Reception exercise books

[KeenGreen]

My DS5 in his last week of reception came home with exercise books of phonics, handwriting and learning today.

I was curious about the teachers/LSA marking /notes

Some say ‘I’ for independent or ‘T’ for teacher supported, or say LSA supported.

But the ones I can’t figure out say ‘vs’ and ‘gm’ not sure what these mean!
Just intrigued to know.

I thought maybe vs was verbally supported, or verbally scribed?

I teach in KS2 and don't recognise vs or gm but reception is very different!
It could be initials of a supply or student teacher?
The marking policy could be on their website or you could just ask.

Thank you for your response 😊

Not initials of any of the staff which was my go to thought first as they are on many of the pages.

I might ask if I see them. Just didn’t want to be a pain especially in the last week!

Each school has their own marking policy. The code will be school specific, rather than Reception specific. I say this as a Reception teacher who doesn't use those particular codes. At a guess, I would say 'vs' would be verbal support (we just use v in my school).

Have you received an end of year report? That's a much better indication of how they're doing than the codes which have been used when marking their book. Marking shorthand is for the benefit of other school staff looking at the work (during a book scrutiny) and, when they're older, for the children to understand how they have done/what they need to do next. They're not written with parents in mind. If you're really interested though, all policies should be available on the school website. Search for the marking policy.