Yr 2 SATS- no "greater depth" without cursive?

[oncewasawarrior]

Had DSs Yr 2 parent consultation thingy this morning. All very positive- he’s a bright chap, gets on with people, needs to be a bit less chatty- the usual for him!

However, she mentioned at the end that it was a shame he probably wouldn’t get “greater depth” for his literacy in the year 2 Sats as his handwriting wasn’t great! His content, punctuation and spelling are all excellent (greater depth standard), he’s got a reading-age of 12+ BUT because he can’t do cursive he can’t get greater depth. His writing is perfectly legible btw- just not cursive.

Is this actually A Thing? Surely as long as handwriting’s legible and neat enough then it should be all about the content? I don’t particularly care about YR2 SATS but this has annoyed me. Anyone know if this is really the case?

Sally, but the thing is, children are forced to learn it soon or later in primary, and not being able will effect even more in ks2. It's better to get it earlier. And OP's dc has plenty of time before end of yr2.

Why is it better to 'get there' early? Will this be some sort of advantage later in life? No. It's all madness. All this pressure for children to reach targets for something they will just get in time. I can think of no reason it should be essential for a 7 year old to have mastered joined up writing. We can all do it. Or is it so people can go around boasting about 'greater depth' and reading ages several years ahead of their age? It means nothing.

It's not though essential for children to have mastered joined up writing at the age of 7. DS managed it and got working at greater depth, which for a left handed (early) summer term born boy was very pleasing, but it's not something I boast about or even mention to other parents.

No, not talking about later in life. Later in primary. It really isn't about greater depth.
It's that children need to learn it like it or not, and they will have even more pressure to write more in lesson using cursive. That's all I am saying.
I never pushed my ds to use cursive in ks1. Didn't really care if he got lv3 or not.(old nc). But once he was in ks2, he was kept in at breaks just finish off work because he was painfully slow writer using cursive.
It could have been easier for him, to get on with it when teacher was trying to make my ds master it in ks1, rather than dealing with the pressure of harder work and writing neat and fast in ks2.

Also, it's easy to say getting greater depth doesn't matter at Y2, but schools are concerned about their progress. A child who gets GD at ks1 may be pushed more at ks2 and from ks2 there are implications for GCSE targets.

Good schools should be pushing all children to achieve their potential but not all schools are good. Some will look at 2 children with similar ability/potential and say child A will be targeted for interventions because of their ks1 results,child b has made their progress already so they're not a priority'.

English Year 2 SATS are ridiculous.

Another problem for child like mine or OP's dc is that they are high achievers. Teachers find this as an area for progress, especially other areas are already "working at above expectations."

I would really like to know how accurate those GCSE targets are. Not particularly would be my guess.

I just think the current system is inherently wrong. We place all this pressure on children to all be ticking the same boxes to be labelled as GD or whatever else. Children develop at a different rate. Most countries only start formal education at 7, in this country we are testing and labelling children from 4. All great if you are the ones who consider your children to be 'high achievers', whatever that means when someone is 7, but what about those who struggle. Are they meant to feel heartened by the idea that their 'success' in a test taken at 11 will predict how they will do at 16? What if a child is amazing at reading at 7, but hasn't quite got to drips with joining one letter to another, is it OK to tell them they didn't make the grade of GD? It's inflexible and limited to the boxes to be ticked, whilst ignoring all the other achievements.

You seems to be totally missing a point, Sally. I am not happy with the system, but the reality is that children are forced to do it anyway.

"Most countries only start formal education at 7"

Do you actually know how it works in those countries? I am from one of those countries, and by the time they start school, they can read/ write/ count since they have done it in kindergarten, and lesson are very formal, and nothing like ks1 in England.

Stop being so patronising Irvine. I am not missing the point. I just have a different view to you. The idea that we should be telling parents their child doesn't fulfil a criteria because he doesn't do one thing particularly well by the age of 7, but he will most likely master in a few years is nonsense
As is the idea that we should take seriously the notion that Gcse targets should be decided on results from primary school. Our education system has become a box ticking exercise.

Although, I don't suppose we would agree. Anyone who describes their 7 year old as a 'high achiever' is never going to be someone I can take seriously.

SallyAnneMarie and all the others that say it’s all "madness" etc – we all (parents and teachers) know that the NC is far from perfect. However, that is what we’re stuck with, and if we choose to send our kids to state school, it is only fair that we make reasonable efforts to work within the system. The teachers have a hard enough job getting the children through the NC without having to deal with unsupportive parents who tell their children that it "doesn't matter".

Of course, if a child is struggling with something (eg a child with dyspraxia who may not be capable of neat, cursive writing in Y2) both the parents and the teachers should be sensitive to this.

SallyAnneMarie: “The idea that we should be telling parents their child doesn't fulfil a criteria because he doesn't do one thing particularly well by the age of 7, but he will most likely master in a few years is nonsense”

I don’t understand why it’s nonsense. The child isn’t fulfilling a criterion if he is not doing something particularly well by the age at which he is expected to do it (according to the NC).

