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.

@idril

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.

I feel it's this but also I am conscious that's hopeful thinking! I am listening to what everyone else has said. I will have a talk to the school on Sunday.

@wibblewombat

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.

He absolutely needs a body double to work and this is a part of the issue but I'm not sure how to get over that as he can't always have one!

Sorry but the wiat is not norm referenced against the UK national curriculum. It's referenced against a standard distribution. The national curriculum is criterion referenced.

Can you attach the piece your child did for the wiat assessment that was apparently so good?
Maybe teachers would reassess it for you against a standard year 5 piece?

Incidentally "gifted" isn't a descriptor used in the wisc or the wiat. Was it the specific term used?
Do you have his other scores?

WISC-V scores and WIAT-III in the attachments. Gifted was used but I agree it's unusual to use it in reference to WIAT-III and his WISC-V scores don't support a gifted diagnosis bit he's still pretty bright. I don't have the piece of writing from last March but even if not normalised to the UK curriculum I think it's fair to say it was a good deal better than the latest one.

Sorry I have those marked the wrong way round ☺️

No I don't. I give up!

Argh!

@Cheongfan. Tread carefully. You say your ds was in floods. It is incredibly positive that he has been flagged for investigations. Hopefully, with extra support, he could fly. There are so many positives in that letter. Have you focused on any of them? I was touched by how kind your ds sounds. In many way it does meet the brief. It aims to pursuade. It suggests what the event could be. There's a lot of thought gone into this. My son has ASD. This was only picked up in year 6. Despite years of grief. It was only picked up in year 10 that he is also dyslexic. Both of these affect executive function - planning, organisation etc. ASD can make imaginative writing difficult. (I'm not saying your ds either but at least considering possible issues is positive as I say. Will post now to save this but will continue...

Hi, I can only see your wisc scores (twice)

Sorry but a fsiq should not have been calculated as there is a gap of more than 23 points between his lowest and highest score.

What you have is a child with good reasoning scores and a comparatively much lower processing speed (this is simple tasks at speed, visual scanning and fine motor). It would be useful to know if it was coding that was low (I bet it was) or symbol search and if the two tests were within the same range, that would be a possible indicator of any specific problem.

No child with such a gap between reasoning and processing is going to stride forward unaffected into academic success as you have a significant barrier there.

Plus the specific issue he has had here - generating novel material at speed - suggests that despite that good fluid reasoning score he isn't problem solving well. An efficient learner would probably apply a prelearned mental template to that task. Unless he missed formal letters because of lockdown? It shouldn't be novel learning that he can't think of. He should have stored and be able to reapply the principles.

Does he get extra time in exams? That processing score would probably entitle him.

Sorry - the not using a mental template stuff suggests executive functioning issues to me.

@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.

Ive been a primary teacher for 30 years and I’ve seen far worse! His handwriting is poor - is he left handed? But the sentence construction is fine. I’d say he didn't really know what to write about and hasn’t put a great deal of thought into the content. Is this type of activity something he’s done a lot? In Y6, we tend to teach children how to write a particular genre over a week or so, editing each section as we go, and then it all comes together in a final piece, drawing on the skills practiced. If he’s not done persuasive letter writing for a while he may have just forgotten under pressure. I’d say that he’s not SEN in any way, and he may not be a higher able student. Looking at your last post, I’d say this is a child who’s lost motivation if he was working at such a high level previously. Also, does he actually want to go to the school you’re applying for, or has he self sabotaged???

The thing that annoys me about these types of assessments is that you are essentially asking the child to do a piece of imaginative writing (because you have to imagine that you care about the fundraiser) but it's a factual letter. It's a very dry subject and so unrealistic.

Ask him to write a formal letter to someone about something he actually cares about and see if he does any better.

It might be that he is entitled to extra time, a prompt, a scribe, keyboard for writing etc. Additionally kids have practically lost at least half a year's schooling. Did he write this at home? How different does everyone work at home than their usual work place. I know I do. Also, it's likely that in class they get all the support to get cracking and to stay on task. So his standards may have slipped. So, my main advice, do what you can to make your son feel good about himself and take any support offered.

Thanks @Dontfuckingsaycheese. I'm pretty certain he doesn't have ASD - he's had Connors done twice now and nowhere near. He does exhibit ADHD characteristics but as I said it's been ruled out (school assessment doesn't support a diagnosis plus he is able to concentrate when he's interested, the psychiatrist said that he wouldn't expect him to be able to concentrate on reading the way he does if he had ADHD for example).

The issue is that we step back when he is in floods of tears saying he's stupid and it works, he doesn't get pushed any further. I obviously haven't told him what the secondary school has said (and I am hopeful I'll persuade them to take him with backing from his existing school - it is non-selective, or at least not very selective).

I am much less familiar with the wiat written expression (I use work in context from teacher fwiw) but what subtests make up written expression?
If you look his essay composition was not a very high score and I wonder if shorter more structured tasks such as sentence construction have boosted his ultimate score meaning that you cannot infer that his overall "written expression" means "good at writing novel material under time pressure from a minimal prompt"?

@Cheongfan I would send that piece of work to his current teacher along with the brief and ask her thoughts on it, stating what the school have said re SEN. She may be able to say that isn’t representative and he’s done similar here or if she says that’s the general picture obviously you can then raise a complaint with school.

Sorry that took a while. He's entitled to extra time but I couldn't get him to spend more than half of the time anyway. I don't think he's self sabotaging but he certainly doesn't want to change schools - we're moving so he doesn't have a choice unfortunately (thanks Covid).

Lots to think about everyone and I really appreciate the different view points.

@RosesforMama I do have a fair number of concerns about the EP report (the calculation of FSIQ being one of them) but the scores are broadly as I would have expected at the time (except his vocab was surprising low). It was actually Symbol search that was really bad.

