Using Eprofile More Effectively In Classroom

[apple]

Hi there

We've been using the eprofile since it came out and now we want to make it more useful in the classroom each half term. After printing off lasts years overview grids for each area of learning for Year 1 I came up with a system which makes the eprofile more useful for us in our setting.

 

If you are like me and using the group assessment grid a lot (the one where you can flood fill) I wondered why on earth there was a big space to the right of it... surely it was crying out to have the scale points inserted here rather than relying on clicking each point for the scale to be appear at the bottom in very small print!

 

Ho hum it's not until you use it that you find a way to make it work for you...

anyway I've put an attachment here as a word document to show you (if you are at all interested how we use it in the class.

 

It does involve a screen dump and some cutting and pasting. We will update the eprofile each half term and then carry out the procedure and use that printed overview in the class to update and inform planning. The filled in grid will then help us to enter new data into the eprofile and so on and so forth untill the end of year.

 

I hope someone finds it useful... let me know.

[Guest Sycamore]

hello

Thanks for the help with eprofiles. I have been using a similar system on SIMS Assessment manager but have realy been struggling with it and hope to move towards eprofiling instead. Do you recommend it? A lot of people were using it on here last year and the comments made seemed valuable.

[apple]

HI Sycamore

yup I'd recommend the eprofile over the booklets (although the booklets are handier to have by your side when observing). That's why I came up with the document I've attached; so that I could have something to work from in the classroom.

The only draw back with the eprofile is being able to have someone technical to download it and transfer the data from the main system (common transfer files etc )

 

Once it has been put onto your laptop or class PC then it's relatively easy to use. It's like anyhting though... the more you play around with it the better. The report stuff at the end of the year is ok but not as personal as a teacher's own worded one (having said that the wording is handy to use)

 

Hope this makes sense and gald you found the attachment interesting.

[surfer]

Hi Liza, Found your message very interesting but it's made me want to know more about the way you use the profile. We are a foundation unit and Ofsted is on the 15th Nov! We are still in the very early stages of becoming integrated and have loads to do (ofsted or not). The school has only just got a Nursery class(opened in May) so a lot has changed in a very short time.

What I want to know is apart from your observations, post its etc do you have any records or methods of collating each child's achievements before you then transfer the stuff onto the eprofile? I am undecided as to whether there is any benefit in having a record or booklet for each child- increased workload etc!! BUT! i feel that there needs to be something on paper. (My ofsted mind takes over here)

What do you do? Is it manageable?

Please help

Sue

[apple]

Hi Sue

easier said than done but don't worry about O***@*! As long as you can justify what you are doing and why there should be no need for reams of evidence.

 

We collect formative assessments daily in CLL and MD. Like many settings we do these in the morning and my reception class is divided into 5 ability groups in order for me and my TA to plan effectively for them. We have a recording sheet for phonics and numeracy with the groups set out and where they are currently and objectives to where we want them to go this term. When the children are working with me or my TA we are able to make quick informative judgements about how they coped etc. We use these then to plan the next week and at the end of half term do a little assessment task and change the groups if necessary.

 

For writing we record straight into their books and for reading we have a separate record for Guided REading.

 

For the other areas of learning we use mainly observations (we have a very simple recording sheet for this) and informal notelets as and when needed. We do timetable observations into our weekly planning; we've found that if we don't do this it won''t happen!

 

The most important thing to remember about the profile however, is that it is based on teacher assessment. It is impossible to collect a piece of evidence for every single point in the profile and I honestly don't think that anybody would or should be expecting us to do this.

 

You say you have lots to do still.. make sure this is in your development plan so that you can say to O***@** that this is what we have identified as needing and this is the way we are going to go about it. As long as it has been written down then they cannot say that you are not addressing certain issues.

 

They are hundreds of ways that people have found to record things; e.g. photo boards; a very simple booklet for each child or area of learning with a blank page for each and simply pop/jot down your post its/notes there; even just taking time each week/two weeks to talk to all involved to discuss certain children or areas of learning.

At the end of the day it's finding a simple, time effective yet useful way to record some of these observations/evidence.

I hope this hasn't bamboozled you too much. We started very small and took our time to develop this area of recording. We still don't think we've cracked it; i doubt that we ever will... that's teaching... but then it does help keep us on our toes

best of luck and knock em dead with O**@**!!

[Guest]

Is e-profile the same as SIMs? We have something called facility CMIs. So you don't fill in individual ROAs as well do you Liza? Our LEA (Manchester) produced a Record of Achievement which runs through Nursery and Reception and includes the profile points. Trouble is, it just means there's more to fill in. We decided to make it into a class list so we din't have to keep getting individual booklets out but its still a nightmare to fill in! I really like the look of what you've done but not sure if it would be acceptable for us as it doesn't come from Nursery. I bet filling it in on pc as you go along saves you a lot of time? How do you decide which points you will be assessing-eg alphabet one is ongoing (suppose they all are) so do you have to keep going back to same ones fo chn who didn't achieve previous term?

