Dropping from 3b to 3c in writing

[shallweshop]

My DD is in year 4 and is currently in the top group for literacy. When she started the year she was a level 3b and I thought she was making good progress. She always gets 10/10 for her spellings, she is a good reader and seemed to be coping with any homework set.

I was therefore totally unprepared for her school report which came home last week which revealed that she had received poor in her writing for both effort and progress and she has dropped down to level 3c.

I have asked to talk to her teacher about this. I am puzzled how she can still be in the top set even though she has dropped a level. I am also disappointed that I was so unaware of her lack of progress. Should the teacher have flagged it up earlier?

Any thoughts/comments would be welcome.

Have you been to Parents' Evening in the Autumn Term, (and Spring term if it's happened yet) ?

It's not uncommon for someone to be on the 'border' of one sublevel and another, and they can be judged slightly differently by different staff, or sometimes pupils can produce different levels of work in different tasks (might be better at one aspect of writing or might particularly enjoy or dislike one of the things they are doing).

We had parents evening in October but that was a bit too soon to really discuss progress and was more a how they had settled in to the new year. Not sure if we are getting another one?

Interesting points about being judged differently and producing different work on different tasks.

Have you seen her exercise books, OP? Noticed any changes in effort?

At my school, we are told never to give a level lower than one given previously - they can not go backwards unless they 'unlearn' stuff.

There is probably very little difference between 3b and 3c, but I would still raise it. Remember these are end of key stage levels and really aren't meant to indicate progress over a few months.

Is it the genre of writing they have worked on recently (DS does much better in some types of writing than others)?

For info DS's writing levels were as follows:
end of KS1 - 2a
start of Y3 - 2b
end of Y3 - 3c
start of Y4 - 2b
end of Y4 - 3a
mid Y5 - anything from 3c-4c according to his teacher!

I have stopped worrying and at least the overall profile is upwards.

They did seem to vary wildly. We now have a better idea about what things he does well and where the gaps are (he is great at non-fiction writing and poetry, but really struggles with longer creative writing). I would suggest it's worth you trying to understand if the drop in level represents a particular weakness.

Phone box - no, I haven't seen her books, they stay in school.

Baby bouncer - I think that's a good point about going backwards and unlearning things. I will bring that up with her teacher.

Red sky - thanks for sharing your DS's levels. I am going to ask DD's teacher what she thinks are the weak areas and how we can help at home.

Thanks all.