child not allowed to be marked as "exceeding expections" in reception year

[azimazi]

just met the teacher for DD's first parent consultation in reception.

she's a bright kid and pretty much v good at most early things (started reading already, knows all sounds and is blending words, that kind of thing, good with numbers etc) as we have done it at home for ages...I know many of the other kids can't do this.

teacher pretty much told me this and that she is one of the kids at the top of the class, but then told me that she is "at expectations" level for everything but this doesn't reflect her actual ability, because if she puts her higher at "exceeding expections" it will follow her around and look like she's not learning if he drops into one of the other groups prior to year 6.

So I guess her thinking is that she wants him to look like he's learning whilst at school and progressing and is reluctant to put him in his actual level, which from what I gather of our convo, could be the "exceeding expectations" level for at least a few of the subject areas.

To me this sounds odd and I am trying to work out if it's normal for schools to do this or she doesn't believe DD is good enough for the top levels? Or is it because the school wants to look like they are responsible for making the progress? Or is it in DDs interest as the teacher framed it, so it doesn't look like she is dropping down in future if she fails to meet the higher levels?

Any light you can shed on this strange sounding grading policy would be great.

I’d say that she’ll mark her as exceeding at end of year so it looks like she made progress with the teacher.

Normal school practice I'm afraid. If your DD is assessed as exceeding now, it'll look as if she's not made any progress at the end of reception when she's still exceeding. Utter nonsense obviously, but the way it is. Just make sure your DD is being supported to do the things she's capable of.

That's normal, it really will make things difficult for each teacher if the first teacher sets the levels high on the first incert

It's all a load of bollocks anyway. You know what your child is capable of. Ignore it.

I’m confused do you have 2 children? You’ve used DD but she/him/ his in diff bits

Why does your child change sex for an entire paragraph in your OP? Consistant for whole middle paragraph do not a typo.

Yes, same here, I got some nonsense about "accidentally assessed her too low". I don't believe any teacher would admit to not being able to correctly assess a child. DDs teacher even joked about how it will look like an amazing jump by the end of the year

Don't worry about it, you know what your child can do

Absolutely normal, especially in reception. It’s just playing the data and numbers game really (I say this as a reception teacher btw)

It’s utter boloocks but it’s basically the way some schools scrape through ofsted and the intense focus on data and progress without the powers that be actually considering that number being an actual small human person!

thanks everyone. nice to know it's normal. I know it's irrelevant in the larger scheme of things but I don't like to think of DD being denied grades she's really deserving of, it seems weird!

Obviously at reception level this isn't a real issue, just thinking ahead about the future though and how it could pan out.... :)

but yes I do empathise with the schools, the ofsted, the grades they are being pressured to reach and show progress so I understand why they need to do this now. thanks again :)

sorry I meant to say DD all through, but my other child (DS) was harassing me while I was writing the post and got distracted!

Tbf the ‘grades’ aren’t something they earn, they don’t even know really. It’s more a tool that teachers and adults at school can use to know where each child is and what the next steps are to help them progress. As long as her teacher is aware of how to help her progress and is challenging and extending her (sounds like she is) that’s all that matters. It is all a bit rubbish though

It’s also not good if a child is graded high and then later progress slows. The teachers will be unfairly judged by ofsted etc not to have added value and it’s demoralising for a child who was told they are gifted etc to be downgraded. This does happen as pupils don’t progress in a linear fashion. Anyway, I don’t tell my DS how he is doing according to the arbitrary opinions of the government as he’s too young to get much out of it (and maybe also as he isn’t exceeding things so I don’t want to give him an inferiority complex aged 6) as none of these are ‘grades’. Nothing sticks until KS2 SATs.

My fluent reader (also able to write sentences etc and yes she did use phonics) was assessed somewhere in the 40-60 range at the beginning of reception. I find it frustrating. It's not for the child, it's not in any way to DD's advantage to be taught at a level she could easily do 2 years ago. It's purely to make the school look good. I would believe it was for DD if they made any kind of consistent effort to help her make actual progress as opposed to fake progress by only documenting things she can do once they come up in the curriculum plan.

It's annoying, but you tend to get used to it as your dc progress through years.

