Spelling test results

[miroam]

My DD has just started in year 1 and had her first spelling test last friday. We were expecting to hear how our children had got on but after nearly a week without hearing anything one of the mums spoke to the teacher this morning who said that they weren't allowed to tell the children the results, though she would tell parents on an individual basis if they asked. I guess I can understand that they don't want to make any child feel bad about their results but was just wondering if other parent/teachers could tell me if this is normal policy? Its been a while since I was at school and this definitely wasn't the case then

No spelling tests in our school until year three. It sounds quite kind not to tell them to me.

Doesn't sound very helpful in involving you in assisting your child with learning their spellings and going over any difficulties they are having.

We have a spellings book and the results are shown clearly in this each week so that they are not made known to any other child, each child's results are private, tucked away in their book iyswim.

The book alos contais next weeks list to learn and the children practice their spellings in class with a "look/cover up/write and the check" exercise.

Ds's (year 1) are given to them individually with marks out of 8, which does worry me a bit, I don't think it's ideal at that age, I would imagine it's a quick way to make children feel 'I can't do this'.

Having said that, i think parents should be able to see their children's work (not just hear the results) so that they can spot where the problems are - if you've done some practice with your child you're going to find it easier to tell where mistakes are creeping in, I would have thought.

DS gets his spelling back with marks on and has done since Year one.

In our school, the DC are given new words on a Tues, have the test on a Friday. The DC write in a little red book for their test.

We are given the red book back on a Monday after it has been marked, so we can see what is what and then they get a new set of words (6 at the moment) on the Tues...and process begins again.

DS in Yr1 BTW. I don't think they are aware of each others marks, which is the best way in my opinion.
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Thanks for the responses. The books seem like a good idea as like you say at least then I can see what DD is getting correct or needs help with. I am not in favour of the results being shared with the rest of the class either. DD is putting a lot of effort in to learning her spellings (as am I and DH!) so I suppose that's the most important thing given that she is 5! Would love to know the result of our effort though!

Bear in mind that a lot of schools have given up doing spelling tests because they are not a particularly effective way of helping children with spelling. A lot are like my dd, who never got less than 10 out of 10 for a spelling test in her entire primary school career, but couldn't spell the words correctly if asked the next day to write them in a sentence, and who is now, even at 13 a pretty hopeless speller!

She's 5 - I honestly wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you!

We didn't find out initially when DD was in Y2. But it came up at a parent teacher meeting, with a few of us together. We mentioned that it would be nice to know the results so we know if we needed to be supporting the girls more. The teacher agreed, hadnt really thought about it before, and started writing results in the homework diary. Same has continued into Y3.

So it is worth asking.

BTW - agree with others. DD gets full marks in pretty much every spelling test she does. However her general written wrk is misspelt lots and she is now having a little bit of support regarding some sdyslexic tendancies that has shown up in her day to day writing.