Apologies - another what age is the child who wrote this post

[Lookingforwardto2025]

As the title says, any feedback appreciated :)

a very ahead reception kid, a slightly ahead year 1, a behind year 2 (age 7)

any ages above that I’d say Sen.

Ah. The mention of the taxi also made me wonder if it was a child with SEN at a special school.

There is a lot of detail and it is a good length piece but the spelling (as far as I can read it) is not phonetically accurate in some cases (arcoke for o'clock for example). Dyslexia assessment is a positive move. How is their reading?

In practice it’s more complex.

the handwriting is obviously bad for year 5, as is the lack of capitals and punctuation.

but the content matters more at that sort of age. So if he can write stories or answer long style questions about texts then the bad handwriting and lack of capitals etc is less of an issue.

can he write stories and descriptions?

You don’t need to compare it to anything apart from what the child’s writing looked like a few months ago. What matters is that progress and improvement is happening. There are children in Year 1 and Year 6 and beyond that might write like that for a variety of reasons.

You can look up age related expectations to get an idea of what the government expects children to be able to do, but the same piece of writing can be assessed for different things, like content, handwriting, spelling, and can show weakness in one area at the same time as showing strength in another.

A couple of people have mentioned the taxi :) I should have said that that is because we live in a rural area and the village school was closed down so now all the children are taken by taxi to the next school. It is a mainstream school.

Reading is much better than writing @claryalthough it has been a hard slog to get here and DS finds it hard so won't read for pleasure. We use audio books a lot.

Thank you for all the feedback, it has been genuinely interesting and I also appreciate the posts directing me to other ways of assessing the work :)

I actually don't know if he can @Octavia64. All previous parents evenings his writing has been so badly spelt that it was impossible to read so we had not a clue whether it was a story or non fiction etc. So this piece of work is actually a big improvement. He is now receiving targeted 1:1 support in school so that is great.

He does come up with some great stories in his head when playing etc.

I nearly mentioned dyslexia, the spelling reminds me of my dyslexic daughter who is in year 6 now. I used to say her spelling was phonics gone mad (or on crack depending on who I was talking to!) Wish I'd put this in my first post now!

Well that's brilliant. I agree with @Octavia64 re the content and @Celestialmoods re the progress. I should add I am not a primary teacher but my DC had very different abilities in this area so I have a good deal of context.

Audio books are books btw. And using them is reading. So that's great too.

In Y5 children should be writing with joined handwriting, and I'd expect it to look more fluent. It's quite unusual for a child of that age to be making no attempt at all to join and I'd be looking into getting assessed for dyspraxia as well as dyslexia. What's his drawing like?
On the plus side, it is even and reasonably consistent which makes me think that an intensive handwriting intervention might work well. The school should be offering a handwriting intervention session at least weekly, and you could follow this up at home or find an OT to help. Maybe start with repeating flowing patterns, and look at the comparative size of letters ( for example, the l is not as tall as it should be).

There used to be a good website giving examples of levelled writing. Not sure if it’s there anymore but this is for year 6.

content matters much more than handwriting.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2018-teacher-assessment-exemplification-ks2-english-writing

Same for year 2.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a8169f6ed915d74e6232223/2018_exemplification_materials_KS1-EXS__Kim_.pdf

What’s he like at typing? My DD isn’t dyslexia but struggles with writting (she is AuDHD) and was allowed to type at that age and continued into secondary using a Chromebook in all lessons. She’s now prepping for her GCSEs using a laptop. She picked up typing at speed really quickly. We’ve also played around with voice to text software. At work I rarely write anything all my job is done typing as is my husband’s with spelling and grammar check.. Frustrates me that school focus so much on handwriting.

Just so you know, you can see all the thumbnails of your other photos in this post, it looks like you’ve posted a photo of a screenshot rather than the actual photo, just in case the woman and baby is you or the paperwork is private you might wanna report this post, I’ve reported it for you too.

Thank you @ChronicallyConfusedOnEarth I have also reported it :)

Those are really helpful thank you @Octavia64

He is learning touch typing @Darkchocolatecookies and is enjoying the games on there :) Definitely an essential skill nowadays!

To the person who said reception age, what the actual?! The expectation for reception is simple sentences the cat sat on the mat, I can see the Sun not a long piece like this!

Could have been my son at 10

I genuinely do not understand the focus on joined up handwriting in primary? Not being goadie (have had 2 teens in schooling) but in secondary they don’t care as long as it can be read or like I said previously my daughter has been allowed to type all her notes straight into a chrome book in class, exams can be done using a laptop and more options every day for online exams. So much technology out there for voice to text and capturing words electronically. The focus should yes be on grammar, content and structure of the text but some kids will always struggle with the actual handwriting part and it’s so much better to keep their confidence high and ideas flowing not stifled by the need to shape a letter in a certain way.

The focus is because it is a curriculum expectation and children cannot 'pass' (reach the expected standard) Y6 if they do not do it. There was huge uproar about many aspects of the curriculum when it was brought in a decade ago but ultimately it has to be taught.

edited as I read why you asked…

I really cannot imagine anyone in Reception writing this

Audio books are books btw. And using them is reading. So that's great too.

Um..no. Audiobooks are great, but using them is not reading. It is listening.

I'm not a good judge of these things, but I just wanted to say that I think some of the lower estimates seem very unrealistic to me based on my children's writing. My year 3 child has much messier handwriting and worse spelling, fwiw, and no concerns have been raised by school, though she does read fluently. My year 5 child still spells some fairly common words wrong. Her handwriting is joined up, but in a way that actually makes it harder to understand than your child's writing. Again- no concerns have been raised. I wondered from some of the spelling (use of f and y specifically) whether your child is also in a Welsh school, where I think things are more playful and less academic up until year 3, so some of these estimates likely to be off as a result.

I hope the dyslexia assessment is helpful.