Ages And Stages

[Guest]

Evening all

 

This week i have become very confused. In the FS profile document there were three colour bands can someone remind me of the colour bands and match them to the stages of development for me. I have analysed all the data on entry for the children in nursery and now have got rather confused.

 

thank you

[surfer]

https://orderline.qca.org.uk/gempdf/1847215262.pdf

 

does it help to look at the booklet? Do you mean these colours? or did you mean the yellow, blue and green? (or something like that) with grey for the ELG?

[Alison]

do you mean the stepping stones colours in the curriculum guidance (yellow, green blue and grey?)

 

they where roughly

yellow first half of nursery 3 1/2 - 4years

green 4 - end of nursery

blue end of nursery/ start reception 4 1/2 -5

Grey early learning goals end of foundation stage around 5 years

[catma]

It's not very helpful now to worry about the old stepping stones and the colours. It might be helpful to look at the ages /stages in this way:

 

On entry to nursery: National expectations are children secure at 22 - 36 and emerging into 30 - 50.

 

On entry to reception secure 30 - 50 and emerging 40 -60+. Therefore minimum (satisfactory) progress is to secure the 30 - 50 band and start into 40 - 60+.

 

Progress in reception is to secure the 40 - 60+ band ie achieve within/secure ELGs.

 

The colours used to differentiate the 1- 3 scale points/4 - 8 scale points and point 9 in the old profile handbook/booklets were really because the old FS guidance used grey for elgs/pink for beyond and green for the last stepping stone.

 

I've attached a diagram i use to help see the relationship. (As i see it. I'm a visual thinker.)

 

ages_stages.doc

 

Cx

[HappyMaz]

Thank you catma - I think this is a very good way of showing it (along with your description in your post). You're a star!

 

Maz

[Guest]

hi all

 

thank you for your responses have been very useful. A big thanks to Catma cheers for your guidance.

[Guest]

Can anyone explain what is meant by 'national expectations' of a group, and where these criteria are found? I've looked in to this before and been told that these expectations don't exist as they would be impossible to quantify?

 

Thanks.

[Guest]

Thanks for the diagram Catma. I too am a visual learner. What sort of progress would you expect for a child in nursery? For example we have some children coming in at 16 - 24 months and they have 5 terms at nursery, so what would be the minimum progress expected for this time. Also if a child is coming in at 22 - 36 (not secure) months and is at nursery for 3 terms what should our expectations be.

 

I am asking because I usually estimate what would be satisfactory or good progress but this is purely based on my own judgement and I was just wondering if there has been anything out there to clarify expectations so we can also clarify to Ofsted etc that the children are making good progress. I suppose what I am asking is where do you find these 'national expectations' for progress within the EYFS.

 

Thanks Sue

[catma]

They are from the Ofsted guidance for inspections in schools which is in this list. Sorry, can't download actual file but I did note it is dated Feb 09 so is an updated version to the sept 08 one.

 

here

 

Ofsted V clear there are no national averages but there are expectations. They don't talk about progress per term, just where they would expect most children to be at those key points. I don't know if they say anything similar in guidance for PVI settings inspections??

 

I suppose you would be looking to see how much you can narrow the gap between the bottom 20% (wherever they are in the ages/stages and the average of the rest.

 

CX

[Guest]

it is correct to say that there are no national expectations. you assess progress and value added by having a baseline assessment on entry and levelling how many children in each band and then assessing at the end of the year and seeing how much the children have moved on.

[Guest]

Thanks Catma. I will be reading that later. As our children generally come into nursery quite low I obviously am relieved that they don't have national expectations of levels. I was just wondering if there was guidance on how much progress and value added would be expected. e.g what is classed as good progress or satisfactory progess etc.

 

Sue

[Cait]

here

 

CX

 

 

Is this just schools, though? or the PVI sector too?

[catma]

Yup - this is the schools inspection guidance which is found nowhere in the early years section of the ofsted site.

 

Cx

[Guest]

it is correct to say that there are no national expectations. you assess progress and value added by having a baseline assessment on entry and levelling how many children in each band and then assessing at the end of the year and seeing how much the children have moved on.

 

 

 

Can I ask how you show this progress? Do you use a sheet with the Dev Matters on in each band and highlight to show best fit? Also how long does it take you to do a baseline in each area?

 

I would be very interested to see if anyone has a format that they use to show he progress and value added.

[HappyMaz]

I would be very interested to see if anyone has a format that they use to show he progress and value added.

Me too!

 

Welcome to the Forum, candytree - I'm looking forward to hearing more about you and your work.

