Progress assessments

[MrsPeacockDidIt]

Hi. Not posted in this section before but hoping someone can help.

I've just had my son's progress report at nursery. We used to have parents evening but these were stopped and replaced with a "in depth chat at pick up every 12 weeks". Not part of my query but this didn't happen and so the assessment we had this week was the first since the last parents evening in March. My son is 3.4.

Anyway to my actual query. His key worker has filled in the summative Assesment directly from the Early Years Outcome guidance notes, word for word. For each of the different categories she's selected a line from the relevant age group on the EYO and just put my son's name in front of it. Some of the wording she doesn't even understand because I asked her. (Repeated refrains for instance).

So is this normal practice? Does anyone know if this is how the EYO is designed to be used?

Thanks.

When I was a childminder I had a book for each child with all the EYFS milestones in, room for a date to be entered when they reached the milestone and a comments box. There were also spaces for planning.

The only concern I would have is that she is marking off something she doesn't understand but other than that, this is how I did it.

I did a longer summary every few months too thinking about it, based on my observations and outlining where we were going next

Thank you. I am concerned that she's writing things she doesn't understand. I also don't get that if she's going to do this then it would actually be more useful to do what you've suggested and print off the actual EYO and note when he reaches each milestone.

How it is done won't be her choice it'll be down to management, but they should be aware if staff don't understand

Is she a qualified practitioner?

So if she's saying 21.9.15?fred enjoyed blah blah blah with repeated refrains, then it's ok to include the EYFS words, but if she doesn't understand what it is, then that's more worrying. Ask for a parents meeting, they should give you one, even if they don't always do them now.

15? I meant 14

Thanks. She's not just "including" the words but just copying them word for word with no examples. I had to look up what it meant to. So if she had understood it most people would have written "joins in with repeated chorus of songs and rhymes" because that's how normal people speak surely . I am asking for a meeting anyway about another issue so I'm going to discuss this too. Thanks all

She should really have observations to back it up so one might say 'Fred loved today's story and when I paused at key moments he shouted out the words of the mouse - 'there's no such thing as a Gruffalo!'

The EYO do get used the way you've described but they shouldn't be the be all and end all as it is just 'guidance' and not a tick list of 'musts' Children do many other things that are not listed in these outcomes!!

The EYO's are the old DM's (developmental matters) statements and in that guidance book there were additional columns to support staff in what they should be doing for support, how the environment might look to support this outcome and examples of what children might be doing/saying - it was very useful - it can still be referred to as there is no statutory document for assessment in eyfs but the done thing is to use the terminology EYO (as it was the government typical relabelling/branding!)

Ask the leadership/management team how they oversee quality and support staffs professional development. Do they quality control the assessments before they go out or do they sit in on assessment meetings (best done as a team and discussed then you get a feel of their understanding)

I've printed off the Development Matters too and it's is much more useful as you say. I'm finding it useful as a parent.

Ask if they have observations to back up the statement. If they do, then I suppose it's ok to simply list the outcome as met, but doesn't look great to parents.