More Work For Us All!

[Guest]

Im back on the foums after a while of moving house and getting myself organised! Came bak into ask the question it seems everyone is talking about! My head has asked me to look into producing a baseline/entry assessment for our F1s tht not only can be used to show value added in the FS but that can also predict what we think y2 will achieve in their SATS! hELP! What can we do about all of this I know that my head will not be satisfied with it cant be done or there is no way of knowing! Others must be looking into this as well we need more discussion on this! Thanks for your help

[JacquieL]

Hello Green and welcome back. I hope that you are settling in.

[Guest]

This is really nothing to do with the topic being discussed but......on the planning sheet at my new school is a column which says

child initited activities......

Maybe it is me but I dont see how you can plan those, I thought that they arose naturally or with adult prompting and intervention.Am I wrong?

[Marion]

We do some of our planning retrospectively so this column is used for those activities and also for planning arising from childrens responses to other activities. Does this make sense?

[catma]

there is no direct correlation between F2 outcomes and Ks1 outcomes, and the FSP only links to aspects of the NC not discreet levels. However you could argue (and this is a hypothesis here) that a child attaining 6 or more across all scale points is attaining the expected level for end of key stage, thus a child who does this could be expected to attain level 2???? Don't know! What do the people with electronic target setting systems say?

[Guest]

Our LEA recently did a transition meeting and I went along expecting to find out all about transition (why wouldn't I?) and instead it was all about using the scores from the FSP to predict targets for Y2 SATs. As a rough rule of thumb they said that if a child scored an average of 6 across the 3 aspects of MD then their target should be 2B+ in the numeracy SATs. A 7 on the FSP was meant to equate to 2A at SATs. The same applied for literacy. The fact that this data was based on the first children to be assessed using the FSP and that teachers didn't have a full year to do it in was glossed over as was the fact that you're using one curriculum to try and predict a result for a different curriculum. Also, aren't we know getting back into the thing whereby some people might start to score very low on the FSP to make the value added look good in KS1? Is it me?!

 

Ooh, and another thing. As we're being told that scoring 6 in any one area on the FSP is a GOOD score then surely this makes the 6=2B for SATs thing flawed as 2B is where the 'average' child is meant to be at SATs. 'Good' and 'average' aren't the same...(cue sinister music) or are they?

Edited March 27, 2006 by Guest

[Guest]

I heard the same thing - re a score of 6 was good attainment - recently too. It was from an EY advisor who is also an Ofsted Inspector. It seems that too many children have been scoring too high in recent years. My problem is that all the bumph re ELGs states that most children will achieve the ELGs by the end of YR. Clearly this is not the case if a child is deemed to be achieving well if scoring a 6 and that this is seen to be making good progress.

[catma]

unfortunately regional directors have been using "good" in their descriptor of attainment at trainings for LEA lead personnel/consultants - this is in reference to the scoring of 6 "across all areas" as a marker of expected attainment . I think their use of good is being misunderstood and it is being given an Ofsted type interpretation. An average child would be expected to be at the level of the ELGs by the end of FS. A child with the 6's - 9's is therefore working at this expected level ie solidly in the right place. Below 6's and you are not really well into the elgs, but just in, hence the comparison with a y2 level 2c. In the ball park but not scoring the goals yet. Below that, well not attaining the expected levels for a child of that age. For good I think we should really be saying expected. The FSCG indicates the expectation that most children would attain the elgs by the end of FS, and nationally last year most children scored 6's and above (See fsp statistical release from DFES for details) so therefore most children did attain the expected outcomes.

 

Except in our borough, but that's another story.

 

This is the advice we have been giving to our practitioners.

 

Cx

Edited March 28, 2006 by catma

[Guest]

Ooh, I've got my muddly head on but bear with me if you can! There is a difference, isn't there, between the ELGs and the points on the FSP? In my simple way I always think of the ELGs as being like the PoS in the National Curriculum and the FSP points as being like the level descriptors. Am I right in thinking that the ELGs are what you 'put in' to the children and then what they 'do' with them is how you get a handle on where they are? There is a big difference, isn't there, between having experience of something and really having ownership of a concept? Otherwise we could all say, 'Yep, I've delivered all the ELGs therefore all of my children can score an 8'. I think this is posted a lot but there's a thing on the Standards site about how we wouldn't expect children to score 100% on a test and neither should we expect them to score 100% on the profile and I always find that very assuring and go and check it out sometimes just to reassure myself. Note to self - get a life! Here's a link in case you haven't seen it Standards site

 

Have I got it all completely wrong? I'd be grateful for correction if I have!

Edited March 28, 2006 by Guest