 

Maz

[Cait]

well don't we all have that, we do a kind of 'baseline' when children arrive, ok so it's not a formal one, but we do note down where the children are 'at'. We add to it all the time, and are always aware of comparatives with peers, so at any point, looking at our learning stories and developmental profiles we can see exactly where the 'value added' is

[Guest Keen]

Thanks Catma for the most recent update I had the Sept 2008 but now Feb very helpful as my HT is always pestering me about averages!

[Guest]

it is correct to say that there are no national expectations. you assess progress and value added by having a baseline assessment on entry and levelling how many children in each band and then assessing at the end of the year and seeing how much the children have moved on.

 

 

 

Can I ask how you show this progress? Do you use a sheet with the Dev Matters on in each band and highlight to show best fit? Also how long does it take you to do a baseline in each area?

 

I would be very interested to see if anyone has a format that they use to show he progress and value added.

 

Funny you should ask this - I spent the morning - yes in the holiday's!! working with the Nursery Teacher and the Playgroup leader talking about this tricky topic - I have the Early Education (BAECE) management tool as Oxfordshire has told settings that they can no longer use the Oxfordshire profile to record children's progress - this document comes with a CD rom - that has a tracking tool - Oxfordshire are piloting it this year - each child is entered with thier name and date of birth - this then gives a age in months for that child - there is a grid for each of the six areas of learning and using the dvelopment matters statements for thier age you make a best fit assessment - which is then reguraded as in -line below or above for thier age - it will then produce graphs and clever pictures to show each child's progrees from thier particular starting point - good becuse as we all know children develop at different stages and at different paces - The Nursery are going to use this tool - the play group are going to use the development matter sheets to highlight each statement as it is achieved - the Nursery will also use our own in house record system - the reason for this is becuase as the Foundation 1 (reception teacher) I need a profile score for each child so that when they arrive with me I have some data that I am able to imput into the eye profile which again shows progress - its always the same isn't it we have a brand new exciting Early years document that shows real joined up thinking and then no way of recording or tracking progress that is also joined up - so we just all have to re-invent our own once again to meet OfSTED requirements for tracking progress - oh well - BUT I will say the Early Education document does look good and can be completed on the computer and gives some really good graphs that show each child progress reguardless of thier individual starting point.

good luck

G

[Guest]

Glynnis

 

This is the software we have just got. It is quite basic but I think it will do the job. If anyone is interested I think it was only £15 but if it pleases Ofsted it will do. I usually design my own spreadsheets and I was dreading having to start again with the EYFS development matters statements and this hopefully will save me a lot of work.

 

Have you started using yours Glynnis? If so how do you find it?

 

Sue

[Guest]

Yes we have started to use it for the Nursery and F1 (which means I have double the amount of work for each child but we need to assess which is best - I do find that the statements are very broad for one box -i.e. in the Eye Profile for CLL there are 4 sub-groups but these are linked into one for the Management tool so its alittle broad and although it does show progress it does not hightlight where children need more input - but we shall see - would be interested to hear what others think

g

[Guest]

Glynnis,

 

I have just started trialling this with my January new starters as they will be leaving in Jun 2010. We are being inspected on Weds/Thurs this week so I will let you know what the response is from Ofsted. So far I just have issues whereby one or two of our children are coming in at 16 - 24 months which is not covered in this software but I think this will still show up as their baselines will just show up as having no points. Another problem, as you highlighted is that I have one child for example who is very good at speaking and listening but very low on early handwriting and writing. So the general attainment is average. However for a tool to show very general trends I feel it does the job. It will have to be up to the keyworkers to know where they need to assist the children more.

 

I will keep you updated

 

Susan

[Guest Wolfie]

Are you referring to the software that comes with the Planning for Quality pack?

[Guest]

Yes Wolfie thats the right software.,

 

The inspector was really impressed with the software as he needed to know where the children come in at and how we know how fast their progress is. He stressed that assessment was only useful if you use the data and you can use it as a management tool to identify areas of development, or even perhaps if a particular key worker group is not making as much progress in a particular area. This means you can identify staff training needs aswell. It is great for us as a significant minority of our children come in even lower - the software records from 22 - 36 months and some of ours come in at 16 - 24 months.(we are a maintained nursery - ages 3 - 4) As many of our children are still leaving slightly below or around expectations their ultimate standards can only receive a 3 grade but I could show that the children make huge progress and so achievement and standards got a 1 grade. (Our school advisor said we could not evaluate ourselves as being outstanding as some children were still below expectations when they leave). We managed to get the top grade for achievement and standards because we could demonstrate their progress. I really believe that if I didn't have the software (or something similar) then I couldn't have demonstrated this so effectively.

 

I am also going to print the individual reports for the children to pass on to their reception teachers along with other data, as I believe that they really don't want to be reading lots of reports and it would be much easier for them to get a general picture by looking at a graph.

 

Susan