AnonyMouse_13789 Posted November 23, 2008 Posted November 23, 2008 Hi everyone I am a reception teacher and currently we have 3 intakes a year. I will be losing my current class after christmas and will be gaining a new one. They will have just turned 4 and the spring term will be their first term out of 5. My currect class was no problem because they are in their FS year I could baseline them using the FSP. However my next class will not be in their FS year for another 2 terms and I know that you shouldn't be assessing them against the FSP if they are in F1, but how do I baseline them? I have been told to baseline them against the development matters statements but surely this would take way too long as there are so many and I will only have them for one term and then the next intake will come in. I don't want to spend 6 weeks assessing them when i only have them for 8 weeks! AARGH any suggestions on how others are baselining their F1 children? Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaseeeeeee?
Guest Keen Posted November 23, 2008 Posted November 23, 2008 Goodness me Rufus what a short amount of time to have the children - they will just be getting to know you and then move on to another teacher is that right? I was at a meeting with the strategy folk recently and the infomation coming from them is NO BASELINE. They suggest using your normal every day observations and then from these see where you are planning for the children using development matters. You could then say what % you were planning for at each stage. Not sure if this helps!
AnonyMouse_13789 Posted November 23, 2008 Author Posted November 23, 2008 Goodness me Rufus what a short amount of time to have the children - they will just be getting to know you and then move on to another teacher is that right? Yes that is right, it's hardly anytime at all! Roll on 2010 when we move to 1 term intake. what you are saying makes sense and fits in (from what i have heard) with what ofsted are asking. What percentage of your cohort are in which dev matters stages. But the problem that i have is that i need to show my value added since i only have them for one term. How can i do that without a baseline?
Guest Keen Posted November 24, 2008 Posted November 24, 2008 Rufus maybe the best thing would be to take PSED and show how you will have added value there as this will be the area where you will have the most impact! Good luck.
AnonyMouse_4562 Posted November 24, 2008 Posted November 24, 2008 Hi Rufus, In our LA we are piloting a scheme where we use the development matters and look, listen and note statements together from the 22-36month stage. We give a point for each strand that the child is completely confident in (so where there are more than one bullet point in the development matters they have to be confident in both bullet points). We have been asked to do this for just PSED and CLL as these are what you tend to focus on first when children come into your setting. So the maximum they can get for PSED is 6 and the same for CLL. This then shows whether or not they are working within the 30-50 month section and gives a 'prediction' of whether or not they will achieve the ELGs. It won't really be useful for informing your planning because it doesn't tell you where exactly the children are (but your day to day obs will!) but it does give you the evidence you need of showing where the children were when they came into your setting - which is what Ofsted will be asking. The NAA advise that number crunching is not necessary for 3-4 year olds but it is definately in the guidance for Ofsted inspectors to ask during foundation stage inspections! Not sure what age the children are when they come to you but I suppose you could do it with the 30-50month section if the children are nearly reception age. I do assess the children using the eprofile at the end of the year before they go into reception but the vast majority of our children are achieving some statements from the eprofile. I can understand that this could be a problem if the children are not achieving any of the statements yet Hope this helps Green Hippo x
Guest Posted November 26, 2008 Posted November 26, 2008 Hungry Hippo interesting that your LA are piloting this as I was at a meeting with the strategy RAs for EYFS and this was what they definately didn't want to happen. They were extolling the virtues of Birmingham but really it was about when you were planning for the children and they were against tick lists also!!
