Levels on Y1 reports - any teachers about?

[User24689]

Hi MN.

Got my son's report last week, he's in year 1. Honestly had no idea how he was doing as he tells me nothing except very occasionally what he has had for lunch.

Was quite looking forward to finding out how he's doing. He has seemed fine, happily pootling along, nice group of friends, no concerns have been raised by teacher so assumed no news good news.

Report was fine on the social and behavioral front but I was a bit surprised there was no sort of indication of how well he was doing academically, other than a couple of bullet points of what he can do in each area and what he needs to do next.

Maths he can work with numbers under 10 (addition and subtraction), count forwards and backwards to 100. His next steps are counting in 2s 5s and 10s and working with teen numbers.

Does this sound ok for year 1?!

He knows all his phase 5 sounds and tricky words and I think his reading is coming along nicely. He's using some of the sounds in his writing but a lot of them are quite muddled as you'd possibly expect eg clowd for cloud, trea for tree

Anyway I asked during parents evening whether he was where he should be and got a vague response about him doing really well and making good progress. I asked if he had made the expected progress and the teacher said that as this had been such a disrupted year no one in the class had.

Does this sound normal from the school? And does he sound OK for year 1?

I used to be a teacher moons ago and I remember when we had parents evening we would actually go through the levels with the parents eg 'Billy was a 3c in writing this year and now he's a 3a'. I'm not sure which is usual, and whether times have just changed (I'm aware the assessment framework is different now) Also aware covid has made teaching very strange this year and it may be something to do with that.

Thank you!

There’s no expectation from dfe to report on results this year because of pandemic disruption. Our reports read very like you describe - we have assessed this week but hadn’t since Christmas and your school is probably similar.

Maths sounds a little behind what dd has covered in Year 1 - they were adding and subtracting from teen numbers over lockdown - their painful method is ingrained on my memory!! And started the 2,5, 10 work at the end of year R. But it's so hard because they may be things her school have focused on at the cost of others

The current year one children have missed pretty much two terms out of their six in their school career.
End of year one they should be able to add a one digit number to a number under 20 and same with subtraction.
They should understand that numbers have tens and ones.

They shoukd be able to chant 2, 5 and 10s in order. E.g 5 10 15 20

So your little one sounds like he almost is on track. And with the covid situation that's great. I never covered counting in 10s with my class as ran out of time. Their year 2 teacher knows and will work on it in September.
If you're worried, talk to the teacher. We never mind talking to the parents, especially if they want to help their kids learning.

We got year 1 report yesterday. There’s nothing like ‘Level 5’ etc which is a GCSE thing instead of ABC now as far as I know?? I’ve taken a pic of how ours were graded. Maybe it varies school to school.

He sounds comparable to many of my year 1’s. We have been erring of the side of caution with assessments due to so much disrupted learning.

It’s phase 5 phonics, it is a thing.

Phase 5 and tricky words sounds good.
Maths is OK. Perhaps her could work on counting in 2s 5s and 10s over the holidays if you're worried. Given covid etc and if teacher says he is making good progress, then I really wouldn't worry.. As PPs have said, no formal assessment this year.
If the social side etc is good then I really wouldn't worry. He sounds to be about where he should be. (Year 1 teacher here)

I’m not a teacher but what you’ve said sounds a bit odd if every child hasn’t met expected progress. The maths jumped out at me because it didn’t feel that ambitious re the counting in 2s 5s and 10s as they’ve been doing that in reception at her school.

@Dustyhedge it's expected standard not progress. Attainment (standard) and progress are two different things.
A lot of the current year 1 cohort haven't met the expected standard this year due to missing so much school both this year and during reception. This in crude terms means they haven't securely learned or retained as much information / knowledge than is normally expected. We are not commenting on this formally in reports this year as it would not be fair to judge these children on the normal standards seeing aa they've missed so much face to face teaching. (Online doesn't really work for young children but that's a different topic).
However, they should have made progress.
In response to OP: phonics sounds on track; maths a little low but nothing too concerning.

