Guest Posted April 15, 2003 Posted April 15, 2003 Has anyone else been asked to write reports as well as complete the foundation stage profiles? This seems like a lot of extra work. Does anyone have any sites that will give report formats to download or report formats to tie in with the FSP information.
Guest Posted April 16, 2003 Posted April 16, 2003 It looks as though that's what we will be doing. At the Profile Training we were told we could use them as reports but they probably weren't appropriate because they weren't written in 'parent friendly' english. I was having a look through all the statements yesterday and I think there are only about 3 that probably wouldn't make much sense and those are the ones referring to phonoligical knowledge. The other point raised at the training was if we pass the reports on to Y1 teachers, we couldn't also use them as end of year reports. It looks as though we are going to have to use them as a basis for report writing. Hopefully, the Govt will come up with something else to cut down the workload - I only wish they had thought about this issue before release!
Guest Posted April 16, 2003 Posted April 16, 2003 I find this very difficult to understand, that the FSP isn't in 'parent friendly english', do you? Being a parent myself (alright yes, and an experienced practioner) I don't see the problem. It's fairly simple, read the statement and then see if their child has acheived this yet or if they are yet to acheive, makes sense to me! What's your opinion?
Guest Posted April 17, 2003 Posted April 17, 2003 Think I'd be concerned giving it to my less-able children's parents as it's going to be a statement more of what their child can't do than what they can. For the parents who get a line of ticked circles it's great - for those for whom it isn't
AnonyMouse_73 Posted April 17, 2003 Posted April 17, 2003 I think there is an assumption that all parents speak and read english- ours do not. Therfore the profile booklets are far too wordy- I wouldnt dream of sending them home. We will be doing a report as usual which has lots of samples of children's work and a limited written part.
Helen Posted April 25, 2003 Posted April 25, 2003 Hi everyone, I think that the profiles are not particularly "parent unfriendly" in the sense that most parents won't understand them, but rather that they are dry and impersonal. As a parent, I would much rather have a couple of paragraphs which really describe my child (and not just a ticklist of statements that apply to most other children in the class). The thought of a mass-produced ticked list of statements drawn from report-software also fills me with horror
Guest Posted May 11, 2003 Posted May 11, 2003 Hi I am reception/Year 1 teacher and I haven't received any profile documents and I haven't had any training, so I haven't a clue what i am doing, is there anyone else in this position Cathy
Helen Posted May 12, 2003 Posted May 12, 2003 Hi Cathy, You must feel like you were the only one not invited to the party!! As I understand it, each school was sent a FS Profile handbook (a pink file that matches the Curriculum Guidance file) and one profile. There was also an order form to complete, where you requested the correct number of profiles for your class. Did you never receive any of this? Your LEA are obliged to provide training. What part of the country are you in?
Guest Posted May 13, 2003 Posted May 13, 2003 I agree with concerns about sending home the scale booklets of children who have 'achieved' relatively poorly. Reports normally highlight what children can do, with a few pointers for what we need to focus on next, but the booklet will be a very clear stark indication of how your child isn't achieving, if they are still working on early stepping stones. This is ok if teachers have plenty of time to talk it through with parents, but at my current school the parent meetings are 10 minutes in the Autumn and Spring, with the Summer term feedback as the report only. From what I understand from the training, the scale booklet is meant to be a tool for 'talking' - using it to help discuss what's going on and sensitively explain about individual children's progress. This is all well and good, but does that mean another increase in Reception teachers' workload, with more meetings than other teachers (after school of course....)? I'm talking to my head about this at the moment, as I want all the necessary meeting times (and I do think they are important) clearly taken from my directed hours, rather than simply tacked on as yet another added extra.
Steve Posted May 14, 2003 Posted May 14, 2003 Hi bee - Welcome to the site and thanks for posting! I think that's a brilliant observation - the very last thing parents (and children!) need in their first year is a black and white judgemental measurement of their 'performance'. There is a world of difference between a series of tickboxes of absolute indicators and a gentle nudge accompanied by positive comments. We need to work on ways of allowing the second traditional method to complement the newer methods. I hope you enjoy the site and look forward to getting to know you. Regards, Steve
AnonyMouse_79 Posted May 15, 2003 Posted May 15, 2003 We have decided to send our booklets home, as the parents were very interested when we showed them blanks. So our next decision is how to report to year 1. A class group spread sheet could be useful but there may be relevant comments on the profile. Meanwhile I can't see any way round reams of paperwork in school and certainly the internal records I need to keep to track progress etc have not been cut by the profile as I had hoped. Seems no end to the workload! We will have an opportunity to talk to parents about their child's report/ profile as usual. We currently have the dilemna that either all or most of the children will score or all or most will not in many areas, as the statements seem to be very broad and complicated yet the evidence examples are quite simple. We will be making comments to personalise the profile and are especially concious of reinforcing the learning and progress that has been made by those children who are experiencing particular difficulties. We have already explained to our parents the colour coding of the boxes and given an approximation of they might expect to see. Our parents, largely multi cultural were fascinated. I am in a group that is trying to compile a document to track progress in Nursery and feed into the profile for Reception teachers. I don't wish to rediscover what children are already doing as surely that negates the nursery expertise. In our area children seem for the most part to be having up to 3 terms in Nursery and we are admitting for the whole of the Reception year. We don't want to replace the lovely record books that our nurseries are making, either. The dilemna here is that the Nurseries don't want reams of paperwork but don't want a very simple document either, as they don't feel that shows enough progress. I wish I could see my way to producing record books/ files or whatever for the children instead of dull record sheets but really can't see how to do so and have any sort of life. I never seem to have time to keep my classroom tidy or the displays changed as often as I'd like. Anyway after profiles I need to ask for time to fill the form to report to LEA. Or negotiate someone else to do so. I think we'll all deserve our summer hols this year!
