Y3 writing standard

[Spry]

I'd be v grateful for honest feedback from anyone with knowledge of writing standards in Y3.

Just before Christmas, we received a school report for my seven year old, Y3 daughter, indicating that her writing was "below expected".

This was a bit of a surprise as she loves writing and I had always assumed that she was quite good at it.

This is an example of a little story that she started last week. She had no help with this at all and took it upon herself to write it.

I can see that she needs to work on her punctuation (especially full stops), paragraphs and spelling, and that she could use some rather more adventurous vocabulary.

However, is it truly "below expected" for a child who has had one term of Y3?

She is a very self-conscious child and once mentioned that she avoids doing her best writing in class because the teacher sometimes reads out the best work, and she'd hate that. I'm wondering if that is a factor in her low grade, or whether her work really is behind where it should be.

Thank you for any thoughts.

It's loads better than my dc in year 3 and year 4.

@elliejjtiny

It's loads better than my dc in year 3 and year 4.

Thank you for your honest comment. If you don't mind my asking, have your children's teachers given you any indication of how they consider them to be doing?

My DS is in year 3 and is expected to write in fully joined up cursive now, might it be that?

@Solasum

My DS is in year 3 and is expected to write in fully joined up cursive now, might it be that?

Ah, that might be a factor too I guess. That's definitely something else I can work on with her.

My DD is a summer born year 3 and can barely string a sentence together. Beautiful cursive writing but can't understand a word! They are all different.

The quantity and consistency is better than my summer born DS in Year three, who has received very positive reports for his writing. It sounds like your DD’s enthusiasm too is better! He writes consistently in cursive and joined up though - I wonder if that is the issue?

I suspect the joint is the issue although it a very literal (and quite mean) interpretation of the standards.
I teach year 3 occasionally and content and spelling all seem well within expected standards if not above. I would be asking what it is they think she’s not doing.
Handwriting is a fairly easy fix and not something I’d be worrying about.

I think it looks great, and lots of it. My Yr3 is a reluctant writer and we'd be lucky to get 3 sentences and no where near as neat. He is not 'as expected' but I'm sure he'll get there.

@Smartiepants79

I suspect the joint is the issue although it a very literal (and quite mean) interpretation of the standards. I teach year 3 occasionally and content and spelling all seem well within expected standards if not above. I would be asking what it is they think she’s not doing. Handwriting is a fairly easy fix and not something I’d be worrying about.

Thank you for commenting and your encouraging words. Could I just check what you mean by "the joint"? Is that another way of saying joined up handwriting?

@SmallGreenStripes

The quantity and consistency is better than my summer born DS in Year three, who has received very positive reports for his writing. It sounds like your DD’s enthusiasm too is better! He writes consistently in cursive and joined up though - I wonder if that is the issue?

Thank you for commenting. I'm definitely going to do some work with her now on her handwriting.

@RomeosGone

My DD is a summer born year 3 and can barely string a sentence together. Beautiful cursive writing but can't understand a word! They are all different.

I know what you mean about them developing differently! My daughter is a twin and she and her brother have always learnt things in a different order from one another.

Wow mine is year 3 and is nowhere near that good!

(Not that I'm worried, just commenting on the difference)

Could you ask the teacher for sight of the guidelines/standards they are working towards.
Dd2's teacher put a file on dojo after parents evening, which I have to admit I haven't looked at in detail.
Could it also be that it's behind the end of year target - our school does that and they simply haven't done enough formal writes to demonstrate the required skills enough times?
I would say if she is writing stories like that voluntarily in the school holidays she ought to be fine. I could barely get mine to write a Christmas card!

Much much better than my year 3 who is also 'below expected' (ASD and hypermobility...). I bet it's the cursive too.

I expect it's because it isn't in cursive.
Get her some cursive handwriting books.

My year 3 dd has dyspraxia and can barely write a sentence but yet she was marked as at expected level last year 🤷‍♀️
I'm so done with education as long as I see progress all's good.
Your daughters work looks really good.

Teacher here. One thing to more of that schools treat "age related" differently. Her writing her is currently below the end of year expectations for year 3 if interpreted strictly (which is ridiculous!). If her school is assessing against end of year expectations now, this might explain it. Equally, its possible the teacher made a mistake inputting the data, or simply that the work your daughter has written in school haven't been as good as this one.

That piece is great. I get the feeling she reads some Blyton or Morpugo - those kids in her story have some very old fashioned turns of phrase!

