19 replies to this topic

[Gater]

Am currently trawling through my Profiles - a very slow process! Began the beginning of my NQT year eager to keep on top of them and add pictures and such to make it into a very workable document that showed the children's progression and would make a beautiful report for the parents at the end of the year. Started off well, but due to issues that I won't go into at the moment, we don't have many observations other than those recorded in Lit and Num books and even them don't always relate to the scale points in the Profile.

Have found this afternoon that the examples in the FP handbook are way too 'mature' for my children. What I was hoping would show their abilities has turned into a document which instead highlights their inabilities. They are pretty full with the digital pictures I have taken, examples of work that I have compiled, but when it actually comes to circling, apart from about 8 children, the majority are nowhere near achieving the majority of goals. They look pretty, but apart from that, I am unimpressed with them.

At the beginning of the year I was new to the process and feel that my year has allowed me to grow in my own confidence and opinion about the FS. If this stage is so important to the development of children, then there should be adequate assessment strategies that show and record the children's individual attainment. The observations are one way (which is hard for me to promote in my school at the minute as established staff seem to have a differing opinion as to the usefulness of 'observing' unlike the NQTs - myself included).

Have found that a lot of the scale points were ticked as a 'guess', or we are trying to attribute scale points to activities we have carried out - despite them not being as 'mature' as the examples in the FP handbook.

I guess this posting is a big whine at the fact that I feel that I am cheating the children out of something by not being able to document their progress adequately. They have all come on so much since September. Unfortunately, the progress they have made, as second language learers, is not appropriately accommodated for in the Profile booklet.

Is it going to get any better????!!!!!!

Thanks, Donna xxx

[leo]

Hi sugar babes
surely not all are expected to have achieved all the ELGs by the time they leave. Yr 1 teachers are 'supposed' to initially plan using the FS documnet as a recognition of the fact that not all chidlren are at the same level. Surely if you can show the value added from the time they came to you to the time they left that should eb sufficient evidence of progres.
I think as an NQT you can be too hard on yourself and its a bit like juggling balls. Trying to keep everything going at the same time. I'm sure you have done an excellent job.

[Susan]

hi Donna thats a plea from the heart and I can only say thta I empahise entirely.

I welcomed the introduction of the profile and the demise of Baseline as Baseline assessment was a sole destroying experience and took a lot of time. However, my experiences of the profile are not what I would have wished.
I met a tecaher last year who had been part of the trial for the profiles and she sung their praises and the celebration of success that she could demonstrate but I felt demoralised as I too felt that my children had made so much progress and yet "scored" so little.

It is becoming apparent that the point 9s are equivalent to way beyond the level 1 that we were lead to believe was the comparison of ELGs so do not worry about that. Examples in the handbook are quite simplistic but should indicate types of continued behaviours rather than 1offs. I understand though exactly what you mean when you describe them as mature!

If your children are scoring between 4-8 then you are probably well on track but I do understand how soul destroying it is. Celebrate, as you can, the acheivements they have made and indicate if you need to the progress they are making towards attainment of the other points.

I have been sick this school year and have consequently not been involved in Profiles in the same way but think they are burdensome piece of work that will with time be modified as I don't see how we can all keep up that sort of pace. Certainly, we have got to become rapidly more familiar with the scales for them to become manageable.

Don't know if I've made you feel any better but I can assure you are not alone!

[hali]

hi,

i have just realised that this half term im supposed toi have filled in 25 profiles for the end of term and have only done 3.......................... im pulling my hair out woith everthing else im supposed to do..hubby is going mad........................

[Dianne]

Hmm, I know how you feel - there is sooooo much work to be done!!! I'm going through each point separately for all the children (ie 30 of the Emotional Development sections, then all 30 for Creative Development etc). I find it easier and a little bit quicker, with slightly less reference to the profile information folder. But there's a long way to go, and reports to finish off, and samples of work to sort, reading ages to be put on spreadsheet etc etc etc - just the same as all the rest of you!!

