OlayaTapestrySupport Posted December 14, 2017 Posted December 14, 2017 Please note that this tutorial is about tracking groups of children for the old EYFS. For information about tracking screens for groups for the new EYFS 2021, please click here. Similarly to how you can view how much progress an individual child is making, there are several different ways in which you can learn how much progress a group of children is making. There are a couple things you need to bear in mind to understand group progress: Any percentages shown are for the number of children that have been assessed for each area and/or aspect within the group. That is, if there are 15 children in a group, but only 10 have been assessed for a specific area, the percentage will be calculated over 10 children. Any other figures are calculated by finding the progress score for each individual child in the group, adding all of those up, and dividing it by the number of children with progress scores in the group. There are four different screens where you can view group progress: Age band tracker Points Progress screen Comparison group Progress Picker screen We'll go through them one at a time, starting with the age band tracker. You can also use the links above to skip to a relevant section of this tutorial. Age band tracker The age band tracker is a screen within the tracking tab. This screen shows you the average assessment scores for the individuals within the group for several periods side by side. This is the more visual representation of progress and doesn't take the group's average age into account - it just shows how they have moved through the age bands and refinements. You can find it by going to the Tracking tab, ensuring that you are on the EYFS sections, and clicking on the ‘group view’ button in the age band tracker box. This will take you to a page where you’ll be able to choose the group you want to see the progress for - this can be either a group added by you, or groups based on cohort, key person, gender, season born, etc. You will also be able to select a start period and an end period, which will determine the number of terms that you will see the progress for. For the purpose of this tutorial, I’m going to analyse the progress for 'Olaya's Group’, and I will take a look from Spring Term 2015/2016 to Autumn Term 2017/2016. Once you've set your filters, you will see a chart like the one shown below for each aspect of the EYFS. You will see that each column refers to a period and each row refers to a specific age band and refinement. The aspects of learning are divided in different charts, so you can scroll through directly to the one that most interests you. You will also see each child's name in the box that corresponds with their age band and refinement for each period they've been assessed in. This score is taken from the summative assessment screen. The percentage refers to the percentage of children within the chosen group that were assessed for that aspect for each period. Remember that the percentage is calculated over the number of children within the chosen group that were assessed for each aspect and for each period. For example, in the chart below you can see that 40% of the 5 children that were assessed for Making Relationships in Summer Term 2016/2017 were assessed at 30-50 Developing. If you'd like to isolate the percentages for a period from the rest of the information displayed, simply hover your mouse over any of the percentage numbers for the corresponding period. Points Progress screen The points progress screen will show you how many points of progress - or refinement 'jumps' - a child has made between two periods, and the percentage of children in each group making however many points progress. You’ll find this screen by clicking on the ‘Points Progress’ button in the Progress box in the EYFS analysis section from the ‘Tracking’ tab. Here you can select two periods (1) to compare and Tapestry will calculate a ‘points progress score’ based on how many points of progress (i.e. refinement jumps) the children have made between in those two periods. You can also narrow your search down by area of assessment (2) and type of group (3). You can also sort the list order by name, most observations, youngest, etc. (4) After this, you will be presented with a series of grids containing either a positive or negative number (for if they've moved backwards). There will also be a grid named 'not assessed'. The numbers represent how many refinements a child has moved. We consider moving from 30-50 secure to 40-60 emerging as a refinement 'jump' as well. For example, if a child moved from 22-36 secure, to 30-50 emerging, this would be a score of +1. Also, if a child gone backwards from 16-26 developing to 8-20 secure, this would be a score of - 2. Please note that if you haven't included the refinements on your summative assessment, the system will consider all refinements as 'developing', so any jumps will be considered from whichever age band developing to whichever age band developing. ‘Not assessed’ means that there isn't an assessment for these children for that aspect in at least one of the 2 periods you have selected. From a group analysis point of view, the interest lies in that you can see exactly the percentage of children that have moved +1, -4 or 0, for instance, as well as the percentage of children in the group that were not assessed for that aspect for either or both of the chosen periods. Comparison group This screen works out a numerical value based on how many months the average group age is away from their average assessed age and the percentage of children that were assessed at or above their age. The interesting thing about this screen is that you can have two periods side by side, so you can compare the figures from one period to another. To get to this screen you need to go back to the Tracking tab, EYFS section, and click on the 'Comparison: Group' button. This will