What does this mean?

[notanidea]

DD in year 3 brought home her english work book to copy somework at home. It said that she is level 4(c).TBH I didnot even notice this but she pointed it out and said that is the level she is in. Is it good or bad? As far as I am concerned she does not have any problems in literacy.

4 is good for a year three. I am assuming that for some odd reason that she is being graded for sats standard. The higher the score the better so 1 is low a,b and c refer to levels within the number, so 4c is at the lower end of a grade 4, b would be average. Make sense?

I find it strange that the school is doing that tbh.

That is very good - the "average" child by the end of year 6 is expected to achieve level 4 levels are c, then b, then the highest is a)

Agree with previous posters but I would say that level 4c is really excellent for a year three child! Usually even the bright ones in year 3 are working at level 3b/c.

I will check with her whether it was -a,b, or c but I know that is definitely 4.We are in Wales so I thought they dont do SATS.Just being naive but how can anyone say which level the child is in and how do they assess.

Oh that's easy, they have criteria which have to be met eg using certain sentences structures, how they punctuate, vocab used story ideas etc etc

I'm in Wales too, although my dd is younger (yr 2) so I only have experience of KS1.

As I understand it although we don't have KS1 SATS the teachers do make an assessment of the level that each child is working at using the same 'levels' as SATS.

In our last parent teacher meeting dd's teacher told us that she would be doing this assessment during this term, and also roughly what levels she though dd would be at & where those fell relative to the presumed 'average'.

Unhelpfully I can't remember what the numbers were, so I can't help with whether they are the same for Wales as for England.

Her explanation was that there were certain things that a child would be expected to do in order to be graded at a certain level. So for example, to reach the 'average' level in written language for her age one of the things that a yr 2 child would be expected to do would be to write a simple paragraph using a variety of sentence structures (ie not every sentence starting Mae . . . ).

Even though you don't have SATs in Wales the children are still assessed using teacher assessment and given SAT levels.

We have the levels written in the books but ours are usually the level that the child is working towards and it has a list of things needed to achieve it.

So your daughter will probably be a 4c in her end of year report which is really good.

we have quite a lot of 'top 3s' leaving infants, and there is the traditional hooha about KS2 grading (slightly) differently, but children achieving top 3's at the end of KS1 would be appropriately working at this level in yr 3. interesting to ponder why they are writing it in though - bizarre! normally they don't bother until yr 7.

We do big writing in our school which is a concept from Ros Wilson who is quite a popular literacy and numeracy educationalist. Anyway, within this big writing technique, we level the childrens work each week (Yr 1/2 class) and put it at the top of the page. The children know what the levels mean, and the reason for doing this is so that they can strive to acheive better on their next piece of work.
I personally do not agree with it for such young children, as I feel all it does is encorprate too much of a level of competition, but thats just MO. So, if the children were to take this book home for whatever reason, their levels would be written on each page, however we do not send it home unless there was a specific reason to do so, and the whole point of the concept is for the books to follow the children throughout their schooling so they can see their progression within each level etc..

Here is an excel document that explains each of the levels and sub levels, and tells you what criteria each child must meet in order to get what
www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/subjects/literacy/roswilson/

Have checked with her it was def 4c.

Ros Wilson's Criterion Scale has been revised since Kent put it on line the new version can be downloaded from Andrell (Ros's publisher).

oh, ds has been talking about doing Big Writing at school (he's in Yr 1). So that's what it's all about!

Ros Wilson a very experienced teacher put together some strategies to improve writing standards. They were so successful the programme has grown and spread around the country. The basic idea is to make writing a special occasion to encourage children to see writing as "important". The children work towards Big Writing day which usually takes place once a week. Some schools use music, soft lights and raisins on the tables...

The children are encouraged to think about

V ~ ambitious vocabulary
C ~ interesting connectives
O ~ an opening that encourages the reader to read on
P ~ punctuation

These are often displayed on pyramids to show a progression ~ so in reception children would be expected to use fullstops in Y1 fullstops and question marks ... up to in Y6 fullstops, question marks, exclamation marks, commas, colon, semi colon, inverted commas, brackets, apostrophe and ellipsis.

Typically to get a 4C the writing must demonstrate that the child
Can almost always use correct grammatical structures
? Can almost always structure and punctuate sentences correctly, (?.,)
? Can use a range of connectives
? Can spell monosyllabic and common polysyllabic words correctly

plus show at least 6 of the following criteria

1. Can write in a lively and coherent style
2. Can use a range of styles confidently and independently *
3. Can use interesting language to sustain and develop ideas.
4. Can organise ideas appropriately for both purpose and reader, (e.g. captions; headings; fonts; chap¬ters; letter formats; paragraphs; logically sequenced events; contextual and background information etcetera)
5. Can use full stops, question marks and commas accurately
6. Can write in a clear, neat and accurate cursive style
7. Can use more sophisticated connectives, (e.g. although, however, never the less)
8. Can use, or attempt to use, paragraphs
9. Can produce thoughtful and considered writing, (uses simple explanation, opinion, justification and deduction)

10. Can use or attempt grammatically complex structures, (e.g. expansion before and after the noun ? ?The little, old man who lived on the hill...?; ?... by the lady who taught me the guitar,...? ; subordinate clauses ? ?I felt better when...? 11. Can spell unfamiliar regular polysyllabic words accurately 12. Can use nouns, pronouns and tenses accurately and consistently throughout 13. Can use apostrophes and inverted commas, usually accurately 14. Can select from a range of known adventurous vocabulary for a purpose, some words are particularly well chosen 15. Can use connectives to give order or emphasis, (e.g. ?If?then??; ?We??so as to ??) 16. Can select interesting strategies to move a story forward, (e.g. characterisation, dialogue with the audience, dialogue and negotiation within contexts etcetera) 17. Can advise assertively, although not confrontationally, in factual writing, (e.g. ?An important thing to think about before deciding?; ?We always need to think about??) 18. Can develop ideas in creative and interesting ways

Do teachers have to go through this with every child Dont think it is a good use of their time.

Yes teachers go through this for each child's work but not during school/teaching time ... this is what teachers do after the children leave and at weekends and holidays...
They do it because it gives a very clear picture of what skills children have and what they need to teach to help children progress so it is a very good use of our time.

"Do teachers have to go through this with every child Dont think it is a good use of their time."

This is not for EVERY piece of work that a child does, most schools do "formal" assessments with each pupil in their class every half term to termly, or for the foundation subjects, at the end of each unit. However in reference to the big writing aspect, that is supposed to be done for every piece of writing they do in order to show the progression.

It is, as mrz said, a good use of time in reference to it allowing the teacher to know where to go next in their planning, and knowing where the children are in their progression and ability. However, in saying that, it is very time consuming, and when you are doing that every 6 weeks for literacy and numeracy for example times 30 kids, I usually end up taking about ten minutes per child to mark both of them, so it is at least 5 straight hours of marking time!