Profile...where oh where?

[apple]

Simple question... does anyone know when the blooming thing shall be with us :angry:

[Guest]

I believe our reception class was told it might be with them by the summer term!

[SueFinanceManager]

Is this it here posted by Lorna a few days ago?

[Helen]

I was on a course led by Sue Robb earlier this week and she said the EYFS profile guidance will be out at the end of November, and it will include:

*exemplification materials

* moderation handbook to support LAs

* a new "good level of development" descriptor

[mundia]

Hi Apple

I know its frustrating that the exemplification materials aren't yet with us, but in essence the profile is here, because its the ELGS, and we have those. We know what we are working towards and the development matters guide us to get there. The profile (and now the eprofile which is out now), makes it very clear that it is for the end of the year and not for tracking or monitoring progress. The fact that the materials aren't yet out, shouldn't stop us from doing what we do best..providing for the needs of all of our children.

[catma]

I agree. We do not need the technicalities of the final assessment yet and not having it won't stop us building our knowledge of the children.

 

The ELGs as the expected are clear and tracking through the dev matters framework shows us how children will move towards it. The statutory framework describes the process quite adequately really. In fact I found, when working on the exemplification working party, that making a best fit was only possible when I had a wide range of observations in different contexts. Then I could read the goal and make a match with what I knew of the child's overall capabilities. I didn't need to break anything down into bits or check anything of in pieces.

 

i think we have to stop thinking of the profile as a separate thing to teaching and learning, really. Good pedagogy leads to accurate assessments so if that is all in place then the profile, when we get the final documentation, will be fine!!

 

Cx

[apple]

Hi Munda and Catma

I quite agree with what you are saying and am fully aware that we have everything we need to be getting on with; I was just curious as in discussions with various colleagues we were wondering what emerging, expected and exceeding looks like. It is frustrating when the government say that it will be out in the autumn and have yet to comment on when the likely pusblish date will be... That' s all

[catma]

Well the current info I have is November along with the EYFSP ARA. They are not doing briefings for LA leads until the spring.

 

Originally there was to be no exemplification at all!!

Cx

[apple]

thankyou for your exemplification into this matter

[Guest LornaW]

 

i think we have to stop thinking of the profile as a separate thing to teaching and learning, really. Good pedagogy leads to accurate assessments so if that is all in place then the profile, when we get the final documentation, will be fine!!

 

Cx

 

I agree completely with you Catma and as always good teachers have known their children inside out without having to break DM down into a tick list. The biggest problem I find it SLTs who want tracking so teachers are working their socks off trying to devise a system when in reality they do know their children from their incidental and formal observations. I think we need lots of training for SLTs!

 

Lorna

[Susan]

Easier said than done, even as an SLT member.

[catma]

We certainly do!!

[Guest]

What is really needed is to get Ofsted to change its obsession with data. They are the body who most influence senior managers and they need to be held to account for their insistence on quantified on entry and tracking data from the earliest possible age. Tickell picked up on this but all the emphasis in the world in the new Eyfs on less paperwork is just hot air if Ofsted judge a school adversely if they have no on entry data.

[catma]

the emphasis in the world in the new Eyfs on less paperwork is just hot air if Ofsted judge a school adversely if they have no on entry data.

 

To be honest, I disagree. It isn't about having or not having, but having and using. You could have it and still be inadequate because you are unable to use it to improve outcomes. I've worked with schools who have ridiculous amounts of data but still have lousy outcomes and expectations for their children because they just produce numbers and don't use them.

 

In all my years of teaching I was always expected to have my data on entry and as I went along. But what has changed and rightly in my eyes is that we now use that data more purposeully to challenge ourselves and to be challenged by others on our effectiveness and the tracking data shows this. In my LA. by working with our schools on using their data well, we have significantly reduced the % of children in the bottom 20% - children who in the good old days would have languished because no one was checking they actually were making progress, irrespective of their starting points. So I think the Inspection process rightly focuses on outcomes which are shown through the data.

 

Cx

Edited October 6, 2012 by catma

[Guest]

When I first started there was no requirement for any nursery on entry assessment and assessment of children's needs was left to practitioners judgements. As a teacher I was able to put all my energy into ensuring that young children were socialised into school and beginning to develop early literacy skills. But in those days both SATS and Ofsted were shiny new things and not the big sticks used to beat the profession. I don't disagree that poor analysis of data is pointless and focussed analysis can improve achievement as measured by yet more data but don't then claim to be reducing paperwork/workload. It's disingenuous and causes conflict between managers who need accurate data and practitioners who are being told in the Eyfs they should not spend so much time on written evidence. I am also less than convinced that all this has made for better teachers or teaching just those better at teaching to targets. Tools like Tapestry might well help in this but the old Eyfs also did not require lots to be written down, it was Ofsted and LAs that put pressure on for 'hard' evidence. Tickell acknowledged that but it just seems its a case of 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss.'

I can talk in more detail about this once our report is published.

[catma]

When I first started there was no requirement for any nursery on entry assessment and assessment of children's needs was left to practitioners judgements.

Not a requirement, but I'd say good practice nonetheless. Many children were left behind and failed by the system of "each teacher does their own thing" because of a failure to see their attainment against progress over time, which without data you cannot do. Data for tracking is just the summation of your assessments and knowledge and doesn't have to be an industry of paperwork.Some just make it so.

Cx

[Guest LornaW]

Of course you are right Catma but what I have also seen over the short time that I was working in an LA is HTs asking for their data to be as low as possible to then show that progress has been made! (Now you may say these are few and far between but not in my experience working in a very large LA!) What then happens is teachers forget they were keeping the scores low and so begin to believe that this is all the children can do and have low aspirations for such children so little progress is made.

 

Yes we need to know our children, we need to ensure they progress and we need to ensure they are ALL given the chance to succeed but sometime data does get in the way!

 

Lorna

[catma]

Not the data in the way maybe, but the misguided use of it by SLTs then!

We too have had the "EYFSP can't be too high because the rubbish teaching in KS1 will look even more rubbish if the children are judged too high and my CVA will suffer brigade"!

Cx