League tables for five year olds

[mrz]

I'm just reading the Times Ed and saw this

[Lydwatt]

Really!! You are kidding!! That's bonkers. What is the point in that??

[sue52]

Waste of time and public money.

[lovecheese]

Speechless. AND the bastards have just sent my DH a £2600 tax bill. Well, I know it's not actually The Department of Education who sent it, but hating anyone in Authority today!

Grrrrr!!

[stoatsrevenge]

This is totally ridiculous. It will just show affluent areas of the country (as do 11+ results around here).

Does anyone else have a horrible feeling that league tables of performance in KS1 will creep its way back in?

And Clair Tickell's CV doesn't really fill me with confidence about her knowledge of teaching in the early years.

I have a sinking feeling and may well be that disillusioned teacher in 2 years' time.

[Bronte]

Political interference in our schools and continual meddling with the curriculum is probably at the root of my exasperation and disillusionment!
By the way the Forest school projects look great.

[purepurple]

No, no, no. This is all wrong and such a step backwards.

[stoatsrevenge]

One day, teachers will say 'NO!' and refuse to implement daft ideas.

(And this is such a daft idea in so many obvious ways: demographic, pre-school experience, family interest and education, EY results being questionable, gender, motor control, cognitive development....etc, etc, etc).

[honeybeetree]

MRZ was that in the TES England edition? We don't have league tables in Wales but what a silly silly idea.... what will they think of next?

[gabid]

Do they ever consult with the profession before they publish such nonsense??? I have been wondering about that on a number of occasions. It's scary, my dd will start school in Sep 2013.

[Lydwatt]

Why would they consult the profession when we clearly have no idea what we are talking about and we couldn't be trusted anyway....

[onimolap]

Is this in any way connected to the Frank Field proposals? They seemed to be aimed at early intervention to bring disadvantaged children to the "level" of their middle class peers by the time they start school. If that is the aim, then presumably it needs some sort of monitoring to see if it's having the intended effect.

That does not, of course, mean that this proposal is the right way to go about it.

[mrz]

The previous government undertook 2 consultations with the questions worded to get the response they wanted. The present government appointed Dame Claire Tickell to review EYFS with results due in the spring.

www.education.gov.uk/childrenandyoungpeople/earlylearningandchildcare/a0063495/call-for-evidence-for-eyfs-review

[mrz]

onimolap it is already being monitored and measured but at present the results are shared with parents, schools, the LA and the government not the world at large so nothing to be gained

[stoatsrevenge]

Am I right in thinking they're going to be changing FS profiles, so we may be talking about a league table of something entirely different to FS profile points?

[mrz]

I think the changes are only in the way information is collected not what is collected. But like everything in education at the moment it seems to still be under review.

[DreamTeamGirl]

Oh I dont know, it will be IDEAL for those parents whose 5 year old children simply arent challenged by normal reading books, despite the fact that they started school knowing both their letter sounds and how to blend

... and for the love of god why wont their teachers challenge them

and so on and so forth....

[mrz]

I'm not sure that the league table will inform you about reading books as the EYFSP doesn't measure how many books children can read.

[RoadArt]

One day the government will realise that if teachers were allowed to spend their time actually teaching, then all the kids would benefit and their progress would improve.

When a teacher has to spend so much time out of the class, doing tests, reports, and everything else they do, its a wonder they have time to teach at all.