School Marking policy in Year 1

[GrowlingTiger]

OK, name-changed as I've made myself unpopular at school by raising this, but would appreciate a "professional" view on it if any knowledgable teachers pass by.

Ds is a summer born Year 1 child, so 5 and a half. His pencil control is OK but not great. He has a weekly test in spellings and number bonds/timestables. Am not entirely enthusiastic about these (esp when in the first term he was learning to spell words that he could not yet read!) but accept them as part of the overall package.

His report at the end of last term said "Ds must learn the number bonds and multiplication tables for the weekly tests as his results have been a little disappointing". I was slightly narked as this wasn't raised at the parents evening and I'd personally been pleased with his progress whilst being aware that he isn't the most able boy in the class by some way. Report also commented that he lacks confidence is addition and subtraction.

Roll on this term and now the marking policy of the school has tightened up so that for numeracy, if the child reverses a digit (ie mirror reflection of a single digit, not 16 rather than 61), then the answer is marked as wrong. Ditto spelling, so if a letter eg "g" is reversed despite being in the right place in the word, then the spelling is marked as incorrect. Ds has got all items tested correct for spelling and computation but because of these reversals is getting lower marks (eg 6/10).

I guess I am slightly frustrated that if the object of the exercise is to say learn the 3 times table then ds knows his 3 times table forwards, backwards and at random. Yet the marks indicate otherwise and I suspect his report will too.

When my older child was going through this the approach seemed more laid back - with the idea that they would grow out of the reversals. But it is stricter for my younger child. How does this match up against other schools (ds is at a private school in case that makes a difference). I've been told that the change in policy is in effort to raise standards. But does this really work - ds thought that he had worked well but is getting lower marks than ever. I am concerned that this will put him off.

His take, thankfully, matches the statutory method of assessing Maths work in Y2; the teacher's assesment of the full year's work is reported to parents, LEA and government in the state sector at the end of Y2, so it's important to be accurate.

GT, the way we mark in year assessments is they get one mark for the computation of the sum and one mark for writing the sum correctly (ie, if a problem says "Billy has 12 apples and 10 oranges, how many pieces of fruit does he have altogether") so he would get one mark for deciphering that the sum is 12+10 and a second mark for getting the answer of 22. If, within the formal assessment, they have reversed the digit in the answer, then they still get the mark. It is within their in class work that we do not mark correctly number reversals, because it does not teach them anything if we do.
The children do not see their formal assessments, it is only to guide our knowledge of their ability and to report it back to the parents in open evening etc... SATS, we do differently.