As a parent, I want to know all about my child’s weaker areas as well as her strengths. Of course, I would be mindful as to whether the expectations seemed a bit high in a particular area (perhaps a fault of NC), and I would hope for a bit of honesty and realism from the teacher in terms of how much further improvement is reasonable within the timeframe.

I was quite surprised at our Y2 Parent/teacher meeting that SATs weren't mentioned at all, and we barely had anything to say to each other in the time available so it wasn't as if there was a shortage of time, it just wasn't mentioned, and we didn't ask.

I do think that perhaps the framing of the weakness Ginmummy1 was bad here, had it been (after positive points) littlewarrior does need to move to a cursive form, printing will almost always be slower. So it's an important skill to learn, and most will be achieving this in YR2, this is what we're doing in class..., it would be good encourage practice at home. Then I suspect the comment would've been taken completely differently.

I echo the point about hearing about weaknesses, teachers seem reluctant (or maybe DD is perfect) the only one we got told was her use of "I know that, but I forgot" when told about something she did wrong - regardless of what it is...

Good point about framing, SirFred. We had the same comment as OP from DD's Y2 teacher but framed better, and we appreciated the steer and DD is also fully on board with it.

sir I think it would have been taken differently ie ignored. It's only when greater depth is mentioned does it become an issue, especially as the OP is expecting he DS to be marked as working at greater depth.

Crikey- this was languishing at 12 responses a few days ago.... lucky I checked!
Sone interesting points made. I’m not too fussed about yr 2 SATS, but as someone mentioned once the teacher brought it up it did annoy me. She was very defeatist BUT she showed me his book and I could understand! With 30 children her focus is obv on those who are still struggling significantly rather than a very smart child who just can’t do cursive.

DS goes to a very big school who put children in ability groups for ks2. I was very laissez fair with DD and think it did her a disservice as she ended up in a group doing work she was easily capable of and we struggled to get her moved up. My concern is that an able child will not be stretched in ks2 because of his handwriting!

His fine motor skill are dreadful. It’s a real struggle for him and it frustrates me to see him struggle to do 3 lines of cursive in the time he could have taken to do 10 better quality lines in his usual writing. However- so be it. He’s doing 15 mins practice every night and I’m trying to make it fun😟

It is worth doing exercises to strengthen finger grip and fine motor skills, (play dough, bead stringing, tracing, dot to dots, lego, pinching clothes pins, peg boards, finding beads hidden in play dough, all that kind of thing - there are many lists of exercises!) and also checking to make sure that he is forming all the letters correctly, as it's impossible to join well if he is making the letters backwards or in some other inefficient way. Making sure pencil grip is good (there are three or four 'good' grips - doesn't have to be the standard one, but shouldn't be one of the 'inefficient' ones that will be painful or slow in the end). I personally prefer the 'monks grip' one, but tripod grips resting on middle or ring finger are more usual. The thumb wrap grip (you can google all these) is not good as it prevents the hand/fingers from moving freely and causes tension up the arm - much stiffer movements, which will reduce speed and may cause pain long term.

Then it is also worth looking up the intervention programmes "Write from the Start" and "Speed Up" - the former is more about learning to make various movements and shapes, a perceptual-motor program, whereas the latter one is more about learning to make relaxed, smooth movements that will improve speed. It includes things like exercises for shoulders, writing on vertical surfaces etc, which are all very helpful for handwriting (as are core strength exercises in general), despite not being specifically related to hands/fingers/mark-making! It also means you can get some fun practice in without it seeming like writing.

It helps greatly to do smaller amounts of practice every day, instead of larger amounts once a week.

SATs are an utter nonsense and waste of everyone's time and effort. But if it makes you feel better, my eldest son's handwriting was always crap but he got into Oxford. It doesn't actually matter as long as it's legible enough to be read in an exam. We're boycotting SATs for the youngest.

That won't be easy, since the writing we're talking about is the entirety of their writing from around February until June!

You'd also have to take them out for the whole of May to avoid Reading and Maths tests. Even so, they'll still receive the same assessment at the end of the year.

I just came back on to say that actually, the framework has changed this year and there is a little flexibility with writing that was not there last year. This means that a child whose only weakness was the lack of joined handwriting could still be awarded GD. The teacher's professional judgement takes precedence. The framework is here

MrsK Has the standard dropped this year compared to last year?

I might be misreading but in 2017 children needed to join some of their letters to meet the expected standard, and join most to get awarded GD.

The document you have linked to for 2018 doesn't mention joined up for expected, and only says they need to join some to get awarded GD.

They didn't even bring in pushing cursive writing until DD1 was in Y3, and I didn't learn until Y6 - had I not changed schools then I would never have learned cursive as my other school didn't think it was important at all.

Good news for OP's dc and many others.