When Is Achieved Achieved?

[Guest]

When do you say that a child has acheived a point. At the moment we say 3 strikes - we have to see evidence of it 3 times before we say it's acheived. these strikes can come from observations or a focus activity. Does anyone insists that 3 strikes come from observation of purely child initiated play

[Guest]

I use my professional judgement and don't insist on 3 strikes for anything - if I followed that system I would go mad!

[catma]

we advise 80% of the time it is seen as an independent skill or whatever, backed up by any relevent observations/evidence/pprofessional knowledge. Adult directed activites don't really give you that independent transferrability so play base obs are best.

[Guest Wolfie]

We say three pieces of eidence for most things but there are some points, particularly in PSE, when we tend to use professional judgement more,e.g. leaving parent/carer happily.

[belle06]

we also use professional judgement and do not operate a strike system

[Guest]

We also say we need to see/record it at least 3 times. If there is no evidence then we do not say they have achieved it.

[Guest]

i also use my professional judgement and i do not use a strike system

[Guest]

my EY advisor one piece of evidence is definitely enough....if you're not sure look for more evidence.

[catma]

I also advise that if there is no evidence then practitioners need to ask themselves:

Have I given them the opportunity to show me something they actually can do but I just haven't seen it - am I missing something?

Have I provided the right types of provision/experiences to allow them to show me what they can do?

Do I have the knowledge of the curriculum to know what I might see as evidence which may not be obvious e.g. what calculation looks like, or cultures and beliefs in PSE.

 

The NAA say that moderators "cannot accept a single piece of evidence" to say a child has achieved a scale point

 

cx

[hali]

same as nina and jojom

[Marion]

We base most of our assessment on professional knowledge and judgement of the children and limit the number of 'assessment tasks' to things like knowing all the sounds which is pretty difficult to assess by observation of children working independently (although not impossible I know) I feel you have to see a child do things more than once to be sure that they really know/understand/have the skill and it isn't just a one off fluke which is why the NAA say once is not enough. We do use a simple 3 strike recording method just so that different members of staff can record informal observations.

[Guest]

We do not use a 'strike' system either - this would really drive me completely MAD - and perhaps make me "teach to the test" rather than give the children great play experiences/appropriate activities (dare I say that!?)

 

We go for evidence from child initiated play/learning - written observations, backed up with our professional knowledge.

 

I think I have read somewhere about the behaviour being "consistent, and 'typical'" of that child so if you know your child and have good 'observation' practices in place this (HOPEFULLY) should be quite straight-forward.

 

In September there was a post running about the recommendation from the NAA about our evidence being 80% child initiated observations, knowledge of child and ancedotal stuff, with 20% from group assessments etc. I think that was the general theme - no mention of "3" times.

[Marion]

The way we work our 3 strike system is that if a member of staff observes a child in an informal situation they put a dot next to the child's name and statement point. We also use formal observations but sometimes it isn't necessary for example as was discussed earlier if a child leaves a parent happily for the first time or gets dressed without help and the mark just makes the other practitioners in the unit aware that the child is actually working at the level and may lead to a formal observation in some circumstances. I think idea of the 3 strike is that if a child is observed doing something 3 times it isn't likely to be just a chance occurance and has been said the NAA also state that it shouldn't be judged on a single observation.........again it's a matter of finding a workable ballance.

[Guest Wolfie]

In the back of my mind I knew I'd been given a pnemonic (sp?) to refer to when considering whether a child has achieved something or not and I've just come across it whilst packing my "school bag"!....

 

All assessments should be NICE

 

Natural

Independent

Consistent

Embedded

 

If you make sure that each of those points apply, it's easier to trust your professional judgment and not have to wait for three pieces of evidnece necessarily.

[Marion]

It got me thinking why we operate a 3 times seen before we say a child has achieved a point and as far as I can remember it goes back to the first FSP moderation someone asked if a single piece of evidence wasn't enough how many times would be enough and the answer was 3 or more. We dont wait for 3 pieces of evidence but because the children work with different adults throughout the day its an easy way to pass on information.

[Guest]

Wolfie - I think your NICE is fantastic! I will try to 'use' it.

 

With regard to the '3 strike' thing - like Marion, when we first had the Profile - it became a thing in our LEA to have 3 bits of evidence for every point, but then it was declared a 'rumour' and has since died away in our LEA anyway, in favour of the observations from child-initiated work.

[Marion]

Our Early Years team still use the 3 strikes and we are asked to produce 2 or 3 pieces of evidence for moderation

News Item

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For the attention of staff responsible for the Foundation Stage Profile: Audit Moderation School Year 2006-2007

 

 

Practitioners are expected to be able to discuss two or three different observations or pieces of evidence that led them to make their judgements about one child for each of these five statements. It can be a different child for each statement.

 

 

once again different ideas from different LAs

[Guest]

I've been following this thread with great interest. As some of you will know ( ) my little soapbox is the '6 is good' thing and my having to sit in moderation meetings where people have their whole class marked off as scoring 8 or 9 for each area on the Profile.

