Guest connie b Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 hello, should I be setting individual learning targets for children in reception, that are shared with the children and if so how do I go about it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 I do wonder about targets for the very young children. I have to do them half termly as it is school policy, but only start after they have had a term in school and are settled in. I do them for reading, writing and numeracy, but I also add in any general ones like dressing or behaviour. These are put into their home school diaries and we assess them at the end of the half term. They are useful in assessing where children are at ibn terms of the profile etc. but I'm not sure how much sense it makes to the children. I also found that it puts parents under undue pressure, particularly those who are first timers. I do think that in a primary school, Reception classes can be bunched together with KS1, and it can be forgotten that they are actually part of a different stage - Foundation stage, which has it's own curriculum, ethos, assessments etc. So I do wonder about the value of targets with the very young children. What does anyone else think? heyjude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 I had to set targets in my previous school, and they were all displayed nicely on the wall ... and totally unimportant to me and the children!! No-one has mentioned it for class r at my new school and I certainly don't intend to. Targets are meant to be another way of giving ownership of learning to the children - and if they don't understand or remember what their targets are it's just a pencil and paper exercise. That's my opinion anyway, doubt if it helps much!!! Dianne xxx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest cat33 Posted February 22, 2004 Share Posted February 22, 2004 Heyjude, I agree! We do have separate stages and curriculums but what does that matter!! I agree too, that target setting is difficult and not relevant to the way we work. So much of our assessment is through observation and not the agreeing and achieving of a target. Who are we to say what is important at any time for a child? Might be the child has to learn numbers to 10 but the child may be ready to make take a step in a PSE strand. Are we then to overlook this growth? Perhaps I am missing the point of setting targets. I know it is about children taking an interest in their learing but, for me, Fs2 is too soon. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 22, 2004 Share Posted February 22, 2004 For me devising individual targets is only necessary if children are achieving beyond or well below expectations in a particular area of learning. Isn't it enough that we share what we want children to learn with the children themselves on a daily basis? ? I develop individual targets at the end of each term from the updating of profiles and share those with parents. I take the opportunity to remind those children of what they are working towards, but I don't want them to go through life thinking that learning is only about achieving the next target. Isn't it all becoming a bit mechanistic? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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