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Where I work we do similar to what you describe. My primary aged child gets national curriculum sublevels, with an attached sheet to say what levels are expected for her age, so potentially the same effect. Afaik schools have to tell parents how their child is doing compared to national expectations. So not sure you could avoid it. But I think older children know anyway if they are below average. You could argue they have a right to know, but I do take your point. My slightly below average child can view herself as less capable than she actually is - hard to tell though if that is a result of years of underachievement or feelings resulting from a traumatic start in life.

It may be a long way off, but secondary works differently at least! There we are expected to set targets based on the individual, and comment on where that child is on their "flight path" (latest jargon!) to that target. This means ALL children should be capable of meeting and even beating their targets!

The emerging, expected and exceeding the Early Learning Goals came in this year. I think it's supposedly designed to help target set and track children better than the old system through key stage 1 and 2.If your child is unable to access, or emerging, I would be expecting the school to be putting in place interventions in years 1 and 2. In my school we have many interventions including Reading Recovery and additional phonics support for the children. It may be worth asking what they are going to do about it!! A chat with the SENCO may be helpful.If your child is a Summer born, factor in the age difference between the oldest and youngest. My lad is sept born and some of his friends are still 4. It makes a huge difference.I knew my lad would score less on the Personal, Social and Emotional than some of his classmates who don't have life baggage.

Hi Monkey,My little one's report was very similar and she has falleb below target in many areas. I never thought about how this would affect her if it continues on subsequent reports. We didn't draw her attention to it ( she's only 5) but just said she had done extremely well. There was a lot of writing that accompanied her report and the teacher had been very careful to write a lot of positive things in there which made my day. Did yours do that too? If not then I would definitely moan as no matter how much they struggle there should always be something positive to draw upon. We have found that dd is very good at sport so we do loads with her so that even if she is not achieving academically she still has something that she is making great progress in. She struggles with art but we do a lot of this with her too as it's something that there is no wrong or right with just your own interpretation. The thing I struggle with at this stage is the not knowing what we are up against. She has recently been placed on school action. Things may improve however if genetics are anything to go by then a statement will be coming our way. For the time being it's the waiting game.