 

I do think that there is a strong argument for having some kind of tracking system whereby you have several pieces of evidence before you will state that a child has achieved each point. This then means that our assessments are sound and give a realistic idea of a child's genuine level of achievement which in turn will be useful for setting work and, dare I say it, targets for Y1 and beyond. I worry when people score the profiles very high as I feel it undermines what we do and how we are perceived by people who teach older children. Unless our assessments are rigorous and can be backed up then the profile is reduced to little more than a tick sheet of things we've taught or opportunities we've provided. No wonder there are some ridiculously high profile scores out there.

 

I do think that professional judgement has a part to play but I tend to use this to think, 'Hmm, I've got 3 pieces of evidence for this child in this area but, hand-on-heart, I don't think this is really embedded learning/attitudes. I'll wait a bit.' I find this particularly when scoring the PSED aspects. I may have 3 instances when a child has, for example, shared or co-operated but these have been interspered with 10 episodes when they've NOT shared or had a hissy fit! Therefore I won't mark the child off but will wait until I feel that sharing/co-operating is an integral part of how they react with others.

[Guest]

I have seen evidence with my own children of them both being recorded as doing something, that I know that they do not yet do consistently, and not having things recorded until a much later date than they were actually acheived. Neither give an accurate picture of the child, which is what we should be aiming to show, regardless of the number of times that evidence has been gathered to prove it.

[Guest tinkerbell]

I have also been following this topic with interest and do not follow a three strike system.I use professional judgement and the children have to be secure before i would consider giving them the point.I only have 14 reception children so this may be easier for me.

As i pointed out to the LEA advisors who were moderating me last week on my e-profile.The problem with the e-profile once you start moving up the points is that there can be 3 or 4 elements to each eg knowing letter sounds and names.so when you look at my e-profile some half terms my children have made no progress on them.Also when you look at something like KUW all the ict is in one and not spread out over all.In other words the e-profile is good that we are all working together on the same assessment, BUT it is far from perfect.

 

Sorry if i am on my soap box now Moose

Tinkerbellx

[Marion]

I do think that professional judgement has a part to play but I tend to use this to think, 'Hmm, I've got 3 pieces of evidence for this child in this area but, hand-on-heart, I don't think this is really embedded learning/attitudes. I'll wait a bit.' I find this particularly when scoring the PSED aspects. I may have 3 instances when a child has, for example, shared or co-operated but these have been interspered with 10 episodes when they've NOT shared or had a hissy fit! Therefore I won't mark the child off but will wait until I feel that sharing/co-operating is an integral part of how they react with others.

 

Very good points

 

I have also been following this topic with interest and do not follow a three strike system.I use professional judgement and the children have to be secure before i would consider giving them the point.I only have 14 reception children so this may be easier for me.

As i pointed out to the LEA advisors who were moderating me last week on my e-profile.The problem with the e-profile once you start moving up the points is that there can be 3 or 4 elements to each eg knowing letter sounds and names.so when you look at my e-profile some half terms my children have made no progress on them.Also when you look at something like KUW all the ict is in one and not spread out over all.In other words the e-profile is good that we are all working together on the same assessment, BUT it is far from perfect.

 

Sorry if i am on my soap box now Moose

Tinkerbellx

 

 

We don't use the e profile but transfer the data from our own system which is broken down into much smaller steps and then transfered to the FSP only in the summer term.

[Guest]

We use the eprofile and Tinkerbell is absolutely right - many of the Profile points are multi-stranded and quite complex - we are trying to use the eprofile 'by the book' but this sometimes can look as though there are terms (the old half-terms) when a child makes no progress - which often is not right.

 

Next week we are going to a pre-moderation course type thing - it will be interesting to see how it goes and what we are told.

 

My own 'soapbox' is that the Profile is unmanageable and not fit for purpose - too subjective (despite 'moderation') - we once had a new child arrive in our class in January with EVERYTHING ticked off - he scored all 9's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Marion]

I agree I've had children arrive from nursery with the profile completed

[Guest]

I really liked Wolfie's mnemonic:

"All assessments should be NICE

 

Natural

Independent

Consistent

Embedded"

 

I decided to put this in a format for my staff to use and keep in their Profiles folders, as I am sure we are inconsistent in our recording across our keyworker groups. Can you guys help me with the difference between 'consistent' and 'embedded' as I am sure the staff will ask and I think I can explain but not clearly!!

[Guest Wolfie]

I think "embedded" is meant to apply to a skill/concept etc that was maybe first encountered by a child as part of a "taught" activity by an adult - it is embedded when several weeks later a child can still display that skill/concept/knowledge, without any kind of prompt or reminder from an adult. Oooh, I'm not sure how that differs from independent though!!! Let me think some more!

[Guest]

I've got to say again how great I think the NICE thing is - I also have shared this with my fellow colleagues at school. I personally am not going to worry/split hairs over the individual words, the overall message is very clear I think.

 

Thanks so much for sharing this Wolfie!

[Guest]

I agree that the points are very subjective and it does worry me when children arrive from another nursery into our Foundation Unit with nine points recorded.

 

I have heard that a LA near me is telling practitioners that a child can achieve a point at a high, medium or low point!!!!

 

Whats that all about.

 

Jo

[Guest]

Sounds like changing the goal posts once again Jo!