@idril

The thing that annoys me about these types of assessments is that you are essentially asking the child to do a piece of imaginative writing (because you have to imagine that you care about the fundraiser) but it's a factual letter. It's a very dry subject and so unrealistic.

Ask him to write a formal letter to someone about something he actually cares about and see if he does any better.

Are you autistic idril? I am asking very respectfully because the only other person who has ever pointed out that "factual" writing in schools is really "fictional" is my autistic son, it annoys the heck out of him! We have to make him insert the words "imagine you cared and wanted to..." In front of whatever the prompt is :)

On the other hand this young man could have twisted the letter to any cause he is passionate about - animals, steam trains, the environment...I think he needs some exam technique about applying his passions and having pre- constructed basic options in his head to select between when he goes into an exam, and how to make minor adjustments to those precomposed templates to suit the prompt.

Eg a story - his basic story plot is about a small child who goes missing and is found again.
If the prompt is about sense of place: big up the setting section, add in sentences about the surroundings
If the prompt is about family - make the child and adult mother and son, write more sentences about how they feel
If the prompt is about adventure - write from the child's point of view as if it's all very exciting wandering off - until it isn't. Etc

Also, it's a really bad question for an 11 year old.

Usually these types of questions give you suggestions of what to include. This is an example of a GCSE English Language question.

Asking an 11 year old to write a letter like this with no structure around it, is asking an awful lot in my opinion.

"plus he is able to concentrate when he's interested"
That stands out to me in your post @Cheongfan. Not all kids are cut out to tackle work they have no interest in. I know that is what schools expect. That's ok for the round pegs. But not the square ones. What are his interests?

Are you autistic idril? I am asking very respectfully because the only other person who has ever pointed out that "factual" writing in schools is really "fictional" is my autistic son, it annoys the heck out of him! We have to make him insert the words "imagine you cared and wanted to..." In front of whatever the prompt is smile

@rosesformama This made me laugh!

I've never been diagnosed (and never would as I think I'm just perfectly normal but a little bit unusual ) but I strongly suspect I am. For many reasons. That's actually really interesting.

I also thought the task seemed incredibly dry and boring.

It seems he just didnt put any effort in.
But i dont agree about adhd and concentration a it seems they can hyperfocus when interested.
My dd is similar and has a reading age over 3 years higher. But trying to get her to concentrate in say maths is a nightmare.
Were there any issues before age 5 as that is part of uk criteria.

My dd has always been very impulsive.

Reading vs writing are such different skills as some people cant think of the words but can understand then. Or have little imagination

Right so I spoke to him (I did not mention the new school may not take him, I still don't know what we do if that's the case!). He didn't have a clue how to structure a formal letter and claims not to have done this since term 2 in year 5. He also claims he was taught to write 'kind regards'. I take all of this with a pinch of salt (I have learnt my lesson on how a child's version of events sometimes doesn't match reality!) but it's clear to me he has a gap and I'm concerned how many others there may be. I am really concerned the school seemingly didn't know as he surely isn't 'secure' in his writing with this gap.

15 minutes of me 'teaching' (aka YouTube), a question requiring less imagination, me insisting he uses the full 30 minutes, ignoring the tears and screaming on both sides, telling him he had to use complicated English and I didn't care if he thought that was stupid in the context and a keyboard resulted in the attached. I did have to prompt him on the paragraphs.

I know he still has a lot of work to do and in particular punctuation is poor and I clearly didn't explain 'to whom it may concern right' but does this look less concerning? I'm going to put him into English tuition for a term because he clearly has some significant gaps that need filling but I feel like it's probably achievable to get him on track by the end of the year.

Be honest with me if you think this is still way behind.

Firstly, because pushing any kids through activities to the point of conflict is horrible on both sides, and you sound worried and exhausted.

I'm going to suggest that what matters here is whether you think he is doing his best work and showing his ability, and after that to look for a school that will support him to achieve that by putting the right environment and systems around him. That might be this school, or it might be another one, but let your instincts guide you.

I am just a parent, and our home schooling experience tells me I am not talented as a teacher! I thought the examples shared by others above of the requirements at each year level for persuasive writing were really helpful. They showed how they have to go into depth, develop an idea, and also how to write persuasively. From last summer's home schooling I know that persuasive letter writing was among the tasks required for year 3 - they had to use specific vocabulary, think about what might influence the reader, explain how obstacles would be overcome, and outline the benefits. The expectation for my year 3 child (middle of the class I would say) was at least four paragraphs and 3-4 sentences per paragraph.

I think persuasive writing is quite tough because it requires empathy - thinking about what might motivate the other person etc - and that's something I actually coach adults on (influencing skills at work) so evidently even they still find it hard!

What sort of issues pre-age 5? His fine motor skills have always been an issue. With some of the ADHD-esque signs they are just things I thought were normal so I don't really know (and I still don't know - all kids don't listen sometimes for example, when does that stop being 'normal'!) He's never been badly behaved, he's model student and usually teacher's pet, but he's always been a daydreamer and just doesn't hear what's being said to him sometimes. He fidgets like hell and can't sit still - he had to stand up and walk around several times during the 30 mins.

The psychiatrist said to reassess if there were issues following the transition to secondary so we'll see what happens then.

He hates being tested (to him it reinforces the idea that he's stupid and not 'normal') and hates going to the doctor for anything (plus he is vaccine phobic (it needs three people to hold him down)).

We decided to pull back on the testing because of this but I'm now wondering whether we are under estimating the impact of the processing issue.

He did explain to me today that the reason he hates distance learning is that there are so many things to keep on top of and remember to do, whereas in class everyone is doing the same thing at the same time so it's easy. That does sound like executive functioning issues and obviously a concern for secondary.