Guest Posted May 22, 2003 Posted May 22, 2003 Hi, I'm new today!!!!!! We are photocopying our profiles to send home to parents and sending original to Yr 1. We put a nice little comment (like with reports) in the boxes provided so that the parents have a personal statement also.
Steve Posted May 22, 2003 Posted May 22, 2003 Hi Smudge - Welcome to the Forum! Hope you find the site useful and invigorating. How long have you had access to your profiles as a matter of interest? Best wishes, Steve.
Guest Linda Posted May 24, 2003 Posted May 24, 2003 Hi all I know it's not much consolation, but most people I know are struggling with the work load associated with the profile/reports. It seems as if we've been asked to produce double reports with the profile + comments in such a short space of time. In our school, we're adding an extra sheet with comments which have been recorded throughout the year as 'target setting records. These are going to be stapled into the front of the profile booklet. Let's remember that this is meant to be a pilot year, so I'm definitely not writing reams in boxes. A brief word of personal praise/ encouragement and a way forward, only adding to the comment box if there's something significant. eg. we found out last week (through observation) that one of our youngest children couldn't peddle a bike ! What we intend to do has been explained to parents in a letter (a meeting would have been better if SMT had agreed). We have had some very sympathetic and supportive comments ! From next year everyone shares the same starting point and things might be easier... Don't forget that it's not a statutory requirement to use the profile booklets at all. Only to keep track of the scores within each aspect over time. Until the process has been running for a whole year, I suspect that the impact of feedback to DfE will be limited...what do you think? Linda
Guest Posted May 25, 2003 Posted May 25, 2003 Well I've just spent all day sat writing my reports for reception and now have year 1 to do later in the week... then have to finalise my profile assesments and re-do the baseline (I've been told to do both) and fill in all that. In addition I also have, oh 8 weeks to find a new job (got told the bad news I wasn't being kept on on Thursday). Can't help but be annoyed - I've sat and busted a gut to set the systems in place for reception and the profiles, led to believe quite strongly I was going to be kept on (well you only had to read my posts to see that) and now I'm stabbed in the back like this. It's been hard to muster up the enthusiasm to do the reports today - but the children didn't do this to me so why should they suffer? (Although I have to confess the planned profile observations for Friday didn't go ahead - my TA held things together as I was so wobbly - should have rang in sick really except for this misplaced loyalty we all have - I wasn't in a state to teach). Feel really ill at the thought of going back there after they've done this to me.
Steve Posted May 25, 2003 Posted May 25, 2003 Dizziblonde - That's terrible news, and I'm so sorry to hear it. What's happening in Durham to cause it? Budget shortfalls? Keep your chin up! Keep us up to date, and please keep talking to us! Steve.
Guest Posted May 26, 2003 Posted May 26, 2003 Durham seems to have been hit really badly by the budget problems this year - there's a lot of redundancies - but it's in-school issues which mean I'm not being renewed... sad thing when the money's there - we're going to have surplus staff with taking on a new dep head.
Helen Posted May 28, 2003 Posted May 28, 2003 Hi Dizziblonde, I'm so sorry to hear your news; it's an appalling way to treat dedicated staff. How long have you been there? One positive way of looking at it is that you can use all of your past experience in choosing exactly the right sort of school for your next post, in terms of setting systems in place, and whole-school support for the Foundation Stage. Do let us know what happens, and we wish you lots and lots of luck
Helen Posted May 28, 2003 Posted May 28, 2003 Hi Susan, I keep changing my mind about the profiles that we are using in pre-school at the moment (East Sussex Stepping Forward Profiles). We started to complete them with great enthusiasm in the autumn term, but found that we then stopped using the individual children's "special books" which currently contain observations, comments from the children, photos, pictures, etc. This was a great pity as these books are a wonderful record of the child's time at nursery, and one which we feel all parents will treasure. So, we have decided to go back to our former ways of recording in the special books and the profiles have died a death. However, I still feel that pre-schools do need to pass on relevant (brief!) information to schools, so maybe we should consider, horror of horrors, a summative tick-list-type-of-thing, completed at the end of the year and sent onto schools. This way, we would have our lovely nursery records to pass onto parents, still using observation methods to record significant progress, and the schools would have a standard, manageable format of useful information about the incoming children. What do other pre-school practitioners think about this?
