Reception report help - in Wales

[Cat98]

I know we have a welsh teacher on here (little miss green?) I wonder if I can ask for a quick explanation.

We had ds's report yesterday. It is split into 8 categories. For 'mathematical development' and 'language, literacy and communication' it says he is 'exceeding age expectations' and uses words like 'exceptional'. We knew he was doing v well in maths, didnt think he was as far ahead in reading but the report raved about his reading and communication skills the most!

But for the other categories - there were lots of nice comments (physical development - he's v good at kicking balls, creative development - he's got excellent fine motor skills) and some comments where it says 'we are trying encourage x' -eg for welsh to 'use it with special visitors'! But nothing about expected, exceeding or emerging as I read about on here.

My q is, what would you infer from this - that he is developing as expected in the other categories? Would it say if he wasnt? I'm also wondering how its scored, if its different in Wales, as people on here seem to have had 'expected, exceeding or emerging' given for each category!

Thank you.

[Tiggles]

:) I'm not a Welsh teacher, but am a governor at a Welsh school and spend a lot of time chatting to the teachers (mainly about numeracy, but also literacy).
Because our foundation phase runs through to the end of year 2 as far as I can find out there isn't a specific outcome level for the end of reception.
In England there is an expected level at the end of year 2 (level 2) but levels for year 1 are only implied (At a level1) because of the expected progress a child has to make in a year - thanks to Mrz for that info!
In Wales a child in year 2 is supposed to be at outcome 5 (as in finished outcome 5, or very near the top of it) so at the end of year 1 they are supposed to around the top of outcome 4, and therefore outcome 3 ish in reception.
It sounds likes he is doing well. I tend to read into a report if something is being encouraged that the expected level for something is that they do it by themselves unsupported. But I don't know if that is just our school.
It is possible to download the entire framework on the internet, or it is also available in libraries. The numeracy and literacy basic outline can be found here, each subject has its own guidebook as well as the main framework. You can see in the framework, that because things are done though learning by play there are lots of lists -not of the skills that children should be taught, but the experiences they should be given so they develop skills (especially problem solving skills) appropriately. Lower down in the document it describes what is expected to get to each outcome.
Hope this helps a bit.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

I have 3 DC in a Welsh primary.

You will have been given a fuller report in Mathematical Development, and Language, Literacy and Communication than for the other areas of learning (I assume you are English medium so have Welsh as a separate subject, we are Welsh medium so it comes under LLC). My DC are also given targets for next year in those subjects, not sure if that is standard. The other areas of learning have a shorter, more general report.

The reports also tend to focus on the learning experiences that they have had rather than specific levels that they have reached.

[Tiggles]

Our school give out a target too for literacy and numeracy.
I've just looked through DS2s report in year 1, and compared it to the framework doc I linked to above, his teacher has pretty much just reworded the outcome he is on to make it relevant to him. e.g. Welsh outcome 4 is "Children show understanding of words and phrases spoken clearly by a familiar voice and respond by means of short oral phrases." His report says "DS shows understanding..." so it is really easy to see exactly which outcomes he has achieved.

I forgot to say earlier I don't think there is a scoring mechanism any more - it always was different to England's in that it didn't go to 9 (and there's has changed again to the emerging/expected/exceeded) but I think this is the first year that our scoring system hasn't been used too. I could be wrong on that, DS3 starts reception next year and they were saying the other day everything has changed again...

[AmandinePoulain]

Thanks for those links, dd1's report seems so generic that they will make interesting reading. She also seems far more able (to me anyway, although I'm not a teacher) than the report makes out - for example it says that she can 'count to 10', when I've heard her go far higher than that; and it says that she can 'follow pictures to make a story' and 'read simple words' - she's being sent home with year 1 books so I'd say she's doing more than that . It all feels a bit like a tick box exercise to me, is that how the teachers see it too?

[Cat98]

Thank you very much, that is helpful.
I've had a look at the outcomes and apart from the literacy and numeracy ones, I can't really relate it to his report - I suppose that is a good thing as the report is very personal to him and shows how well they know my ds.
However the only section where it says 'we are encouraging..' Is welsh, the other sections tend to say 'is now able to ...'
Yes we're English medium.
Looking at it then it seems his weakest areas are welsh (though he really enjoys it) and possibly creative development - just because there's not much written, and I know he's not a massive fan of drawing/craft work (though they are very enthusiastic about his woodlouse dens, bless!)

[JemimaMuddledUp]

Amandine it is a bit of a tick box exercise TBH. As Little Miss Green said they have a list of outcomes for their age, and the comments relate to those. By the end of Nursery class they are supposed to be able to count to 5, by the end of Reception it must be 10, the statement just says that they have achieved this. It doesn't mean that they can't count any higher, just that they have been tested on that and have achieved it.

[Tiggles]

I found it very interesting this time how different teachers in the school have written their reports.
DS3 is in the nursery attached to the school and from looking at his report in some areas he appears to be better at things than DS2 e.g. in maths DS3 has it written that he can count and do sums to 50 and beyond, whereas DS2s report (in year 1) has been worded very carefully to show that he has achieved outcome 4 which only does sums/counting to 20. They both have written that they "understand sentence structure and can write simple sentences" for literacy (outcome 4) although DS2 is obviously capable of writing much more complex sentences than DS3.

So our nursery reports are definitely very child based and not so based on the outcomes, whereas the year 1 (And 2) reports are based on them very heavily.

[AmandinePoulain]

Thanks jemima. I wish they were just allowed to write what they actually think rather than against a framework. Less work for the teachers and more informative for us! It must be very frustrating.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

There is a "general comments" section at the end of ours, where the teachers can write whatever they want to. I usually skip right to that as it tells me more aboou my actual children than the more formal bits.

[JemimaMuddledUp]

*about

[AmandinePoulain]

We had that too, and the comments were lovely but not related to her educational progress. I remember the nursery teacher last year saying that she found the framework too prescriptive. I'm a nurse and know about the frustrations of too much paperwork

[HalfMumHalfBiscuit]

Hi, can I ask for some help with this too please.

I think DS has had a pretty bad end of foundation phase report. We are going in to school tomorrow to speak to his teacher as we were not aware that he wasn't doing that well until today. DH and I met her on parents eve and she said he was improving and now I find out that he is around outcome 3/4/5. I have guessed this from looking at the link above. The report from the school is really vague with lots of 'can almost' and 'he is beginning to. . ' type language.

We are English but it is a welsh medium school. I am really worried that the learning of welsh has knocked him back. He struggles with reading. He has been taught in welsh only. His reading is welsh and the recent tests I think were in welsh too. He can speak welsh though. That seems to be the schools main aim.

I am worried that we have let DS down. That he is struggling and we didn't realise. I don't know what to do. We don't do lots of school work at home. DH and I work long hours and DS is usually tired after school and doesn't want to do work. He is young in the year too. Maybe we should get a load of work books or a tutor or something. Hoping it is not too late to help him. We do not really want to move him as he is happy there and it is a nice school.

Any advice would be appreciated especially on what to ask his teacher and how to help him in the future.

Sorry for hijacking thread.

[HalfMumHalfBiscuit]

I started a new thread. Hope all goes well for you and your DD OP.