I need help translating our report.

[withaspongeandarustyspanner]

To be honest, I've always been a bit confused about the reports and generally go with what's written about them and the subject rather than the numbers, but it seems to have been changed this year. In previous years, there used to be a number and a letter - now there's a number and a word (or an abbreviation of a word) like 'mastered', 'Emb', 'Dev' or 'Beg'.

Can anyone enlighten me please? I've got three kids in the school and they all seem to be doing well (at least I think they are), but I'd feel such a fool asking for clarification from the teachers about this.

Thanks in advance.

There's been a change to the curriculum and assessment this year. There are no national guidelines that schools can use to assess, so they are free to make up their own systems. You might have to ask the school to clarify.

Don't feel like a fool. They should have explained it properly.

They have included some other info, but as far as I can see it doesn't really correspond to anything.

I will ask on Monday.

I think they'd mean beginning, developing, embedded. The equivalent of working towards, within and exceeding. Would that make sense?

That's what I was going to say too PecanThief. So, under the old system, beg would be a c, dev would be a b, and embedded would be an a

C word should be avoided religiously

I wondered if that was what they meant, but there isn't much of a key by way of explanation. The other thing - I have a DS in Y1 and hi grades are 1 followed by beg, emb or dev, and a DD in Y3 again, all of hers are a 3 followed by abbreviations of those words. However, I have another DD in Y5 but all her grades (but one) are a 6 followed by Beg, Dev or Emb. I'm assuming that this must just be an error and that they should all be a 5. I will ask for clarification.

The 1 or 3 relates to the year group expectations and the comment describes how they are working within/towards those expectations

The number relates to their year group and the rest whether they are beginning to work to their age related expectations, developing (achieving) or embedding (exceeding/mastering/broadening).The number is there as some children may be working on the expectations of the year group below.

It annoys me how many schools haven't bothered to explain their new assessment system to parents. It's the reason we haven't given any 'levels' or abbreviations just a comment in each subject saying whether they are working towards/ achieving / mastering their age related expectations.

I know - I usually give up trying to work it out, and then there's all the comments from the other mothers asking what my child got so that they can compare. I don't care. I just read the words that the teachers have written, because actually that does make sense and means something to me.