Good luck,

Dianne xxx

[Lizz]

hiya

some of the scale points really vary in their content don't they? for example some of the creative development and KUW ones seem to have loads of objectives within them and could actually be rather ambiguous. Ive also felt that for some of them it would not be appropriate to circle them until the final term because they are ongoing objectives which actually you could never really tick to say they were achieved fully as they will always go on developing!

im a bit worried that i've not enough evidence - wish i had done more observations! (nevermind i am only in my first year)

Lizz xx

[Gater]

Have been working with the Reception team again today filling them in. When I spoke to them of my issues regarding not feeling that our children are achieving them and they will need to be continued on into Year One, the response from the FS Co-ordinator was that we should tick the ones that we can by 'drumming them down' so to speak into goals that the children are achieving. For example, a goal in the CLL bit states that the children can name and sound letters of the alphabet. The example in the FS handbook suggests that it be ticked if the chidlren show confidence with all 26 letters of the alphabet. The FS co-ordinator said that this was an unrealistic target for our children (EAL learners) so we should tick them if they came in with nothing and have learnt a good majority of the letters since September. This also applies to cultural goals too. The examples she said are unrealistic for our children, therefore they will be ticked if they display respect for the teachers and have shown an interest in other celebrations when we have done them as topics (because the teaching staff are of a different culture). I did not view this to be the way we are supposed to do them. If we all are 'drumming the statements down' to apply to our own children, then what on earth is the point in doing them to collate and compare with other LEAs???

What even confused me even more was the co-ordinator (who has been more or less fighting the collection of formal observations throughout the year) actually then said that she felt that she did not feel that she could fill the profiles in appropriately and that she also did not feel that having the observations would make any difference either. I argued that having the observations would then provide evidence of what the children can actually do where at the moment the profiles are simply showing what they can't (unless we twist all the statements to our own way of thinking). It just seems that this is just another hurdle to get over - was actually really enjoying the teaching side of things - this is just something that I thought would be great to show the parents what their children can do and has instead highlighted a load of weaknesses on the children's parts according to a 'national attainment target'.

Anybody think these profiles will be modified soon? How do we help speed things along?!!!!!!!!

Thanks! Donna xxx

[Harricroft]

Hi sugarbabes,
I'd be a bit bothered about scoring your children too highly - it's going to have an implication for the 'value added' isn't it? If you give them a score above what they are actually achieving comfortably then when they come out with a low SATs score at the end of Year 2 it reflects badly on Year 1/2 teachers - or your assessments
I too feel my class have come on so much in the last year - yet my scores are not brilliant. Some of my higher abilitiy children know the sounds for all the letters of the alphabet but aren't confident with the names ... do I give them the score or not?
Going back to the profiles, planning and reports when I log-off here, then I might print off some more of the photos that we took last week. I might even find the time to grunt to my hubby and children at some point. I wonder how many teachers have marital problems at this time of year?
Fed up - Harricroft.

[Susan]

somehow missed keeping up with this one!
I think you have some very pertinent points, the profile is open to interpretation which is of course where the maoderating is supposed to come in but in reality I don't think it can address the differences of opinion adequately.

I too think the CLL point about naming, sounding and recognising letters a huge piece of work (26 letter sounds+ 26 letter names, lower case + 26 letter names, upper case) for any 5yr old child let alone EAL, especially in comparison to recognises numerals 0-9!

I think it is possibly fair to go for majority knowledge ie 20+ of each to score but I do think you need to be careful overall about what you are saying about a child because if they are scored too highly now they will fail to acheive targets at KS1, as they will not be realistic. Also teachers in yr1 will have no need to provide the appropriate learning environments for children to progress.

As for formal observations, your knowledge about your children can be in your heads as long as it is recorded somewhere eventually. You do not need an observation about every child to prove everything you know about them! That is not manageable. Does that make sense?

What has your moderation shown?

Good luck!

