Ds1's report and Pscales.

[bullet123]

Ds1 got his report on Friday and he has some assessment results. These are;

Reading - between P5 and P6.
Writing - almost at P8
Speaking - between P4 and P5
Listening - between P5 and P6.
Maths is into 3 sections and ranges from P5 to nearly P7.
Science is divided into 4 sections and is at nearly P4 on all of them.
Art is nearly P5
Citizenship is nearly P7
Design is nearly P4
Geography is nearly P4
History is nearly P5
ICT is nearly P7
Music is nearly P4
PE is just over P3
PSHE is nearly P5
RE is nearly P5.

He is six this coming Thursday. For those that know the Pscales does that suggest at this age he has learning difficulties?

P scales go up to P8, then the assessment measures from within level 1 of the National Curriculum.

He's still a littlie in his year, I'm amazed they've levelled all of those areas as we stick to numeracy, literacy and science. It would appear that he is behind the National Average - you need to speak to his teacher, as she/he will know whether he is just 'taking off' or whether he will need a bit of extra support to do so.

I notice that PE is just over P3; does he have motor difficulties?

A description of the P scales is here

You can look up your DS's P scale to see what he is attaining.

apols if I seem patronising, but are you absolutely sure they are all assessed within the Pscales, rather than within the 1-9 National Curriculum framework? as language will of course lower some areas of attainment, but would have though that in some areas like Art he would be well off the P-scales, he's pretty good at drawing.

Yes, art did surprise us a lot. But it's definitely the Pscales, it states clearly on the report.
He has no motor difficulties.
Have they even got the right child?
I've just checked art and I think it may possibly be that he's very independant with his drawings and doesn't want to draw what others suggest or talk about what others want, which may possibly affect the results. But he's very good at drawing so will ask for further clarification.
I've looked at some of the Pscales before, it's just I'm not entirely sure how that compares to other 5 year olds. Yes, I know you shouldn't compare but I've got his parents evening tomorrow so want to know what to say about them.

well if you compare to S - who is OK in the year below but has some of the same language issues - he wasn't assessed on P scales for anything at parents evening, it was all against the reception year 1-9 scale. and to get a 9 (the top point) on 2 out of the 3 maths sections of the reception year scale you just have to be able to count and read numbers to at least 20, and know plenty of shapes (the actual arithemtic is the other of the 3 maths section). And I would eat my hat if your T couldn't do that.

Here is a table that shows you age related expectations.

Levels P1-3 are "generic," ie, the same across all subject areas,
I will say that lots of teachers are unfamiliar with P-scales, so it is worth making sure you know what they mean. Is your son in mainstream?

No, he goes to a special school.
Aye, Total, he definitely knows his numbers, shapes etc. He's known them for years.

P5
Pupils select a few words, symbols or pictures with which they are particularly familiar and derive some meaning from text, symbols or pictures presented in a way familiar to them. They match objects to pictures and symbols, for example choosing between two symbols to select a drink or seeing a photograph of a child and eye-pointing at the child. They show curiosity about content at a simple level, for example they may answer basic two key-word questions about a story. is the reading one

P8
Pupils show awareness that writing can have a range of purposes, for example, in relation to letters, lists or stories. They show understanding of how text is arranged on the page, for example, by writing or producing letter sequences going to left to right. They write or use their preferred mode of communication to set down their names with appropriate use of upper- and lower-case letters or appropriate symbols. is writing. A 3 level difference is pretty big!

I have looked at the maths and whilst some of the stuff I can see him maybe not co-operating with, eg the copying and he does get very strong willed with how he thinks things should be, he is very good at most of it. So he should be getting a higher score on that.

He loves writing and will spend literally hours writing down familiar words every night. The reading difference makes sense as he has significant difficulties with understanding. Eg today I read him a story about Spot the dog making a cake for his dad's birthday and when I asked him why his dad had a cake he couldn't tell me. He just said "Spot have the cake." So he could write out the story very well, but not be able to understand what was going on in it.

I'm wondering if they had to specifically "test"/observe him over a set period, rather than looking at him as a whole. If he wasn't co-operating, preferred to do his own thing or wasn't in the mood for talking during that time it might explain the results. Don't get me wrong, a fair amount of them makes sense and I can see why they put him down as that. But others, like maths, art and even science (which is very visual and he's actually attending a mainstream class every Monday for that) should be higher.

It depends on the school. We used to do a specific "test" activity, but found this unhelpful, now we carry out constant observations and use these to write reports. We also include the reports in the Annual Review rather than as a seperate issue, as it's all connected if you know what I mean! IEP targets are also connected to the P-scales.

But a LOT of teachers haven't got to grips with them yet. We were one of the trial schools, so started using them in 2004, some schools have only just started using the system.

One testing system is called "PACE," you could ask about that? DOn't be scared to ask how assessments happen - and for evidence!

Ok, the maths bit of the report is bollocks. I'm sorry, but it is. They gave us a few photos of him doing work throughout the year and a written bit underneath to explain it. The following took place in February this year:

"T was participating in his IEP target, focusing on naming and sorting shapes. When asked for a diamond T tried to make his own by putting two triangles together, even though there were clearly diamonds on show in front of him. He was then given a diamond, easily matched it then made another one (pictured here, looks like he's putting two triangles together again) independently. T is able to recognise, name and collect a selection of varying sized shapes: hexagon, circle, rectangle, square and triangle."

I've gone and looked up the National Curriculum levels for his year and apparently they expect the child to be able to explain and talk about how they work things out. Which he definitely can not do.
So it is all a bit daft as he has the ability to work things out, but not to explain how he can or to reason about it.