs. Interesting that you say your school is not keen, DS is just coming to the end of the foundation phase which he has responded really well so this feels very at odds with that!

Check out the BBC 500 words site to see some age appropriate essays and also Creative Writing Magic Money Cards which help measure writing skills as they build. Both will help you quickly see what is needed.