Hi there.
I have a three year old little girl who is currently in pre-school. She joined the pre-school in September last year so completed a full academic year and I received a report at the end of the year. She has another year of pre-school to go before starting school.
I was expecting a really nice, positive report with a few paragraphs about what a friendly, polite, bright little girl she is but I actually got a really dull report which consists almost exclusively of statements lifted directly from the Development Matters Framework of EYFS, few of which actually seem like current achievements. E.g. X can tell us if she is hungry, thirsty, wants to play or wants to rest. As she's a very confident communicator and has been since before starting pre-school so this seems like a really odd statement when you consider the child it is talking about.
The key worker comments are equally as dull - basically lists a few things that she enjoys and says they look forward to seeing her progress through school. The only lovely part of it is the statement from the head of the pre-school which sounds enthusiastic and caring.
Is this normal or is this a lazy report? I'm finding it really difficult to put it out of my mind and I wonder if they key worker really doesn't have much of a bond with her. At three years old, I want the people who look after her for part of each day to actually care about her.
As a related issue but not the main issue, the boxes ticked for EYFS are far lower than I would have expected. She was 42 months old when I received the report. She was graded as developing for 30-50 months in everything except four areas graded as emerging / entering, one of which was reading. To any normal person, that looks like she is average or below average in everything. I was actually really shocked as when I read the requirements that age group, they seem very low - reading literally contains statements relating to holding the book the right way round, which implies they think that is something she is just beginning to do. She is actually a very able reader and can read and understand beginner reading books such as Bob Bug by Julia Donaldson with no assistance so it seems like our experience is poles apart from what the pre-school thinks. I expect there to be some differences between what we think she can do and what they see but not to that degree.
When I spoke to the school about it, they said that the reports were written in May half term, so two months before being issued. That effectively took away my ability to have a reasonable discussion about the differences as they used that excuse for every question I raised. They waived a completely different format of report in front of me which I couldn't take away as it also had other children in it but it showed her as 'green' across the board. They said she is doing really well and they would not have any concerns even if she were to be about to start school (which she is not). That's obviously great to hear but I'm really disappointed by the tone, quality and content of the written report to parents and I'm finding it hard to move on.
When I was a young child, my reports were just a few simple sentences that said lovely things that made my parents happy. Have early practitioners now got to base all reporting directly on EYFS language or is this a badly written report?
Apologies for the length of this but grateful for any comments.
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Get advice from other Mumsnetters to find the best nursery for your child on our Preschool forum.
Preschool education
Preschool End of Year Report
13 replies
JAB67 · 29/08/2018 16:16
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.