Macaroni46 Ah that’s interesting. I do feel sorry for year 1s- they seem to have missed so much of the those formative first two years in school.

@dustyhedge I feel like they've missed loads of the 'how school works' learning as well as the academic stuff

Yes I meant phase 5 phonics sorry!

That's great you have all reassured me. Thank you so much for replying. The school has a really diverse catchment and I know there has been a huge range of support offered during lockdown. So this may be why they decided not to give levels and I didn't realise that dfe had suspended the requirement to do that. Makes sense.

He has missed loads yeah, he was off from march-july in reception and then we had dec-march of year one with 10 days off in April and another 10 days off in June!

Maths is definitely the weakest area. Thanks for the tip about counting in 2s, 5s and 10s we will definitely practice that. He can already do 10s actually and also 5s with some prompting but I'm not at all convinced he actually knows what he is doing mathematically when he is reciting them!

Anyway good to know both the reporting and his progress are usual. Thank you!

My dc2 is in Y1 and definetly behind where their elder sibling was. However they've lost so so much quality teaching time (not including the numerous self isolation periods).

I will be honest - I'm just banking on them catching up over the next couple of years.

It's about all I can do!

I would prefer to get the grade (met/not met etc) so that i know if there are any issues.
I really hope our school hasnt left it out.
Although with maths school probably cant say re the lockdown stuff from this year as they havent gone back over it so wouldnt know.

I’m a TA in Y2. Everything else sounds brilliant but I would perhaps work on the maths especially with teen numbers. We start with place value and it would make it much easier for them if they are confident with teen numbers. I wouldn’t even worry so much about counting in 2’s 5 and 10’s, he will soon pick that up in Y2 as it’s done so so much but IMO the teen numbers are more important.

@ihearttc thanks so much for that, we will focus on that over the summer!

We’re not grading children this year, it wouldn’t be fair.

I dont see how the report not including the information helps anyone.
If the reality is the kid/s are behind then that is the reality.
Parents might be more likely to help them catch up... Do the library reading challenge or some online maths etc.
I presume our school with give a mark as it doesnt seem like many are behind.
Surely there is an internal grade anyway to pass up to the next class?

I guess i mean some exceeded could drop to met but i would expect most kids to still meet expectations if they previously had been

@HSHorror not sure if you are from outside of the UK but there is no 'pass' to the next class, they all go up to the next year level based on chronological age not attainment.

I guess from the schools pov they are telling us the next steps so they can be working on those over the summer. Perhaps not helpful to say that they are not at the expected level in maths and have parents/ kids panicking and coaching them all summer if everybody in the class is at roughly the same point in their learning. I assume if he was miles behind the others they would have made that clear and offered more support.

Interesting that not many in your school are behind so maybe don't have this issue. I think catchments have a lot to do with how badly the pandemic has affected kids learning, as well as how many class isolations they have had on top of lockdowns.

Yes uk op. So i realise they push them up even if they dont get stuff.

I guess maybe class isolations too.
But i think parents (not you) blaming behind on covid is not helpful. There is a chat on our class fb where a parent implied their dd cant blend because of the lockdowns etc. (Yr r). Which is patently ridiculous as most kids can usually blend from say october. So well before lockdown and weve had no isolations before the reports came out.
I guess i mean for the above child school not giving a report would be unhelpful because the parent is blaming covid but if all other kids meet the eyfs targets and that one doesnt it would be clearer to the parent something else may be going on. Im sure every year a few kids struggle with this.
Not to put the child or parent down but it is worse to carry on and get blindsided next year.
I think it depends if the school didnt get through the curriculum due to lockdowns or if they think some of the parents didnt cover it and how much they intend to go over next year.
Probably actually old levels would be helpful here.
Some schools are doing online assessments to see how the kids are getting on.
I know of some parents who havent covered any of the white rose videos so have to be behind. But as school moved onto next topics they dont seem to have noticed.

I work in year 2 and considering all the school that’s been missed, he sounds absolutely fine. There will be more catching up to do for all years come September so I wouldn’t worry. Some of my year 2s couldn’t manage that and even with extra support I am worried about them going up to year 3.