[mundia]

No Zim the eprofile isnt the same as SIMS or CMIS, which will be your schools administration system. You would be required to get the pupil info from your SIMS or CMIS system if you were using the eprfofile but the profile itself is downlaodable from your LEA if they are recommending its use. Birmingham made it the statutory method of returning profile scores to them last year, I think about 40 LEAS in all used it last year.

 

We found it much easier to use than the booklets and it gives you at a glance info as well as useful charts and graphs that Heads love!! But it owuld be an awful lot of work to adopt yourslef without the backing of your LEA as you would still have to use what you already have in place as well so you would duplicate the work. It may be worth finding out if your LEA has any intention to use the eprofile, some are very slow at telling people!!!

 

 

does that make any sense?

[Guest]

Oh we are using it! Just wasn't sure that's what it was called. We still fill in the booklets though (well, a ROA which included the profile points-actually we cut all these out onto a class list to make it easier) then the profile points get put onto the eprofile by the administration staff. Got a feeling I might have to do it myself this year though. Do you have access to it yourself all the time or can it just be on one computer?

[mundia]

Hi Zim. the eprofile is really designed so that you can complete it when you want to., and it should be completed each half term that the children are with you. (dont forget you should get 3 days of cover for this too). This way you can chart their progress throughout the year. I think the idea was to download it to laptops if you have one, so that each teacher could work on their own class or group. (I have mine at home).

 

We are not completing any other paperwork, we print off what we need for things like parents evenings. It sounds as if yours is being used purely as a method to return the data to the LEA at the end of the year hence it beng considered an admin job. I dont think that was the original intention of the eprofile. If you have the option to use it instead of the ROA, then Id give it a go and see which you feel happier with, it would create a lot of work for you to do both!

 

Perhaps other members who have the eprofile can tell us how they are using it?

[Guest]

Three days cover to allow for us to fill in the profiles???!!!! Where was this written?? Where can I get a hold of something that I can wave under the senior managers' noses to give me some release????

 

Thanks!!!

 

D xxx

[Guest]

Would also like to find out about the three days cover too! Our LEA have told us that there is 'money in the budget' but I would prefer if the head was specifically told that we need time out to input data etc. It always sed to be this way with the old baseline assessment.

Because the FSP does not have assessment of stepping stones, our LEA has produced a ROA with stepping stones included which gets passed up from Nursery to Reception. I find these as vague as the profile points and consider it a lot of work to fill in. More valuable assessments are kept separate-eg which numbers they recognise, where as the ROA just says things like 'beginning to recognise numbers from 0-9' so I can't use it as an working document if that makes sense? Do other people have the same problem? I would find it a lot easier just filling in the profile points and would be interested in using eprofile from the start but don't want to do both....Any suggestions? Could the programme be downloaded onto a home PC mundina or would it have to be a laptop? I do have a laptop from school but feel far more comfortable using this PC. Also, I want to print off the profile points to put in the front of my moderation file any ideas where I could get a printable version but not from eprofile? (I need them ASAP and it might take me a while to get my head around eprofile as admin staff on long trm sick and I don't get any release time )

Thanks a lot

[Susan]

You used to be able to download a copy of the Profile booklet from www.qca.org.uk

[apple]

here are the scale points for each area of learning. hope this is useful

[Magenta]

Zim, I think you can download e-profile from here

I've downloaded it on my home computer, but not tried it out yet.

[Guest]

Thanks everyone, that is exactly what I wanted Liza-saves me typing them out! Brill Cheers. Have you downloaded the eprofile magenta? Would I not have to have it connected to School admin system? I'd much prefer to put them in as I go along but would need to do it at home in that case. Is there a way of doing this?-suppose it wouldn't fit on disc to transfer to LEA though?

Sorry if this has been mentioned already (if so could someone 'link me up?!) but how do you decide which points to assess each half term? Do you link it to the ELGs you have covered that half term?

[mundia]

Hi zim

you can download the eprofile on your home pc which is what i did. However you either need to enter the pupil data by hand (yawn) or you need to create a Common Transfer File from your schools SIMS or CMIS. I have the instructions for doing this in SIMS but not CMIS and Im not sure how different they are. I know the Birmighma LEA has an updatade handbook that you can download with the profile which may have the instructions you would need.

 

As long as you back up every time you add new information you can transfer between home and school or lap top. At the end of te year, you have to crate an amalgmation of all your data which will then be returned to the LEA, I didnt do ours last year as I was off sick but it wasnt difficult.

 

does that help?

[Magenta]

I did say I hadn't tried it yet!!!

We're currently using our own system were we have added what we feel to be the most important stepping stones to a list of the profile scales then highlight as someone earlier said - we felt we needed to do this to cater for all of the chn. in our FS Unit.

We aren't targetting certain scales to assess each half term, but tend to add things when there has been a specific achievement, so are continually adding to Chn.s Development books rather than once each half term.

[Guest]

Thanks. I'll have to have a word with someone technical