[Gater]

Went to a moderation meeting back in March (I think!) and went away more confused than when I went in. Each table was provided with named moderators and we were to show example children and we would then discuss the scales etc. Am sure you all have gone through similar. Anyway, the moderator was a nursery teacher who was surprised (literally!) at the amount of paperwork that reception were expected to keep and didn't seem at all familiar with the profile. Our LEA has also set up this Expressive Language record that we are also supposed to track, which obviously adds more paper. The moderator was astounded and spent a large time 'reading up' on what reception had to do. Then when it came to him talking about the scales I had already put my child on, he had a query about one of my judgements (from the observation I had provided as evidence), called over an LEA Advisory Teacher and they then spent 20, yes a full 20 minutes discussing whether it warranted the tick or not. It was decided that it could be either yes or no, and that as I knew my child, it would be my judgement. I could not believe that they displayed this at a moderation meeting. They were supposed to add guidance and instead highlighted the unrealistic issue of taking 20 minutes to judge one scale - do they think we have empty classrooms???????

Am currently at the stage of counting up my ticks, knowing full well that I'm not entirely happy about most of them. After reading the report in the Daily Mail and Telegraph about the profiles being close to the length a novel I know I am living the harsh reality of death by paperwork in a Reception Classroom.

Worse thing is, the children have had little afternoon input for the past 2 and a half weeks. They have, instead, had free choice both indoors and outdoors with supervision. It's the only way to manage the profiles, and has unfortunately resulted in a increase in crazy behaviour and lack of 'purposeful play', as toys have been put out to simply keep the children's interest. Am hoping that I somehow manage to improve for next year, because if it is this ridiculous, I don't know what I am going to do to keep myself sane!

D xxx

[leo]

I was under the impression that the end of year marking was not going to be published or used as the yarkstick for further testing. Is that still true? Have they managed to corelate the end of year marks to the predicted KS1 SATs ?
I met Sally Featherstone ( blatant name dropping ) recently and it was her opinion that KS1 tests will be dropped in the next 2-3 years.
Have you heard anything else similar.
I'm only a lowly nursery teacher but it seems like there is a lot of useless paperwork in most Reception classes. Is this the expectation of the LEA? Our LEA- N. Yorks has trimmed down on a lot of the paperwork and even planning. WE have been told to use our time in making/gathering/organising resrouces to use in class. What are the views of the forum?

[Gater]

Wish my LEA would do something along your lines Leo. Instead, my LEA failed their Ofsted and to improve this for next time (!!!!) they have given us Reception teachers even more paperwork to collate. The Expressive Language Record is one of the forms now to be filled in from Nursery to Reception, tracking the children's lanuage development from early gestures to complex sentences, by recording talk. We are required to record three observations before we are to make a judgement. The Advisory Teachers suggest that it is a possible task if the observations are well planned. This along with a termly, in-depth 5 min observation of each child with judgements attached, as well as the other on-going observations we do.

The paperwork seems neverending. It's hard when your LEA is telling you one thing and your FS co-ordinator is telling you another. Trying to do anything like the collation in class is a nightmare - sometimes feel that the only time I'm supposed to interact with the children is when I am collecting a participant observation rather than a non-participant!!!!

I have to admit that our school incorporates the Literacy and Numeracy structured timetable from mid-September. We obviously increase the time at the end of the year to allow for the whole hour, but we still do Literacy before break and Numeracy after break four days a week, as there is very much a need to get the children ready for KS1 SATS (not my wording, but believe me a high priority in my school !!!!). This then allows for us to do one piece of work in books each week to have comments on - but then they are classed as comments on teacher-led activities and record the children's abilities on completing the pre-defined task. If what my LEA are saying is to be followed, then we should also be recording the children's free-choice activities and their language/mathematical abilities (etc) through 'play'. All very jolly in theory, but being the only one who seems to want to give the whole 'observing' a go in my classroom (a double classroom with sixty children and the FS co-ordinator as the other teacher in the room), then it is very difficult.

Have tried to come up with a manageable 'personal' plan for next year on observations and such. I have to do something to show what my children can do because I am not happy with the profiles. It will have to be manageable, but again, I can only do so much (especially as it is likely that I may be the only person doing it in my room!!!).

