Baseline Assessment In Pre-school?

[Guest]

Hi again,

 

Two posts in one day? I must be getting worried....

 

The teacher in me really wants to do some kind of assessment of the children during the first few weeks of September, just to see where they are at and so that we don't overlook anybody's skills, or lack off. I think it can be easy to take a general snapshot view of a child at the beginning and not notice their actual strengths and weaknesses in different areas.

 

I would like to put together something, a slightly watered down version of the old reception baseline assessment (does that still happen?) that looks at what the children can do and helps us to plan their next steps.

Obviously I wouldn't be sitting them down in exam conditions but would mainly be making the observations through play.

 

Is this what other people do or is it a bit 'heavy' for the start of pre-school?

 

So many questions...

 

Thanks

[Guest Wolfie]

Hi Edlee and welcome to the forum!

 

I'm a teacher in a Children's Centre and will be baselining the cohort of children in our 3-4s room in the Centre from this September. I've just spent the day with another teacher in a Children's Centre in another authority discussing this very subject. We've been looking at the CD-ROM from Early Education - Planning for Quality - which includes a progress moitoring tool and I've decided to implement this system, or something very like it, from September.

 

I shall be baselining using the Development Matters statements as a guide to assess whereabouts each child is and then shall look again in February and June to assess progress. The CD ROM draws bar charts and graphs for you as well if you need to produce data and statistics for Ofsted as I do - it's well worth a look.

[Cait]

We just do something simple, we observe for a couple of weeks whilst children are settling in and then do the attached which goes into their personal file

baseline.pdf

[Guest]

We use Planning For Quality to record progress, but as observation is the basis of our assessment for next steps, I would have thought that what is required is or should already be happening......the cd rom contains a form similar to Cait's which I give out to the key person at the appropriate times through the year so that we are recording children's achievements, at intervals which is then added to the spreadsheet, which then gives a great overview of progress or lack of showing which areas need work.....I like using it......

 

Welcome to the forum....

Edited August 25, 2009 by Guest

[HappyMaz]

Here's a link to the Early Education website which shows the details for Planning for Quality.

 

£15 seems very reasonable if it is useful. Have you looked at Progress Matters, Wolfie and if so how does it compare?

 

What I liked about the Progress Matters was that you could show the assessment data in terms of the age phase within which children were operating, but also the text descriptors which backed up that judgement.

 

Might be worth £15 to have a bit of a play!

 

Maz

[sunnyday]

Thanks for the link Maz - does look interesting

[Guest]

Maz, you really must stop posting such interesting links or I'll never get any work done!

[sunnyday]

Hmmm ........ my account is now £15.00 lighter!

[Deb]

Mine might be shortly too. Can you let us know what you think of the materials when you get them please?

[sunnyday]

Mine might be shortly too. Can you let us know what you think of the materials when you get them please?

Of course, no problem - decided to make the 'investment' as I feel this is an area in which we could still make some 'improvements'!