Progress Towards The Elgs In Nursery

[JacquieL]

I was talking to someone from a nursery today who is most upset by a visit from the LEA quality assurance staff. They feel that because when her children start, they are beginning to work at yellow level but are only are beginning to work within green level when they leave for Reception, that they have only made satisfactory progress. This makes her setting only satisfactory. To be good they must be secure green, very good they would have to have acheived most ELG's, so goodness knows what outstanding means. This is a super Nursery which delivers the FS curriculum in the way it should be, and to be told that the children's progress is not good enough has shocked them all.

I just wondered what all your thoughts are, or experience is of this?

[Rea]

If the children did achieve the ELG's by the time they left nursery would that mean they had a year off during reception or would they start on the national curriculum?

I know they can revisit and consolidate learning but if thats the case why does the FS say 'by the end of reception most children.....'?

Sounds like the LEA are a bit pushy to say the least.

[Guest]

I am really shocked by that Jacquie, most of my nursery children are still on blue when they go up to reception! It does depend on where the children are when the come into nursery and ours come in very low. I think as long as you can show that they have made progress then this is the most important thing.

[Guest Wolfie]

In our authority all nursery settings are told that they should be concentrating wholly on the yellow and blue stepping stones with only a very few "exceptional" children achieving green and then probably only in one or two areas.

[Guest]

I agree wholeheartedly with everything that has been said. Some of our children who are moving to school in September are on green-but this year are an exceptional group. We have some very, very bright children. And I have some children who will be going to nursery who are very advanced-but again this is not the norm.

It is very unfair of the LEA staff to have such high expectations of the children never mind the nursery! We all want the children to do well and achieve their best but this varies from child to child. I would be challenging this if I were them.

Linda

[JacquieL]

Good exactly what I thought.

They have been told that each child should move up two levels. This sounds very KS1 to me. I would be arguing that they are there for an all round experience. Surely if they have to be acheiving in green then they would have to have much more in the way of phonics, handwriting etc. In terms of some aspects of PSE maturity plays a part. I have always considered that children secure in blue and beginning to move into green were doing well, and they have the reception year to move on to the ELG's, and for the very able beyond. Goodness knows what they will be saying to those working with the under threes when there is continuous record keeping from when they start in daycare.

These nursery staff need to get thier arguments together.

Thanks everyone.

[Susan]

Unfortunately Jacquie, from recent Ofsted expectations of FS that I have heard about I am not surprised that your friend has been told that.

[Guest]

We also had OFSTED recently and have been told that the children's progress was at best satisfactory and many of them start nursery not even in yellow band and leave very secure blues with some greens.

[JacquieL]

Oh dear, so what are OFSTED saying then if they think that they should be making that kind of progress? How do they equate these expectations with the FS curriculum?

[Guest]

I dont really know Jacquie. All I know is that our coordinator was devastated by OFSTED to the point of becoming ill. She tried to establish what 'good' progress looked like in say writing or reading but didn't get an acceptable answer from what she said.

[Guest]

we have been told by the schools reception teachers that they are only looking for children to have covered the yellow and blue with the occassional green. We have been told that all greens have to be backed up with 3 observations which also have to be sent to the school.

So we have just been concentrating on covering these. I wish they would make up their mind what they want. If we have a goal we need 4 observations also sent to the school, just seems more and more paperwork, any photos we have as evidence also need to be attached. As i have 27 children leaving my head is spinning at the moment!!!!!!!!

I thought our children were making good progress!!!! makes you wonder

[Guest]

we are a sessional pre-school with 12 children per session . they start off on b-3 at 2yrs and progress towards fs when they get funding some in Jan some in April. They move on to nursery in Sept at 3yrs. When we had our ofsted they liked the record sheete which we recorded obs on relating to the relevent b-3 fs aspects /area and the next steps for each individual child . however they did not show consistently which ss each child had achieved but did have a very good progression of each child. we where told we new our children well but got satisfactory because we did not make it easy for an inspector to read the ss we should have had a tick box.