A couple of things she could work on, if she wants to, as they are end of Y3 expectations:
Beginning to use speech marks to punctuate direct speech. She has used an awful lot of speech. A later thing is to ensure balance between description, action and dialogue.
Joined handwriting, as mentioned by others.
Paragraphs. Change paragraph for each new place, time, speaker, or for a change in focus of the writing.

All this said, the most important thing is not to put her off writing for fun! If she's happy just writing lovely little stories, then let her do that for fun. She's clearly bright and enthusiastic.

@Stevenage689

Teacher here. One thing to more of that schools treat "age related" differently. Her writing her is currently below the end of year expectations for year 3 if interpreted strictly (which is ridiculous!). If her school is assessing against end of year expectations now, this might explain it. Equally, its possible the teacher made a mistake inputting the data, or simply that the work your daughter has written in school haven't been as good as this one.

That piece is great. I get the feeling she reads some Blyton or Morpugo - those kids in her story have some very old fashioned turns of phrase!

A couple of things she could work on, if she wants to, as they are end of Y3 expectations:
Beginning to use speech marks to punctuate direct speech. She has used an awful lot of speech. A later thing is to ensure balance between description, action and dialogue.
Joined handwriting, as mentioned by others.
Paragraphs. Change paragraph for each new place, time, speaker, or for a change in focus of the writing.

All this said, the most important thing is not to put her off writing for fun! If she's happy just writing lovely little stories, then let her do that for fun. She's clearly bright and enthusiastic.

This is very useful - thank you. Your guesses about her reading tastes are spookily accurate: she is heavily into Mallory Towers at the moment (she read one book cover-to-cover today) and we finished reading Kensuke's Kingdom together yesterday!

Sadly, the assessment is definitely saying she's not met expectations for the end of the first term of Y3 (not the end of the 3rd term of Y3).

From the encouraging comments you and others have made on here, I suspect the issue is that she's not demonstrating her best work at school. She is so nervous about having attention drawn to herself that I wouldn't be surprised if she actively puts mistakes in her work.

She would be furious if she knew I'd even read the story I posted here - let alone taken photos of it and shared it with Mumsnet. She told me she was writing it but has repeatedly forbidden me to look at it. I feel guilty about having done so but rationalise that I'm the grown up. I'd love to show it to her teacher, but my daughter would feel betrayed and hugely embarrassed.

Thank you v much for your detailed and specific suggestions. I'll gently work on those points with her, though - for me - the key thing is just to help maintain her love of reading and writing and try to give her confidence a bit of a boost - somehow...

Bless her, she will develop as she grows up so don't panic that she's not demonstrating her best in school for now.

My son is Y3 and is currently classed as 'below expected' It's down to him not writing cursive fully - which I'm not surprised after so much school disruption.

I had a meeting with the teacher as I was concerned. There are several elements that make up 'writing' and for him it's just the handwriting element, everything else is 'above expected' but it's not averaged out.

I would ask the teacher for more specific feedback. He may get there by the end of the year or maybe a year later. I'm not concerned about government goalposts that haven't been adapted for Covid disruption.

@yoshiblue

My son is Y3 and is currently classed as 'below expected' It's down to him not writing cursive fully - which I'm not surprised after so much school disruption.

I had a meeting with the teacher as I was concerned. There are several elements that make up 'writing' and for him it's just the handwriting element, everything else is 'above expected' but it's not averaged out.

I would ask the teacher for more specific feedback. He may get there by the end of the year or maybe a year later. I'm not concerned about government goalposts that haven't been adapted for Covid disruption.

The emphasis on cursive handwriting seems crazy to me - particularly as our children are going to grow up using computers far more than pens and pencils.

I'd be very content if one of my Yr3 class presented me with that!

There's plenty to work on, but if anything, I'd say it's slightly above where I'd expect a Yr3 to be at this point in the year!

The teacher may be saying it's below, meaning it's below what she knows/suspects your DD is capable of?
Or is she part of a particularly bright, competitive class? So if she isn't pushing herself forward, or showing her best work, she might be coming off as lower than she is, in comparison with the other children.

I think that is excellent work for year 3. My DC is Yr 3, the teacher is very pleased, but your daughter's work is much stronger I would say.

I wish my y9 wrote this much! You've got nothing to worry about.

I wonder if the school uses something like this criteria and have to evidence all the statements to award a 'level'. So if the child hasn't use the present perfect verb tense, inverted commas for direct speech, subordinate clauses, etc. in their work over the term they don't log as "expected".