L6 writing exercise - should I be worried?

[Cheongfan]

DS just did a test for secondary entry at a not particularly selective primary school. They've come back saying they need to have him assessed by their SEN department. School has never highlighted this as a major concern and in fact he's normally considered very strong at English. I'm now panicking that I should have been pushing the school harder. Can anyone have a look and tell me how worried I should be? This was 15 minutes and without me prompting (because meant to be exam conditions).

Background is he does have a processing issue but we don't know what's going on beyond that (inattentive ADHD ruled out). He was assessed by an educational psychologist as gifted in reading comprehension and they noticed his written work wasn't great but not a big concern. We had him assessed because we could not get him to produce quality work whilst distance learning and he was extremely frustrated. School have not been unsupportive but clearly didn't think there were any real issues.

Obviously entry at a secondary school not a primary one! My mother is an ex secondary teacher and isn't helping me by saying she never saw such bad writing in an 11 year old in her whole career.

Is he currently year 6 then? I would say as it asks for a formal letter they are expecting the format to be correct (ie address, date as a letter would be- this is usually covered at primary level). And then more importantly, language and content primarily to persuade, and a clear charity mentioned with capital letters at the start to show it's a name etc; it doesn't appear he has chosen a name for his? If he did it in 15 rather than 30, you can assume they are probably expecting double the amount of work. I don't see how they have come to the conclusion though that he should be assessed for SEN after seeing one piece of work, done in exam conditions but at home (which is unusual).

I would listen to the school he has attended for years personally, and if you have concerns ask if you can have a quick chat with them about it.

As an ex-primary school teacher, I would have assumed he was in year 2/3 if you hadn't have given his age. For 30 minutes work (I know you said he finished early in 15 minutes), the main body is only 3 sentences long. However, they are mostly accurately punctuated and make sense. The handwriting doesn't help, the letter and word spacing isn't consistent and the letter size isn't consistent - which unfortunately makes the writing appear worse at first glance than the content. He understands the task and the format and word choices fit the format, but are fairly limited and basic.

I wouldn't be panicking about his writing, but I would expect him to be getting extra support in school.

You can see what tthe standard of writing expected at the end of Y6 here www.gov.uk/government/publications/2018-teacher-assessment-exemplification-ks2-english-writing
Morgan is the pupil whose writing is nearest to national expectations (Lee is very secure within the standard) and you can compare your child's writing (not just the one piece you have shown us, but other recent writing he has done) with Dani, whose work is below that standard.
Is this a state school or independent? 'Tutor group' just made me wonder if it was independent. I am surprised- if this is typical writing for him - that his difficulties have not been raised before.

@Cheongfan

Obviously entry at a secondary school not a primary one! My mother is an ex secondary teacher and isn't helping me by saying she never saw such bad writing in an 11 year old in her whole career.

Haha...she clearly never met my DS whose writing at age 11 was illegible. This was due to him being left handed and covering his writing as he went.with his hand. A special pen solved it.

Your son's writing looks legible...I can read it. I'd say that he might benefit in future years with a laptop for stuff like exams and that is something an SEN dept would organise and justify with the exam board.

I think if my Year 6 child had produced that as 30 minutes work, given the question, I would have assumed he didn't put much effort in.

The expectations of how children that age use technical aspects of writing seems quite high to me - for example my child had a piece of writing today in his English lesson that included a checklist for them of things they should be including:
semi colons & colons
cohesive devices within and across paragraphs
range of verb forms perfect/modal/progressive

I had to google a lot of it!

So, for 30 minutes of work I would expect to see clear features of a formal letter and persuasive writing and several paragraphs.

I'm really sorry to let you know op, but it's possibly cruel to be kind that you know, so that you can address it, but that isn't work that you would expect from a year 6. Not just the handwriting, (year 2 level), but the quality of the thoughts, the lack of anything formal etc

I'm not going to comment on the content but I do have adhd & find writing super-hard. Could do that task on a computer swiftly, would struggle with handwriting it at all.

There's all sorts of processing disorders like dysgraphia. Try not to worry, I have a 1st class degree... could barely scrawl my Christmas cards this year. Get a decent assessment & some support. 😁

As Scarby9 said above. There is an example of a Year 6 formal letter at the expected standard at assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/653133/2018_exemplification_materials_KS2-EXS__Morgan_.pdf on p15-16.

Thanks everyone. I'm going to take him back to KS1 on the handwriting and speak to school about the content. It's honestly not typical content (except I don't know if he knows how to do the formal writing) but it is typical for him to give up very quickly rather than stretch himself. He's ok when he's working alongside people but on his own he just ends up as a mess.

He is a lefty.

I’m really sorry but yes, this really is an expected year 2 level. It’s only 3 sentences long, which isn’t anywhere near enough for half an hours work! There’s none of the grammar techniques that he’ll have been taught to death either. You’d at least expect some fronted adverbials, they’re literally obsessed with these at primary school! He hasn’t named the charity, which was a clear requirement and his handwriting is very poor. Sorry, I’m sure that isn’t why you want to hear.