take you to a screen where you can select the period or periods you would like to see and the group of children you would like to see them for. You will need to select one group and two periods. You can do that by clicking on the + Add Snapshot button and either clicking on one, then pressing okay, then pressing + Add Snapshot again, etc, or you can press and hold 'Ctrl' on your keyboard and select the two periods you wish to see. Please make sure that your periods are being displayed in chronological order though, otherwise this could lead to some confusion! If they are not, you can simply click on one and drag it through to set the periods up in the correct order. That will bring up a table that will display the percentage of children that are at or above actual age (1) for each aspect for the selected periods. Remember that this is for the children within the group that have been assessed for that period and aspect. You will have both periods side to side, so you can easily see the progress. It will also show you the average number of months that the assessed children within the group are above the average actual age (2). So, if four children out of 5 have been assessed for Making Relationships on the Spring Term 16/17, and these children were aged at that period 21, 26, 22 and 34, for instance, their average age would be (21 + 26 + 22 + 34) / 4 = 25.75. Tapestry rounds this figure up, so that would be 26 months old. Tapestry then calculates the average age band that they have been assessed at for that aspect. The way this average is calculated is by assigning the lowest age band with a 1, and then each age band/refinement between the lowest and highest number will be assigned a subsequent number. So let's say that the four children above were assessed as 16-26 secure, 22-36 emerging, 22-36 emerging and 30-50 emerging. The assigned numbers would be as follows: 16-26 secure: 1 22-36 emerging: 2 30-50 secure: 7 To work out the average we would add up all of the assessment values, so 1+2+2+7 and divide this by the number of assessments, which is 4. his gives us a score of 3. We can then convert this back to an assessment value, so if 16-26 secure is 1, and 22-36 emerging is 2, 3 will be 22-36 developing. (If you want to know more about how the figures in analysis are calculated, please go to our tutorial on this here.) Once these two figures have been calculated - average age and average age band - the system compares them against each other, showing you the figure that shows under ‘average months above actual age’. In this case, the average months above actual age for Making Relationships for the Spring Term 2016/2017 is 0. This means that the average group age, and the average assessed age band coincide. On average the group are on track (because there are 0 months difference between average actual age and average assessed age), but only 80% are at or above. This indicates that 20% of the assessed children are below actual age. If you want to see the individual figure for each child you'd have to go to the child picker in the attainment screen. Note that it is possible that the average months above actual age is shown as a negative number. This would mean that the average age is below the average age band. The Contributing obs (3) column indicates how many observations in total have contributed to the calculation of these figures. Please note that the contributing observations are the sum of all the observations made for all the children within the group that contributed towards the calculation of their summative assessment scores. If the score of any of the children has been manually overridden, none of the observations made for that child for that period and aspect will be considered as a contributing observation. Progress Picker screen The best place to see progress as a single number which takes into account how much time has passed is the 'Progress Picker Screen'. You can find the button for this from the Tracking tab in the EYFS section – make sure that you click on the ‘group picker’. That will take you to a page where you need to select the two periods you would like to see the progress between. That will open a chart like the one below, with all your different groups listed. For each group, in each aspect, you will either see a single number or a dash. The dashes mean that there isn't an assessment for any children within the group in that aspect in at least one of the 2 periods you have selected. The numbers indicate how many months the average progress score for the children in the group has increased, relative to how many months have passed. It is very important to understand how this average is calculated for the group screen. The system considers the individual children’s attainment for the two periods that you have selected, and calculates each child’s progress score (which you can check in the child picker of the progress screen). So, for instance, if Poppy's attainment score for Making Relationships in Summer Term 2016/2017 was of 3, and her score in Autumn Term 2017/2018 was of 0, her progress score between these two periods would be -3, which is how much Poppy's attainment has changed for the selected terms. Once the system has the progress score for each aspect for the children within each group, it calculates the average. Please take a look at this tutorial to see exactly how these scores are calculated - to understand progress you really need to understand attainment first, so it's worth reading this tutorial as well. So that's it - those are the main screens to look at when you're trying to see progress for groups. If you have any follow up questions about group progress, please send us a support ticket to customer.service@eyfs.info where we can answer your questions via email, or set up an over the phone training session where we can look at your data with you and help explain anything you're unsure of. 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