Assessing For Profile/stepping Stones, Elgs

[Guest]

I've just been reading the thread Laurarapley started on how others use the profile.

 

I'm in a County that provides a booklet per child which has the Stepping Stones and Early Learning Goals on one set of pages and then the profile statements for the same area of learning alongside them. Nurseries are encouraged to begin the booklet (leaving the profile part for Reception) and to pass them onto schools filled in. Huge amounts of evidence is often collected in the form of post its.

 

I was phased when I first started teaching and had to fill in the document. I like someone in the discussion had counted the number of profile statements then added to it the stepping stones and ELGs. I no longer remember the total number of statements, only that it was mind blowing!

 

My colleague and I decided to use the booklet and to only complete the profile part. We looked through what our feeder nurseries were sending up and that helped us inform our judgement and planning at the start of the year.

 

We use the statements from the Guidance to generate learning objectives in our medium term planning which we then make more child friendly in our short term plans.

 

Recently I have been taken to task for not highlighting all the stepping stones and ELGs. County feel that using the Profile to make assessment judgements is not adequate and feel that doing so will mean that I am unable to report accurately to parents to what extent the children have a achieved ELGs at the end of the school year. It was pointed out that the profile was not sequential and therefore highlighting on a term by term basis was not a sensible approach. Apparently the idea is for it to be completed (said in a tone of in one fell swoop) at the end of the Foundation Stage.

 

I felt on shaky ground, so then spent some time checking profile statements against ELGs and found that most of them are covered verbatim, a few are amalgamated into one statement and that only a couple of ELGs seemed not to be covered directly. Whilst I have been told that it is up to practicioners to decide how they assess and make judgements, recommendations that I change my methods have been put down in writing.

 

I feel frustrated. It already seems a heavy load to do a good job collecting evidence for the profile. There is also a suggestion that an electronic tracking document should be completed for the year group on SS and ELGs highlighting statements as they are achieved and that this is very useful in providing management information. (graphs etc) When I questionned where the time to input data could come from, it was suggested that a TA might be used to input it. I want to have time to teach, make resources etc, etc.

 

May be I have got it all wrong. Sorry for rambling on! Would be very glad to hear whether others have had similar advice. Also what your own opinions are.

 

AOB

[Susan]

I'm pulling my hair out for you!

 

What you describe, if I understand it is phenomenal!

Its difficult to know what you should do when your LEA seem to be asking you do so much more. In the years between the introduction of the FS Guidance and the profile, I tried tracking my class against SS and ELGs and it was very difficult. Some ELGs are easier than others---as are profile points.

When the profile when it was introduced we were told we could add to it each term or just finalise scores at the end of the year. It seems that your LEA would prefer you to use it as the later, using the SS and ELGs as your termly assessment?

If you have assessed and recorded in this way is it not fairly straightforward to transfer into the profile when appropriate SS or ELGS are achieved?

I can appreciate however what a daunting job this must be.

Have you talked to your head and/or assessment coordinator? What do they say. Will they not support you?

 

Good luck.

[Marion]

I use our LEA assessment document (from choice) because I find it very straight forward and feeds directly into the FSP. We dont use the booklets at all. And we DONT keep evidence for each child for each statement. When I was moderated last year I was told I was doing far too much and even then it was nowhere near the ammount you are expected to do. Poor you:(

 

Good Luck from me too

[Guest]

Susan and Marion,

Thanks for the support. Re the view from School; it's a case of advisors are always right, if they advise us to do something we must do it! So next year we have been advised to go back to using the County produced booklet. The other benefit of the system my colleague and I have been using this year is we can carry around all the records in 1-2 lever arch files. Previously in meant loading up a plastic crate! Apart from that highlighting the areas and getting an overall picture of the child on one sheet of A3 ( a format I'm sure I downloaded from here - thank you who ever the good soul was as I can't remember) is so much easier than leafing through a huge booklet. I'm fairly certain I haven't misunderstood the advice, they keep saying the profile is not developmental and it is meant to be used as summative not formative assessment.

 

AOB

[Susan]

Dont know what else to suggest then, but sounds like paperwork overload.

Have you looked in the handbook or the QCA site, perhaps there would be something there to support you?