How much has the curriculum changed for year 5?

[MarjorieWinklepicker]

DD has gone from always being above average and now only meeting her age related expectation. She is obviously quite confused about this but is this mainly because of changes to the curriculum?

She had a tendency to coast along and do the bare minimum she can but has made the amount of progress points expected this year.

Most schools are advising exactly this - that those who were previously considered "above average" may now only be meeting the average expectations.

I wish the school had advised us that this was going to be the case. My DD told me last night that she feels dumb now obviously I tried to reassure her but her confidence has been dented.

There must be a lot of children now performing under expectations now then? What happens with sats next year?

Have been given a glimpse of the new expectations for the curriculum and it IS a much higher expectation than before. We were told if your child is meeting the new age related expectations this year then they are actually doing very well.

It's a shame the school didn't give parents more of a heads up on this.

I'm guessing this applies to all years too? DS is in reception and I know he is in the top reading group in his class (he has turquoise books) but his teacher says he has only just met expectations in reading after supposedly being behind all year?

It doesn't apply to Reception Marjorie as they are still following EYFS rather than the national curriculum.

And I find it hard to believe that your ds would have been behind as well..

Not to imply that book bands are the be all and end all of reading assessment, but my ds is on blue band (nearly completed from what I can tell) and he got "exceeding" for that section on his EYFS report.

I still find the whole new curriculum hard to understand.. Is the curriculum about just push push push the kids...I want my DS to enjoy school so he learns that way..He refused to write for a while as he felt the school were pushing beyond what he thought he was capable of

At DS' last parent consultation back at Easter his teacher said he hadn't met his age related expectation level for reading. He was on blue books at the time. I find it bizarre too and I think she was wrong.

Obviously each school has their own levelling system now and the dc's school seem to have the age for that class as the level (so 5b is average for reception and 10b for DD's year 5 class). Then they have + or - for each a,b and c level too, it's so confusing!

When ds first started school I believe she assessed him wrong as he was brand new to the school and very shy. I don't think she could have moved him up so many points without making herself look a bit incompetent tbh. He was assessed as 3c+ for reading at the start, he is now on 5c+ apparently making 17 points progress when the average is 6 points a year. I've been in his class and read with the children, I know he is exceeding the level for reception I just don't see why she can't say that.

I haven't had an EYFS report back for ds yet, or at any stage actually. It is an academy school though so are they allowed to do it differently?

If they are assessing age-wise then I would ah her assessment that he's a 5c+ sounds wrong to me...I would expect it to be 6 something as he's definitely reading at a level that is average for year 1. Could he already read a bit when he started reception?

*say

He had a very basic phonics knowledge when he started reception, he could probably sound out words like bat and pop. He is in the top phonics group and can read his turquoise books fluently with lovely expression. He has gone from green to turquoise in 2 months.

I'm going to check with his teacher on Monday that this is correct at the risk of sounding like a pushy mum. I think as he only turned 5 in June his teacher wrote him off from the beginning as a summer born boy

Bizarre. That sounds to me like the initial assessment of 3c+ was wrong too then, as what's "expected" is that children recognise the alphabet (but not in a phonics sense) and their own name.