Baseline 2012!

[Guest]

Help!

 

I've been a Foundation Stage Teachert for the last 3 years and the Foundation Stage Leader for 1 year- so some would say I should know what I'm doing.

 

Baseline is now stressing me out.

 

Here's what I usually do...

 

Lots of child initated activities for example numbers in the sand, paint, letter tiles, role play, bikes, balls etc.

 

I then make observation notes but with cue cards for other adults so they know what they are looking for.

 

With the new Framework should I be changing what I'm doing???

Do most of you use your data from the pre-schools and take it from there?

 

My main concern is recording baseline and showing progress (for the Head obviously) on a manageable format.

 

Help! I don't want to spend the rest of my summer stressing about this :0(

[Guest]

Hi there Tinkerbell,

Very difficult - I am struggling with the same problem myself.

I usually do just what you do - i.e. lots of observations of child initiated activities, which I could then record on the "old profile".

This year, very different. We have no profile to work against.

Also the data coming in from Nursery is of course linked to the Profile so this doesn't provide much help unless you translate it and use your own common sense about where the child will be.

Seeing as there isn't anything in place for us to use (i.e. eProfile) and then pass on to A.Coordinators and Headteachers what I am thinking of doing is to just group children into three groups: Emerging, Expected and Exceeding as we will be doing at the end of the year. Our LEA is in the process of developing something for us to use which will split these three groups into smaller sub-sections, i.e. low emerging, high emerging etc. so that progress can be seen. However, I am certainly not going to spend my summer making up a similar thing. I am just going to hold my breath and go for it - don't know whether I am right or not. Sorry if I am not much help.

[finleysmaid]

Also the data coming in from Nursery is of course linked to the Profile so this doesn't provide much help unless you translate it and use your own common sense about where the child will be.

Centurians...i'm a bit confused by this statement...surely your feeder settings are using Development matters ? they shouldn't be recording ELG's for children of this age (nor should reception until the end of the year!) The new DM's have an ELG at the end of them (of course these may not be an exact replica of the final profile) but if you use the development matters statements and 'plot' the children on these then you will have a baseline...won't you?....although if you use the info from their previous settings this should be the information that they give you.

[Froglet]

 

Centurians...i'm a bit confused by this statement...surely your feeder settings are using Development matters ? they shouldn't be recording ELG's for children of this age (nor should reception until the end of the year!) The new DM's have an ELG at the end of them (of course these may not be an exact replica of the final profile) but if you use the development matters statements and 'plot' the children on these then you will have a baseline...won't you?....although if you use the info from their previous settings this should be the information that they give you.

 

I have one setting which always gives profile points and has reported them to parents before they get to me - I don't always agree even at the end of their reception year! Anyway, back to the original question. I do my baseline using both DM and profile points. This year it's easier because I'll only use one. EYFSP should be an end of year thing. The ever wise Catma said something about heads looking at progress on another thread - I'll try and find it.

[Froglet]

http://eyfs.info/forums/topic/34296-how-to-track-and-show-progress-in-reception/page__pid__328973#entry328973

 

This one!

[finleysmaid]

I have one setting which always gives profile points and has reported them to parents before they get to me

Oh Helen i hope you give them a serious telling off :blink:

[Froglet]

What's particularly scary is that the points are often 9!

[finleysmaid]

What's particularly scary is that the points are often 9!

oh for heaven sake!....why are the advisors not picking up on things like this? is their advisor not the same as yours?...could you not have a word. This gives pre-schools a bad name when people are doing this . I am trying to set up moderation meetings with our local schools to ensure that what they think is a 'point' is the same as us but time is always an issue!(we often DO have children on profile because there are not enough school places!!)

p.s. sorry tinkerbell i've done my usual and gone off the point a bit!

[Cait]

I have children moving up to me in Preschool for what will be their pre-reception year. I don't really know most of these children very well as they are in another room from me when they have had their sessions last year, so I'm in a similar situation. I have made a 'starting baseline' using the info from their Key Staff on the old system. I looked at the highllghted sheets (our County's preferred system up until now) and in most cases there's an obvious 'band' at which the child is operating in each development area. So where it's an obvious 'this child is operating in the 22-36 month band' then they should be in that band still, regardless of what the descriptors are, surely. Where there are discrepancies across a band I have looked at the descriptors and age banded accordingly. If I'm really not sure, then I have left it blank. I'll do another similar thing towards the end of the term for when I invite parents in to chat. If your County haven't provided you with anything that they want you to use, then you are in the same situation as all the other schools and cannot be penalised for not having one, surely. However, not doing anything because they haven't generated one yet isn't really an option, you do need some sort of 'starting place' for your value added, I have just done the same thing I did when we changed from the previous systems.

[Guest]

Thank you very much for your responses.

 

Unfortunately I have 4 feeder settings that all send their pre-school data in different formats, none of which have highlighted sheets just 'tick a box'!

 

I feel I shall be spending my first few weeks going over areas that the children can cover already.

 

Ah-well...

[catma]

I would expect to see the use of DM statements right through from nursery to reception to show progression. The age bands cover children aged 2.5 (30 months) right through to 5+ years (60+ months) so for on entry, I think, you just need to decide where on the continuum a child is. As I've said elsewhere, many settings use professional judgement to decide if that is emerging/developing/securing or similar, to show slightly smaller stages of progression.

On entry to reception can be done in the same way as on entry into nursery - I can't see that there is any difficulty with that. Heads have all been quite happy to use this as data so they'll just have to use the same data for the next class along. Reception isn't any different now to the rest of the EYFS which is a good thing!!

 

What needs to be clarified is that Emerging, Expected and Exceeding (which I have deliberately capitalised) are the end of year judgements and there is room for confusion if they are used without due care to meaning. I'd say pretty much most children would be "Emerging" on entry to reception as defined by the EYFSP because all this means is they are not yet securely demonstrating the end of key stage expected level which we wouldn't be expecting given they have a year to go until they need to be able to do that!

At the end of the year the "Emerging" summative judgement (attainment) of the child would mean they were somewhere on the DM continuum, but the setting will be able to pinpoint the place, and the progress made (Progress). This would describe the achievement in the way Ofsted will look at it.

 

 

The ever wise Catma said something about heads looking at progress on another thread - I'll try and find it.

 

Goodness, Thank you!!

Cx

[Guest]

Don't know if this will help anyone but my ex local authority are asking FS teachers to assess the development matters bands as C, B or A. So for example, if a child is falling in the Maths number band 30-50 months are they C (low) B (mid) A (high). I know it's not an exact science as the bands cross over, and I'm not sure if I will use this in my new setting. I suppose it is similar to emerging, developing and securing but my understanding as Catma says, the Emeriging, Expected and Exceeding statements are to be used for the end of Recepetion. Maybe recording a child's attainment throughout the year within the DM statements as C, B, A would stop confusion and show progression?