I argued that each child was making good progress some of them across 2 frameworks that the format we used was good for parents to read for us to look back and see where the child had moved on and more importantly it gave us information about how each individual child progressed which is where we are supposed to be.

It was also commented on that children should automatically move on to fs as they got funding and not stay with a foot in b-3 if they needed it as the fs had a good spec-needs areas.

When I first started in childcare we did tick boxes then it was deemed not good enough and we should use more info about the children for our planning. are we about to go back to tick box ? doesnt this fly in the face of ecm and the EPPE report and quality childcare.

I hope not as my parents like knowing about their child and not a statement that is vague and not easy to understand.

sue

[Guest]

I agree with everything said so far ... what is the LEA expecting!!! Not to mention OFSTED ... this makes me very worried about what we're expected to achieve, and the knock on for KS1/2.

[Deb]

I agree with everything also. Have always understood we should concentrate on yellow and blue stepping stones, with some childrenn making progress in green; green and silver being what children should achieve in reception.

[Guest]

That's what our feeder schools have always told us. In any case, some of the stepping stones are so broad in terms of the range of things they cover, that they need to be observed sveeral times over, surely, before you can be confident they've been achieved fully.

[Guest]

I'm so confused In my nursery at present we are trying to develop an effective way of recording childrens progression through the stepping stones - however, I understood that a 'tick list' for this age group (3-4) was not deemed suitable - how else though are we supposed to show 'at a glance' how the children are progressing?

 

At present we're toying with the idea of having a list of stepping stones in each area of learning area and three smily faces that get coloured in as they are observed saying something like...."I've been introduced to this", "I'm practicing this" "I can do this" type of thing - of course we'll keep the observations and photos (when the camera's charged up/not full )

 

Please, please, please - does anyone have a system/forms which OFSTED have approved that they wouldn't mind sharing? Also, when new children arrive at nursery we presently just carry out observations as they play - does anyone use a 'tick list' type of thing for recording their entry level?

 

Sam

[Guest]

Dasher, I don't know if this will help, but here goes:

 

We use a copy of the stepping stones & ELGs [coloured] 1 sheet per Learning Area [except CLL which has 2!] in each child's personal achievement folder. They are available somewhere on this Forum but I'm not sure where. We interleave these sheets with ones in landscape that we've drafted up, which have columns for each learning aspect. We put the post-it notes with anecdotal observations on these sheets ans cross reference them on to the coloured sheets. It gives us an 'at a glance' view of where the children are at, and avoids the tick list syndrome because people can read why you thought what children had done matched that particular stepping stone - even if, as sometimes happens, you're not exactly sure where it fits! We also cross reference with longer observations & photos where appropriate.

 

Some of our feeder schools have said they follow a similar system and they like our records because they know the exact context. We work pretty much to the High/Scope curriculum, though, so this wouldn't suit everyone. It's more time consuming than some other systems I've seen, but you do get quite a clear overall view of each child.

[Magenta]

What will happen in 2008 when the EYFS comes in and there are no longer stepping stones in different colours?

[JacquieL]

Interesting question that one! they will have to come up with some way of measuring progress and then using that measure to assess the effectivenss of a setting. Oh dear.

[Guest Wolfie]

We do exactly the same as you, Weightman!

 

Magenta - maybe we'll all have to think up names for all the different shades of yellow and orange, using Dulux paint charts for inspiration!

[Guest]

Reading this I feel quite fortunate to be working in worcestershire - we have been given very clear guidance about expectations and have a very supportive nursery profile document produced by the authority.

 

 

we have been given the following advice -

 

"Nursery children generally are working developmentally in the areas described within the yellow stepping stones.

On entry to Reception national expectations are for children to be working developmentally in blue/green stepping stones." - see attached document as this is part of a statement given by Jan Dubiel.

 

 

If we assess a N child as green we are told this represents a high degree of competency, which should be demonstrated consistently in their self-initiated activities and supported by evidence from observations.

Early_Years_Website1.doc

Early_Years_Website1.doc

[Guest Wolfie]

That's very clear guidance -oh, that every authority were like Worcestershire...and why CAN'T there be some nationally agreed guidlines!!!!