PRAMS stands for 'Progress Recording and Monitoring System' and is a computer program designed to help practitioners organise the tracking and evaluation of children's learning in their settings. In 2009 the Primary National Strategies team of the Department for Education published a document called 'Progress Matters', which recommended that early years settings track the progress of children in their care.
Although it is not a requirement to do so through formally recorded ongoing assessment and observation, many practitioners have found themselves trying to keep track of observations and judgements of their children's progress by creating either paper based or electronic forms, and many have also been asking here on the FSF whether a computerized tool exists to help with this process. PRAMS was conceived in response to these requests. In the following paragraphs we give a brief overview of the way PRAMS works. If there are questions you have which are not answered here, please do feel free to email us.
It's probably more useful to begin with a list of things that PRAMS is not intended to do than to list all its functions and features - so here goes:
The Progress Matters publication recommends that settings record observations about the children in their care, and use their knowledge of the EYFS to assess whether those observations show that the children are developing as the EYFS has specified. The EYFS specifies six 'areas of learning' within which to make these observations, which are in turn broken down into a varying number of 'aspects' (28 in all). Each of these have a number of statements attached to them which describe what a child might be expected to do at specific ages.
In order to monitor the progress of their children, the EYFS providers should observe their children in day-to-day activities and, using their knowledge and expertise, record significant instances of levels of skill and development. These can then be recorded against the development matters statements of the EYFS to show that a child is progressing.
There is nothing that obliges EYFS providers to make these into a formal record. It would be perfectly possible, for example, to show that a practitioner was monitoring and comfortable with the progress of a child if, when asked, they could refer to a learning journey with photographs and notes, and refer to the relevant area of learning and age band to show that the child was achieving as expected.
However, such a powerful memory and command of the EYFS is not a universally available skill. Neither is it easy, on demand, to show that children are making progress (ie developing within the EYFS over time) as recommended by Progress Matters. So, many practitioners have asked about the availability of some form of recording mechanism, so that an instant overview of those recorded judgements can be referred to. A number of these recording tools exist as a solution to this requirement, from paper based tables and forms to spreadsheets.
PRAMS is one of these solutions. We developed it from the perspective of EYFS practitioners, rather than the perspective of a software development organisation and hope that this is reflected in its useability. We also helped ourselves liberally to the incredible enthusiasm and expertise of the FSF community, and much of its current shape is owed to the FSF membership. In the next section we give an overview of the features you will find within PRAMS.
PRAMS obviously requires you to set certain information up before you can record progress of individual children. However, we have tried to exclude unnecessary information wherever possible. Setting details, staff details (so that you can assign keypersons to children), and child details from names and ages through to SEN details, gender and so on are entered only once and from then on can be used to help prepare views of the data you enter for them.
'Assessment Periods' (for example, Autumn 2010, January 2011 etc.) can be created to the requirements of individual settings. Assessment periods allow you to group judgements into a specific period of time, which then allows you to compare them with judgements in a later assessment period (ie, showing progress). These are then used to collect progress judgements over discrete periods of time, and then to create flexible views of the progress of children over time.
Once this is done, a single screen with a powerful view of all areas of learning, aspects, age bands and statements facilitates the allocation of age-band judgements and additional notes and images.
Each child has their own screen, with all recorded judgements for each assessment period visible indivdually. Notes and images attached to each judgement can be viewed, an analysis of areas of learning with gaps over two or more assessment periods is available, along with a list of those areas where the child may be achieving above or below expectation, and suggestions and tips for next observations in those missing judgements is available to provide inspiration to practitioners.
The image library mentioned above can be used to import images taken during setting sessions. These can each be tagged with the children appearing in them - in photos involving several children each of them can be tagged seperately. These photos build up into a library which can be called up uniquely for each child when, for example, allocating a judgement.
The Report feature is currently being re-designed and will be available before Christmas 2010. In PRAMS version 1 this was able to generate reports over time for individual children or groups (for example, by gender, cohort, or with specific requirements (EAL or SEN)) and so on. The next version is expected to be even more flexible. We work on the philosophy that there is only a point in inputting data to a computer system if it can allow you to manipulate that data to find out new and interesting things about it.
Absolutely not! There's no legislation or other requirement compelling you to make use of any progress monitoring tool and don't let anyone tell you there is. They are simply options to help you organise yourself and feel comfortable that you are in command of information on how your children are progressing within the EYFS. If you feel you know your children well enough and can keep observations and their association with the EYFS development matters in your head, in a learning journey or in note form, then you are conforming to the requirements of the EYFS and can satisfy the recommendations of Progress Matters.
PRAMS is a downloadable program, written in a programming language called Java. It is accessed from the FSF resource library as a simple installable file. Available currently for PC users using MS Windows (XP, Vista and 7), there is also a beta version available for Apple Mac users with recent (Snow Leopard) operating systems.
An internet connection is required to download the program and to update it for new functionality - however, apart from those dependencies PRAMS will work perfectly well offline (ie with no internet connection).
Data input to PRAMS is kept in data files on your own computer. Photographs, children and staff details, progress recording data and all other information is always in the possession of the end user.
PRAMS was designed and programmed by the FSF and is available as a download from the FSF resource library. Updates are provided from the FSF servers, and whenever the computer running PRAMS is online, PRAMS will check (when being launched) to see if updates are available and prompt the user to download them.
But PRAMS will also offer the user the following facilities via the FSF:
PRAMS is not actually for sale. It is available as one of the free downloadable resources of the FSF, which means that you need to be a subscribing member of the FSF to make use of it. If you'd like to become a full member you need to do one of the following:
If you would like to find out more about PRAMS, please visit the following resources: