Schol won't tell me scores/grades my child has acheived

[JellyBelly10]

My DS1 started in Year 1 in September. At the end of Reception we were given an end of Reception report which was interesting but all qualitative, ie it made no mention at all of the EYFS scores for each of the Learning Goals. So I have no idea how my child did really in Reception other than the chatty, positive comments in this report. So last week we had his Year 1 parent evening and I asked the teacher whether she could give me some quantitative information as well as her comments, I specifically asked whether she could tell me what his end of Foundation Stage score was as I am really interested in tracking his progress year by year, and am also really keen to support his learning at home appropriately. I also asked if she was able to tell me how she had graded him in the recent Year 1 assessments (ie the NC levels of 1c, 1b etc etc) but she said no, she could not tell me either of these things as it wasn't school policy. So I e-mailed the Head Teacher and explained that whilst I knew it wasn't school policy to give out these figures routinely, but as I am a parent asking for them, and fully understood them and am just really interested to have this information about my own child that I assumed the school would tell me. But she won't tell me! She says she has concerns giving this information out to parents. Does anyone know whether I have a right to know this information? It seems ludicrous to me that the school do these assessments and hold this data on my child but won't tell me even though I have specifically asked for it!

[Talkinpeace]

Will it make your child be better and happier if they are 1c or 1b
or will it just mean you heap pressure on the poor little thing?
DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
No, it does not.
Are they enjoying school, are they skipping in, are they looking at books with you, are they making friends.
At KS1
ALL THAT MATTERS
is they learn to enjoy learning and become socialised.
Reading, Writing and Numeracy are useful but some kids (like my DS) "defer" that bit till KS2 and then thrive.

[overmydeadbody]

I don't think it's very productive for you to be so obsessed with scores and grades. Even teachers don;t think they truly reflect the abilities or capabilities of the child.


Please don't start getting obsessed about numbers and scores. It will not help you or your child.

[overmydeadbody]

JellyBelly it is not important.


Please. Let it go.


You can help your child without knowing what they scored on a stupid meaningless test.

[Feenie]

Legally, only levels at the end of Y2 and Y6 have to be reported. But I don't know why a school wouldn't just give you the information you've asked for - it's not as if they will have anything to hide.

[Feenie]

"Even teachers don;t think they truly reflect the abilities or capabilities of the child."

"You can help your child without knowing what they scored on a stupid meaningless test."

Can I just quibble a little with these comments? Whilst it doesn't do to get hung up on scores and grades, the level will be a teacher assessment, and will be an accurate reflection of where a child is working at a particular moment, and of where they need to go next. I would agree that a score would not necessarily reflect capability, if at all. It would also be a measure of reading, writing and Maths scores only - i.e. it wouldn't focus on anything else that is just as important in Y1 - social interaction, enjoyment, etc.

I think MNers sometimes think that all these scores are test results, which is not usually the case until Y6 in the majority of schools.

[JellyBelly10]

Thanks Euphemia for your reply. I know what you mean, in that schools partly don't give out this information because for many parents the figures might need to be put into context to have any meaning for them, and yes they write the reports to give all the qualitative information you should need to know. But for various reasons, like the fact I used to be Chair of Committee at my son's preschool and took a huge interest in the EYFS and how it is delivered and assessed and I know all about the maximum scores possible for each of the subject areas and the national standard overall score of 78 etc etc...and I just find it all really interesting and would like to have the info about my own child. I don't mis-trust the teacher's comments, far from it, but I just feel if the school are using this data about my child and are even submitting it to the Local Authority for them to add to all their statistics about schools' performance in the borough then it just seems odd that I am the one person not allowed to know about my own child!

[kittens]

The school should provide you with the information, but the reason why the schools don't is that they may not be very confident in the teacher assessments. You could speak to the head again and if you don't get anywhere raise it with the governors as they can instruct the head to provide this information. This has happened at my child's school so we now get the current levels and predicted levels at the parents meetings and in the reports.

[JellyBelly10]

It took me so long to write the reply to Euphemia that I didn't realise others would have responded too! I take on board what you are all saying, I am just genuinely interested to have this data on record I suppose, as part of my child's "history" at school. I don't think I'm obsessed with grades etc (hope not anyway!!), just feel that the info my school has should be shared if they beleive it is at all accurate and I ask for it out of a genuine interest. But hey, maybe I should just drop it and go and cook my kids' dinner!

[overmydeadbody]

JellyBelly if you know so much about the scores already surly you can acurately guess what level your DD is most likely performing at?

[mrz]

The legal requirement is for the school to provide a written summary of the child's progress against the ELGs at the end of reception. Profile scores are meaningless to anyone (parents- teachers - the government) without knowing which points have been achieved (this information is found in the written summary)

[bedsidecabinet]

You can make a written request of your child's school records under the data protection act - the school has no legal powers to withold that information from you and you don't have to provide any justification for why you want the information.

Look up the Information Commissioner's website - there are model letters online as well. You may have to pay a nominal fee for photocopying.

[mrz]

Would you really be any the wiser if the school told you for example that your child scored

SD - 6 ED 7 DA - 6

LCT -7 LSL -6 R-6 W-6

NLC - 7 C-7 SSM-8

KUW -6

PhD -7

CD -6

????

it may also be that at this point in the year your child is not being assessed against NC levels so the school is unable to provide what you are asking for.

[JellyBelly10]

mrz yes I would find the different learning goals and his scores set out like that hugely useful and really interesting. Using your examples above, I would know that with an overall score of 85 that he had done generally well, no idea how he had done in the context of his cohort, but against national average he had acheived slightly above average. I would also be pleased to see that he had done particularly well in all three areas of problem-solving, reasoning and numeracy and given that he has not scored at less than 6 in the 7 areas of CLL and PSED I would just feel happy that the results showed he was reaching a good level of development generally. So yes, seriously I would love to have the information set out like that as in my opinion it would really add to all the other qualitative information and the teachers' comments and the examples of work and the pictures and craft stuff he brought home etc etc and of course to my just knowing that he is happy and doing ok because I take an interest in what he is doing at school. I just think it's all really interesting. But I also appreciate that not everyone is interested to hear "scores" and that is absolutely fine and that a good school will have perefctly good ways of conveying a child's progress and attainments without ever mentioning scores or grades. And my interest in finding out how my child has done is not anything to do with not putting trust in the teachers to tell me what I need to know, after all the scores themselves are all teacher-assessed, they are only the opinion of whoever assessed him at that moment in time. so I am putting absolute trust in them by being interested in knowing those scores. I do agree with you mrz that my asking to know his current NC level is perhaps not that fair, he's only been in Y1 for less than a term! But anyway, thanks for everyone's comments.

[activate]

rofl she showed you didn't she

[mrz]

So would you like to explain what a score of 6 for DA means exactly? Which ELGs he has achieved?

[mrz]

If he has scored DA6 for example he will still be working on ELGs rather than NC levels

[Simbacatlives]

85 above national average?

[activate]

I think you're getting a bit patronising now MRZ it's not the holy grail is it

she wants the scores

she has abetter than usual understanding of the scores

and she has asked for them

school should provide them - and if you ask in writing they will have to (but that's not the way I'd want to start a primary career - and I also wouldn't care about them personally)

[mrz]

Actually activate it shows me she doesn't understand EYFS profiles

[mrz]

I've been completing profiles for 10 years activate and the scores I gave as an example would tell me nothing useful about the individual child so call that patronising if you like

[Oartistic]

mrz, you are on the back foot and you know it.

jellybelly: if you want information about your child, you are quite right to seek it regardless of what anyone on here thinks. As always, there's a lot of pious comment here - but most parents actually quite like to know these things, even if they make out that they are above all this.

[mamatomany]

And you do ?