It is a private school. He easily produces work of the quality in that guide at school, just not I'd he's left to his own devices.

Do you think he understood the instructions? Were you allowed to read it to him or did he read it himself?
Was he aware of the time limit?

Don't worry about being cruel! I posted to hear it. I'm just shocked (to be fair I was also shocked when he produced it). Last term's report has him as secure in writing and simply says they'd like to see him spending more time re-reading and editing. His year 5 report has him advancing in English and says he's an incredible writer!

I will speak to the school but I mainly feel I've badly let him down.

He understood the instructions. Reading comprehension is not an issue. He said he couldn't think what to write. He absolutely wasn't working to his best of his abilities but he was in floods of tears when I suggested that. He thinks he's stupid.

I can take him back to basics on the handwriting but I don't really know where to start on the actual content.

@wibblewombat ADHD would make sense on a lot of fronts (the educational psychologist thought that) but the psychiatrist says no and he definitely is qualified to diagnose and the EP isn't.

Hi OP. I’m a secondary English Teacher and mark entrance exams every year. I don’t know if this is for a selective school but we tend to give a mark out of 10 for SPAG and another for ideas. This would fail our test and get a 2 fir both. Very brief , no paragraphing and very inaccurate. I would definitely get your child tested so they get the support they need at secondary.

There's lots of things that are co-morbid with adhd that aren't it. It sounds like a working memory issue as well as sensory. I can be floored by a time deadline on producing work too.

Why I actually commented (then didn't actually write the words) was that I've had a lifetime of shame from people giving me a hard time about my handwriting. My mother still moans about it, despite the fact I'm in my late 40's. That was more harmful than anything. 🙄

I know the psychiatrist said not adhd but have a look at what the adhd foundation do as some of their resources may be helpful anyway.

I will speak to the school but I mainly feel I've badly let him down.

You haven't let him down, be kind to yourself OP.

I'm going to take him back to KS1 on the handwriting and speak to school about the content. It's honestly not typical content (except I don't know if he knows how to do the formal writing) but it is typical for him to give up very quickly rather than stretch himself.

From what you've said, it might take more than going back to basics with handwriting. Your DS might need to move on to using a laptop to achieve to the best of his abilities given that he struggles with writing but he has shown he is capable of good work and is gifted in some areas.

When my DS was assessed at the same age, his writing was just as bad but he was assessed as gifted in several areas. His writing speed and ability was about average for Y2 but his maths ability was average for age 16. The psychologist expressed it really well when she explained we should imagine what it would be like trying to sit your GCSEs when writing takes as much effort as it did when you were in infant school. We don't really think when we write as adults, it comes to us as naturally as speaking, but our DS was almost entirely focussing his energy on writing so he couldn't concentrate on anything else, let alone produce work at the level of his actual capabilities.

Hopefully the SEN team will be able to come up with strategies to help your DS.

It's not the handwriting that's the issue, really. My DS's is truly appalling, but he gets by- teachers are used to reading the most shockingly poor handwriting.

This is supposed to be persuasive writing, but there's just no argument or structure there. From your posts it sounds as though he would be capable of producing a piece that meets requirements, so you need to unpick with him what happened here.
Has he been on "remote learning" since March, and then just in from Sept- Dec? On first impression it seems he is switched off from his learning, but I am not a SEND expert.

Do you know what, my son is year 10 and pretty bright. He got "exceeding expectations" in year 6 in English. Maths is is strong point but he's decent at English although he hates it.

I can totally imagine that in year 6, being presented with this as a task, he'd have had no idea where to start. He'd have been a bit like a rabbit in headlights without any class discussion to help him with ideas. He would have hated the task and not put much effort in.

He will probably end up with a grade 7 English Language (equivalent to grade A) so he's not bad at English now.

So, I'm not a teacher and I can see plenty of teachers saying they think he's behind, so do take their advice, but I really wouldn't worry too much.

He has been assessed! I've just gone back and checked the report. In April last year (when he was 10) the EP has his essay composition and sentence composition as age 14. His WIATIII on written expression is 125 (top 5%). I appreciate I said they said his writing wasn't great in my intro - I didn't check the scores. It seems not great compared to his reading (which is off the scale). Sorry to mislead.

Even allowing for him just not trying hard, something clearly has gone very wrong in the last year. I know it's the distance learning. He's has 8 weeks in school since March (not UK) and he really struggles when not in a school environment. We have both been working full time and also just don't really know how to teach! The school gives work to do so it's not like he's had nothing to do but he can't seem to learn this way. We need to find a way to help him.

For some of us, even writing as adults is terrifying...that's a really good way of putting it that I hadn't thought of, the energy goes into the physical writing, rather than content. Hmm...

And yes, I'll give up rather than struggle. 😁

If he's lacking executive control, then he needs things like a body double to help him work. He might not be able to plan work sequentially, etc. So yes, he might be drifting without structure.