Perfectly normal. It's all bollocks anyway and done purely for stats.

Why are you worrying about grades in reception??? Just be happy she or he is happy & doing well. It doesn't matter what they wrote on a bit of paper OP!

I feel better reading this. I stuffed my son's report in the pantry when I got in. He can read, write simple sentences, add, subtract and reading the expectations of what they want by the end of reception he above some of it now and well on the way to the rest. He only got working at the right age in a handful of things. I tried to question it as I didn't understand why it showed he was behind in so many things when I'm sure he's not. I got told some of it was based on where he was when he came out of nursery? Well I need to know where he is now. I've been so pleased about how well he's doing and came out really deflated as I don't feel it was an accurate representation of where he's at. Glad it's not just mine.

Catkind completely agree.
My dd wasnt so far ahead, but similarly was put much lower i think than her actual ability on starting. So in fact she would have met expected for literacy by about nov/dec of yr r.
Now having incorrectly put her as met expectations at end of year R there is no need for them to stretch her. But also she was then not assessed at start of yr 1, so that is also incorrect.
Teachers opinion:
Reception 0-orange
Yr1 orange - turq so far

Imo
Yr R red/yellow at start -gold end
Yr 1 white to start - chapter books with pictures now.
It is quite a big difference making their paperwork rather pointless and the effort of them sending books and us reading them.
But not only this there does from theads here seem to be a drastic difference between what schools rate as exceeding expectations ranging from say blue to only starting at turquoise.
I have to say it annoys me that this is used to predict performance.

Not all school do this. DD (September born) received exceeding in all areas of EYFS and as she has moved up through the school has continued to be assessed as mastered/ working at greater depth in almost all areas and is taken out of class with a couple of other students to do extension work. The school has always kept me up to date if she has started to drop below her expected level.

The problem with always being assessed as higher ability though is the associated pressure at Secondary school (or at least where I work) students are told they are underachieving which I don't think is particularly helpful.

Why are you worrying about grades in reception?

How can they be teaching a child well if they're not even correctly assessing their level? I doubt they have a secret "where they're really at" assessment in their back pocket.

My child started reception in Sept and there has been no mention of grades or progress levels. We had a brief parents evening appointment but performance was not discussed it was about how the child is settling in at school.

Perhaps our school aren’t focussing on levels yet?

DD can read and write and do basic add/subtract. I don’t know if school know this her. Her reading book comments say she blends well but we have been told at this stage in reception they are focusing on comprehension of words/story rather than reading.

Naty, when DD was assessed as working within 40-60 at the beginning of reception ("DD can decode cvc words. Target to read sentences") she was reading chapter books at home, or any picture book she fancied. Total bookworm. That's not a slight disagreement on levels, it's not a shy child not showing her best face. It's hard to see it as anything but deliberate lies. Which erodes our trust in the school big time.

To be fair to them, after that parents' evening in reception they went away and assessed DD properly and let her read her own books. She's back to being stuck on level 4 books with the rest of the top group in Y1 though.

The problems with grading children in Early Years is that it is difficult to know if the child is exceeding because they are naturally gifted, or exceeding because they've had fantastic parents who have given them a great start by teaching them reading/maths/phonics before starting. When it is the latter, the other children tend to catch up by Y1/Y2.

If they are graded as exceeding at the end of Reception, the school and the Local Authority will then expect them to exceed every year, if they don't then they are not making the expected levels of progress. This puts pressure on teachers, no progress no pay rise. Teacher under pressure then often put children under pressure to do well (I'm not one of them-honest).

So please don't worry about it! Be fantastically proud of your amazing child because the data and grades are a bunch of bull (I wish I could say that to my parents)

thanks everyone, all the thoughts and feedback has been really interesting, especially to get some teacher feedback too :-)

I really know very little about the primary school system so it's enlightening to learn a bit more about it.

I'm going to keep supporting DD to the best of my ability outside of school and ignore any grades for now... :-)

Am really enjoying the relationship we have now she's a bit older and I can see the progress and we can chat / talk more etc and hopefully that will get yet more fun with time. And if it helps her at school that can only be a good byproduct!