Accurate assessments

[Guest]

Hi all,

 

We have a staff meeting coming up where we plan to moderate some of our assessments as a team. We have an ongoing issue of children being assessed too high e.g moving from our toddler room to the Pre-school room secure at 30-50 months, leaving us to go to school secure at 40-60m etc. I know that this is an issue across a lot of pre-schools and historically I remember when I was teaching in a Reception class, children would come to me having already reached their ELGs! In reality this was not the case at all and the evidence wasn't coming from a majority of CI observations.

 

I have recently been talking to the Reception teacher at one of our feeder schools and she confirms the issue. In fact she is only really expecting children to be secure at 30-50m and emerging into 40-60m at the end of the Autumn Term.

 

I am interested to hear other's views on this, but also to hear if there is any official help out their to help with moderation e.g. samples of assessed observations at various stages that could form part of group discussions. I intend for the staff to discuss their own observations also but I think it is always useful to see some alternatives that may have a new perspective.

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts. x

[Guest]

Hi. Just to say same thing we are observing here and what our feeder school says about the transitions they are getting from local nurseris etc..its hard as we seem to be all doing it differently. I think I am too much the other way!!

[thumperrabbit]

We find this hard too I have 1 staff member who is very highlighter happy whilst another isn't. I always say it's better to be cautious as at the end of the day we aren't teachers. As I also volunteer in rec class I can see there is far more teaching than what we deliver to achieve the statements

I have spoken to one of my feeder schools though and they confirm that they are more than happy with our judgements we rarely send a child to reception in 40-60 mths I feel 40-60mths statements are far more indepth than what we think they are.

[woodlands1997]

We may send emerging 40-60 but generally developing/ secure 30-50 and that's as they go off to school. There are a few generally autumn birthday high flyers though that may be emerging/ developing 40-60 in some areas but they are few and far between. Do you mean the reception teacher is expecting them to be secure 30-50 at the end of the autumn term? Surely some of them are actually quite behind then as they could be 60+ months?

We are quite cautious with our 'highlighting' but the schools we feed are happy with how we send the children on and in what bands so I hope we are kind of along the right lines. I wish there were exemplification documents like there are for elgs for the different age bands.

[eyfs1966]

We may send emerging 40-60 but generally developing/ secure 30-50 and that's as they go off to school. There are a few generally autumn birthday high flyers though that may be emerging/ developing 40-60 in some areas but they are few and far between. Do you mean the reception teacher is expecting them to be secure 30-50 at the end of the autumn term? Surely some of them are actually quite behind then as they could be 60+ months?

We are quite cautious with our 'highlighting' but the schools we feed are happy with how we send the children on and in what bands so I hope we are kind of along the right lines. I wish there were exemplification documents like there are for elgs for the different age bands.

There in lies the rub as they say. Lets face it, many of the statements are "wooly" at best, some are clearly in the wrong stages, and I certainly despite many qualifications and too numerous to mention training courses have never ever had any training around the statements at all....... I tend to just follow my best instinct and look at the exact wording of the staement. If I feel that puts a child in their final nursery year as working within 40-60 mths, and i am happy that the 30-50 mths statements seem just too low to reflect wher the child is, then I go with 40 -60,( and yes, that does tend to be for most children). If year R think that's overgraded, then frankly it's up to them to reassess for their own baseline. I just don't feel I can grade down just to allow Year R to show progression.I can't help but feel that the 40-60 mths category is just too big. It's a long, long way from emerging to ELG's in my opinion, especially in literacy and maths.

Edited January 20, 2015 by eyfs1966

[finleysmaid]

I have just managed to secure a meeting with one of my local schools to moderate judgements!!! woohoo! will let you know how it goes!

[sunnyday]

I have just managed to secure a meeting with one of my local schools to moderate judgements!!! woohoo! will let you know how it goes!

How brilliant - I would certainly welcome that :1b

Having noted (several times) just how much 'my' children 'change' and what they 'forget' after the shortest of holidays - I can well imagine how our assessments - which are carefully made for their transitions would in fact be 'worthless' after a six week holiday+ entering a new setting......

[Guest]

We have been in a similar situation and have recently began moderating between the staff members. We have also been advised by LA Early years advisors not just to rely on the eyfs statements to make our final assessments within age bands but also to refer to other documentation such as 'Birth to five years' by Mary D. Sheridan, which looks at milestones in the ages of a child's development.

Our Reception class teacher also asks for evidence e.g. observations / pieces of work by the child, to back up our assessments we have made as well as giving critical feedback. He also comes into setting in the Summer Term to discuss the children, look through Learning Journals and gather information about the children.

[louby loo]

..... and this is why I love our feeder schools - they don't ask for assessments! I know this will probably have to change soon though Our LA 'like us' to do their transition document- but we don't 'have' to.

We make a little transition booklet, the schools visit us- we [the children] visit them. We all talk together (with parents approval).

We happily do our progression, the school happily do theirs. We have harmony.

[SazzJ]

This is causing a headache for me within our setting too. Myself and co manager are at logger heads over a child.

 

She marked them as secure 40 - 60 months at 34 months. I feel at 39 months he is just getting there. He is talented in maths with counting. Can add and subtract but I am not 100% sure he's at ELG myself yet

[Guest]

Headaches here too! We have had a child come to us from another Nursery where they have told parents they no longer know what to do for him as he is secure 40-60 m and his next steps are ELG. The transition they provided was a report that listed the development matters statements. He was 4 yrs in Nov and we (pre-school) along with our feeder school (which he attends in the afternoons..he starts reception in sept) have put him at 30-50 m with aspects of 40-60 m.She was not happy saying that the Nursery put him at 30-50 m two years ago! We had to explain to her how things may be interpreted and basically say that yes he is starting to do some of the 40-60 things but not yet consistently or independently.