tapestry age band and refinement

[AnonyMouse_61559]

Hi , im hoping someone can help

i have a child who has been assessed as

22-36 secure in physical moving and handling,

during this observation period i had 4 observations in this area 1 being a 22-36 assessed observation and the other 3 were all assessed at 30-50

 

I am wondering how or why it was calculated that he is secure in 22-36 and not at least emerging in 30-50months?

 

any thoughts would be welcomed as i have mummy coming in to speak about it but i can't figure it out

 

thank you in advance

xx

[Lauren]

Hi,

The scores in snapshots are the 'mean' of all of your assessments. Essentially, what we do is assign a value to each age band and refinement then add all of the scores up for your observations and divide it by the total number. Then we will round that score to the nearest value and convert that back to an age band and refinement.

It's probably easier to understand if I take you through the whole process but I need to know the refinements used to be completely accurate. I'll guess for the sake of this answer but if I've got them wrong, please do reply with the actual refinements used I'll be able to do it again with those.

For now though, let's say the assessments were 22-36 emerging, 30-50 emerging, 30-50 emerging, and 30-50 emerging.

We would assign the values of:
22-36E = 1
22-36D = 2
22-36S = 3
30-50E = 4
30-50D = 5

30-50S = 6

So then we would add the values up for each of your assessments (1+4+4+4) which equals 13. Then divide that by the number of assessments, so 4, which makes the sum 13/4. That gives the score of 3.25.
We're only dealing with whole numbers so we round that to the closest value (3), then convert that back to an age band and refinement score (22-36 secure).

I hope that's clear and explains what you're seeing!

[AnonyMouse_55063]

It is very clever how the assessments are worked out as explained by Lauren.. using mean scoring and I wasn't aware of this myself.

 

In the snapshots section, we have many options to choose from and this is great, in your experience what is the most effective method of presenting the data so to get a clear "snapshot" of where a child is currently at, in each area of learning?

 

At the moment in the control panel and then settings, Summative Assessment Settings, I choose "Age bands, refinements and statements"

[Lauren]

We recommend that you use the age bands and refinements option. That one takes only the assessments you've made into account when calculating the average which we find gives the most accurate score.

When you choose 'age bands, refinements and statements', the age bands and refinements you choose as part of your observations are taken into account, but if you don't use a refinement, Tapestry will come up with one for you based on the % of statements ticked per obs (up to 33% would be emerging, 34%-66% would be developing, and 67%-100% would be secure). We added this due to popular demand, but we really don't like statement ticking (as you may have noticed!) and it looks at each observation independently.

So let's say you were looking at Making Relationships and you had assessed a child in that 3 times across a term. Every time you assessed them, you chose the age band 40-60+, you didn't refine, but you did tick a different statement for each 3 observations (there are 3 statements in total). For each observation Tapestry would see you'd ticked 33% of the statements and therefore would say your observations were all 40-60+ Emerging. You would have to tick all 3 in one observation to reach secure. Even if you were to do that (which is unlikely in many of the age bands, take Moving and Handling 30-50 for example, are you ever going to see a child move freely, mount stairs, walk downstairs, run skillfully, stand on one foot, catch a large ball, draw lines and circles, use one handed tools, hold a pencil, and copy letters all in one go?), just because you've seen them try them all, it doesn't mean they're doing it securely.

If you choose the age bands and statements option then Tapestry will ignore the refinements you've chosen and purely assign refinements based on the % of statements ticked, as described above.

If you choose the just age bands option, no refinements will be calculated or be part of the averaging system - it will purely be based on the age bands you've assigned, and then the child will be in the mid point of that, so developing.

Of course, regardless of which option you do choose, you will be able to manually override the score that appears in snapshots so it matches with your professional judgement.

[AnonyMouse_55063]

Thank you very much Lauren! I will adjust and see it that goes.. great explanation

[Lauren]

No problem! Let us know if you see something unexpected

[AnonyMouse_61559]

Thank you so much for this it totally makes sense to me now, i havnt been using the refinement part of the assessment so much which would have made a difference , i will definately do that from now on and that is amazingly helpful to know how it works, i can forward on this information to the parents.

 

Thanks again. its good to know i have this forum for support.