D xxx

[Jessica Kowalski]

Interesting thread! I'm particularly interested in everyone's thoughts on the CLL ELG of letters names and sounds.
It wasn't until I was laboriously ticking the boxes it actually sunk in with me what this entailed! All 30 of my children know the sounds but only about a third know the names. So am I to give the other two thirds no credit for having learned the sounds?? That feels so wrong to me and totally against the way I've always taught Reception.
We've spent the year targeting the Jolly Phonics phonemes including or, ar, ai, ee, ie etc and the children all know the long vowel names but I realy feel that with the majority of the children the rest of the letter names are Y1 work. (More able excluded of course).
Any more thoughts on this?
Jess

[Magenta]

Totally agree Jess,
We don't teach letter names in Reception - confuses many of our chn.
We are after all teaching them to read, letter names does not help at all.
Magenta

[Shellie]

Hi,
I'm new to this and not even sure if I'm replying to the right posting (so humour me if this is out of context!). I am a nursery nurse (training to be a teacher - I think!) in a nursery class of 52, attached to an infant school. When I discovered that the FSP was only a reception assessment in May '03 (which meant we had no arguement for ditching the dreaded nursery baseline assessment!), I decided to make a document that covered nursery and reception with stepping stones, the FSP statements (but often reworded to try and give a clearer definition as the examples in the accompanying folder try to) and also included any other ponits that were personal to our school that the C.G & the FSP have missed. This sounds like a huge assessment booklet for each child, but each statement is highlighted (via 6 colour codes - providing the term it was achieved) or part highlighted as it is achieved from the beginning of nursery through to the end of reception and . The idea being that there is not so much last minute filling in and referring to other teacher assessments etc. and reception teachers work from where the children already are when they come into their class. We still have to provide the LEA with our FSP numbers for each child via the eprofile, but that is the only real slog at the end. We have foundation stage meetings every month to ensure consitency and the nursery nurses are lucky to have 10% PPA time (I am on the change team and my HT was a nursery nurse, so nursery always gets priority!), so we also discuss individual children's progress then. In order to show value added I have created graphs in excel and I will be inputting the data tomorrow (hope the weathers nice so my children will play in the garden and my husband can go out on his motor bike!). We are also using our 'profiles' and the graphs instead of reports for parents evening next week.
We do observations and although they do provide some of the evidence (and I feel written observations are always valuable) we cannot possibly have a written note for every point (or even half the points!) for every child. This was our main concern, but if you refer to the FSP folder (pg122) it states clearly that, "There is no need for extensive collections of work for individual children." We have been assured by the LEA that what we have is enough and it is the professional dialogue to ensure consistency that counts. So this is what we are doing - and it must be ok as we have sold this document to many other schools in our LEA! It has also made our planning so much easier, as we have our learning objectives and can see exactly what our children need 'more of' so to speak. So our assessment is informing our planning more than it ever did before.
All I wish is that I was not involved with the next part of the plan to develop our profile. Obviously HT need to set targets for Y2 SATS and as we are not doing PIPs any more (a horrible unfair system that denied the most able child the opportunity to demonstrate their potential and as for EAL pupils?!). Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox - my point is that the LEA want us to use our new profile to predict SATS via a neat little add-on to my excel profile. I still argue that with the bumpy transition inflicted on all children between R and Y1 that who knows what they will make of the unatural, formal environment where even with the most willing and creative teacher play is what happens when you've finished your work. I don't know - I understand that everything needs to be accountable for - but when I look at some of the profiles, I see 3 year olds that after six weeks in nursery had hardly any statements highlighted in their profiles and now, at the end of nursery are already at the end of some of the last stepping stones. Why should we label them as a 2c or a 3 - either way they will live with that expectation for the next 2 years - and as we all no, no two children develop the way. Anyway, I've got off the track a bit - my point really was that if there was a working document in reception classes (or going from nursery if your school has a nursery attached) then there would not need to be all this 'last minute' assessing - but why the government did not do this, rather than provide that scary and inpractical booklet I don't know!

Shellie