AnonyMouse_4562 Posted November 27, 2008 Posted November 27, 2008 Hi Emilia, I was very reluctant about this to begin with as I have always been told that stepping stones/development matters statements are not to be used as assessment criteria tick lists. I put this to the lady who is leading the pilot - she agreed, saying that the message is still exactly the same but what we are attempting to do is "completely different" (her words, not mine!). She explained that we are using the development matters statements alongside the look, listen and note section to make a periodic judgement of the age-related development of the children in our care - we are not going down the development matters statements ticking them off as they achieve them. This information can then be used to say x number of children are mostly working within the 30-50months sections, x number of children are still working within the 22-36month section. Which is exactly what Ofsted want to find out (it's in their guidance notes). As I said before this information is not going to be used by the teacher to inform planning - as you have got much more detailed information from day-to-day obs and assessment. So, for example, I may have a child who is confident with the 22-36month section but is also very close to being confident in 30-50months section and we are beginning to look at the 40-60months section for his next steps - this would of course not be shown in this assessment as for "official" purposes he is working within the 30-50months section. Our LA have made it clear that this is an exercise to show value added for Ofsted - we're playing the game! It's a shame that in the light of the EYFS we are still required to have statisical data like this for such young children! Hope this all make sense Green hippo x
Guest Keen Posted November 27, 2008 Posted November 27, 2008 This is similar to the advice we have recieved Hungry Hippo. We are told to record at what stage of development matters we are planning for the children from based on our observations and then at a point to record what % we are planning for in which sections and this is info we can put on our SEF. As you say a shame we have to do this to show value added can they not just trust us that children are working at developmentally appropriate stages for them!
Guest Posted November 28, 2008 Posted November 28, 2008 Hi,i do baseline on fs1 using eyfs,our early years team have seen this and says its fine,we have the sheets in their learning journey and i put a yellow line through for baseline,then change to another colour for fs1 then fs2.Hope this helps
Guest Posted November 28, 2008 Posted November 28, 2008 We use Pips assesment for baseline, the children complete the tests on our interactive whiteboard, they really enjoy it and it stops at the difficuty level they reach. The children are retested at the end of the year and the programme automatically picks up from where they left off. The results are emailed off each time and we receive data back that compares with national averages, then end of year data shows their progress and gives a level for the Y1 teacher. Only negative really is that it concentrates on CLL & PSRN.
Guest Posted January 6, 2009 Posted January 6, 2009 [what is the answer then..please help us as we are totally unsure how to show value added from entry to nursery. Currently using development matters to assess children against and lots of observations.... is there a way!
AnonyMouse_17960 Posted January 7, 2009 Posted January 7, 2009 [what is the answer then..please help us as we are totally unsure how to show value added from entry to nursery. Currently using development matters to assess children against and lots of observations.... is there a way! Hi Angela, Quite rightly, the issue of gathering on-entry data is an important one. I think you are on the right track if you are using 'development matters' to assess the children - and good practice if you begin the process within six weeks of the children starting in Nursery. The practice guidance of the EYFS entitled ‘development matters’ can be used to inform attainment on entry to either Nursery or Reception classes. Recommended tracking sheets can be found on Cumbria Grid for Learning, following the links – Curriculum – Early Years – Observation, Assessment and Planning. I liked the format and have adapted the Summary sheet given there too for an across Nursery overview. There was some useful information in their 'guidance for practitioners' about assessing children on-entry (in Nursery/Reception) in the light of EYFS. I quote: "No national data on attainment on entry is available for comparison. Instead, inspectors will take account of expectations in the age-related bands (contained in development matters)." "The following is issued as guidance for attainment on entry to Nursery : most children are likely to be working within the development matters band for 30-50 months, having shown competence in the preceding band for 22-36 months. This may be referred to as the age related expectation at the beginning of Nursery. This guidance will be considered for all six areas of learning when judging attainment on entry to Nursery, taking into account children’s ages on entry." The recommended tracking sheets will bring us back to the argument of using them as a checklist - however in their CPD materials Cumbria advocates they "can be used to show progress" - by highlighting in colours and stresses NOT to use them for planning, by trying to fill the gaps. Failing any explicit guidance (yet) from my own local area, I am implementing this system - it does the job. Read around the website, you might get some inspiration. Hope this helps in your dilemma. Fingertips
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