Year 3 spring report, please can we have your opinion

[SunshineMK1]

Just received school report for my DS for the Spring term report in year 3. can you share your views with me please? Should I worry about the progress in writing? How did you help your children with their writing at home? Would we need a private tutor on the writing?
If you are a teacher, could we also have your opinion from school's perspectives? Would DS survive in the grammar school exam in the future? Many thanks for your advice!

       KS1          Autumn 2013 Spring 2014

Reading 3C 3B 3A

Writing 2A 2A 3C

Maths 3B 3A 4C

KS1 Autumn 2013 Spring 2014

Reading 3C 3B 3A

Writing 2A 2A 3C

Maths 3B 3A 4C

What do the three levels next to each area relate to?

Hi Miranda,
Hope the below clarifies...

KS1(taken at the end of year 2)
Reading: 3C, writing: 2A, Maths: 3B

Autumn 2013 (Year 3)
Reading 3B, Writing: 2A, Maths 3A

Spring 2014 (Year 3)
Reading: 3A, Writing: 3C, Maths: 4C

I think her writing level is fine.
Levels go up slower in KS2 than KS1.
So a child making linear progress with a 2a in KS1 would be expected to get to 3a by the end of year 4 and to 4a by the end of year 6.
If she has got to 3c after 2 terms and has got another 4 terms to get to 3a she is doing fine.

Sorry he not she!

Hi SunshineMK

first off take a look at MN Learning pages on progress through NC Levels here: www.mumsnet.com/learning/assessment/progress-through-national-curriculum-levels - scroll down and you'll see from the table at the bottom that expected progress at the end of YEAR 3 is 2a or 3c.

So in fact by Spring of Y3 - your child has attained the notional target for expected progress.

Yes writing is clearly his weakest subject - but there are ways of cracking that.

Sly encouragement of more writing:

Encourage a diary or designing cartoons.

Encourage your DC to send postcards from places you visit.

Be traditional - and have your DC write thank you cards for presents/ treats from relatives/ etc...

Encourage your DC to enter competitions but to write in (the old fashioned way) and say something nice about the sports hero/ author's books/ etc...

When he has writing assignments from school - look it over - and then discuss with him how he might make it better. I played a game with DD1 (queen of the monosyllable) using Harry Potter characters and having her write sentences describing them.

She started with the deadly boring:

harry potter is a boy

So first off we discussed whether anything might be missing - she agreed a full stop might be nice but I needed to point out Capital H and P for Harry's full name.

They I asked if she could make it more interesting.

She came up with : Harry Potter is a boy and a wizard.

I said good, but I'm still falling asleep. Can you make it exciting and wake me up?

She came up with:

Harry Potter seems like an ordinary boy, but actually he's a wizard.

I then cheered and did a little jig for joy - that is a proper sentence I declared. DD1 got the message. It's now become a bit of a game - I take a peak at her homework now and then and tackle a weak sentence insisting she improve it.

-------

Have a look at VCOP pyramid - it works top down - such that things at the top are lower ability and things at the bottom show high ability. By using this against what your DC is writing you can get an idea of what he/ she should start moving on to next.

Link here: displays.tpet.co.uk/?resource=387#/ViewResource/id387 - there are 4 sides - so click each little number below image.

HTH

Brilliant suggestions from PastSellByDate as always - this is the method DD2's school uses to encourage quality writing and it really, really works.

Expected progress is 1 or 2 sub-levels. Your DS has made 1 sub-level's progress in 2 terms, so he is doing fine.

As others have said, a 2a at Year 2 is above national expectation, and the expected level for the END of year 3 is a 2a / 3c.

It's tricky to move from a 2a to a 3c in writing. I have a lot of writing samples where I really dither on the border but, to me, a level 3 needs to have a certain amount of flair and flow to it. Writing may technically be a 3, but it can be held back by a lack of finesse.

I'm not sure I'm explaining that very well! I guess my point is, it's a judgement call.

Your son sounds like mine was at that age - good at maths and reading, less brilliant when it comes to writing, which seems to require more effort! Do you think he is struggling with the writing (not that those are bad levels, just that the writing isn't on a par with other things) or is it more likely he's just not that bothered? Maturity may help a bit, if so. I don't know what the NC levels would need to be for grammar school; not in a grammar area here, but my cousins' kids with high Level 5s at KS2 got into grammars. So if L3s in Y2 can be expected to translate into L5s by Y6, I'd say you have a reasonable chance, especially as the maths looks particularly strong.
Before going down the private tutor route, can you ask his teacher if they have a literacy booster group that your son might benefit from, since his writing isn't keeping pace with the maths and reading? It might genuinely be helpful, or it might just give your DS a bit of a wake-up call!

Expected progress in a year is 1.5 sublevels. Your DD has already exceeded that in reading and maths in 2 terms, and may well be achieving it in writing. She is doing very well :)

Looks fine to my, DDs primary did masses of the make your writing more interesting and writing for different audiences stuff with DD2's cohort. (Much less with DD1's year and it showed in the SATs results).

With Ofsted breathing down their necks, I'd be very surprised if any primary hasn't now got a good writing frame work in place.

Thank you very much, everybody for your detailed analysis of the situation we are confronting with...Much appreciated.