Helen Posted May 28, 2003 Posted May 28, 2003 Hi Linda, I agree entirely; this is a pilot year, and we have to remember that to keep sane! Can you tell us a bit more about the additional sheets you are including: the target setting ones?
Guest Posted May 28, 2003 Posted May 28, 2003 Hello, I'm new too! Love this forum idea for being aboe to discuss ideas with fellow teachers - I always love going on courses for that. We have decided not to send our booklets home as - especially next year - they will be a orking document and perhaps not to the standard of a report type document. Instead, we are sharing the information from the booklets with parents during an appointment session and filling in a paragraph to cover our own personal coments to sum up on a school-format report so they are used to that for next year. Myself and my fellow Reception teacher agonised for ages over what we thought would be the best for us - of course, trying to minimise our workload which seemed like it could suddenly render us with no free time between now and July at all and balancing the needs of our school and Headteacher and the advice from our EY team...
Helen Posted May 28, 2003 Posted May 28, 2003 Hello Jasmine and welcome to the site I hope you come back regularly; good luck with the rest of this term!
Guest Posted May 30, 2003 Posted May 30, 2003 I find the whole thing a bit crazy really - as a parent I would find the information given on profiles most interesting and better than a report, reports very rarely tell you anything about your child that you do not already know and are therefore patronising. As a practitioner I think using the profiles is an ideal way of explaining to parents what the children are working towards in there early years - many do not really know. The NASUWT have said that you should not under any circumstances complete profiles and write reports - this is double work and not necessary. Although as this year is very rushed - I think most are doing both but its worth baring in mind for next. We have an at a galnce spreadsheet to pass on to Y1 profiles will go in files - lots of ridiculous discussions with nursery on how to include them with the profiles (ridiculous because profiles are only completed in YR) - Letting them get on with it as the borough will decide in the end once everyone has got the hang of it.
AnonyMouse_79 Posted June 3, 2003 Posted June 3, 2003 Hi Helen' That's an interesting point you make about formalising observations and maintaining your individual records. I think it comes down to managing workloads and there just aren't enough hours! Its certainly a factor that has occurred to me. I haven't got time to accumulate individual work pieces and annotate them to make them useful etc etc. However as the Reception class teacher I do want to know and to be able to value and work from the children's earlier experiencesand acheivements. So I need to know about them! The work that I am involved with in my area seems to have escalated and I think will end up as another weighty document that no-one will want to use-- rather like your pre school profiles? The original idea was to keep it simple but the Nursery practitioners wanted something more detailed than that................! Our next meeting is tomorrow, having been postponed twice since you sent me your document. I will present it and see what everyone thinks, perhaps we can work with it. I was at QCA today and meet someone who was involved in the trailing of the profile and thinks it really helps to celebrate children's learning. I understand the intention but am personally finding it rather limiting and the more I do I wonder about how relevant it really is for my choildren. And we are going to send it home. To make it personal and relevant we are adding comments but I'm beginning to think the year 1 teachers will need that info. too. We'd intended to send a spread sheet to yr1. I can't see my head agreeing to all the photocopying and I don't want to rewrite it all onto internal sheets and my record / observation book isn't suitable to pas on. I'm probably thinking on my feet here, any suggestions anyone?
Guest Posted June 4, 2003 Posted June 4, 2003 My union NASUWT are saying that we shouldn't be writing reports as well as the profiles. My head has agreed to this and we are photocopying them to give to the parents . Cathy De Coster
Guest Posted June 5, 2003 Posted June 5, 2003 We have had the same info and notified our head of such - she still says we have to write reports too! On top of that I will have to input all the data into the Profile Software aswell - I am really happy in my work.
Steve Posted June 5, 2003 Posted June 5, 2003 Hi makesensetome - What's the profile software. Is that the spreadsheet thing you mentioned earlier or is there some new software available?
Guest Posted June 7, 2003 Posted June 7, 2003 I teach in an independent school and have to do reports for the end of the year as well as The Foundation Stage Profile.Is ther a way of photocopying the profile as an acceptable end of year report for parents?Any help would be gratefully received
Guest Posted June 8, 2003 Posted June 8, 2003 We too are having to do reports along with the profiles. The reports are supposed to be slimmed down versions but Im still waiting for that to be sorted out. Mind you ,it might have been a bit organised if someone 'up there' could have made some statement banks which matched the profiles.So far ,Ive gathered together some statements from last years reports to help with this years. Luckliy we have been given inset time for doing reports so Im keen to get them out of the way so I can go out to play. Dizzyblonde-Im in the same boat as you - although I wasnt under the impression that I was being kept on from the beginning ,I was asked if I would stay when/if there was a vacancy - but no-one left
Steve Posted June 9, 2003 Posted June 9, 2003 Hi Unafitz - Sorry to hear you're in the same situation as Dizzyblonde. Did you decide to make that application for Foundation Stage Co-ordinator?
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