Early years framework - help and advice please

[Anomaly]

I've just attended DS1's parents evening and have been introduced to the early years framework.

As I understand it in an ideal world every child would achieve a 9 across all 13 strands but clearly this is unlikely. Does anyone know what an average child would be expected to achieve?

For writing DS1 has been given a 1 despite the fact the teacher tells me she always knows it's his work because he writes his name on it which would make him at least a 2. On some strands he's been given a 4 but yet his target across all the strands for the end of the year is 6 for each strand. While I appreciate different targets for each strand would be a lot of work for the teacher it seems a bit odd that they are all the same.

I would really appreciate it if someone could give me some insight into the early years framework.

My understanding is that the ideal is for a child to achieve a 6 in each area at the end of yr R.

Every child isn't expected to achieve 9 in each area.

We got a sheet at the end of yr R with DD's levels along with her report.

I think the expected level is 6 in each of the strands. But this can be attained in different ways - you need to demonstrate 1,2 and 3 first, but then if you achieve any from 4 to 8, that would be point 4 and if you got two out of them it would be 5 etc. You can only be on point 9 if you have achieved 1 to 8 as well.

First of all, it's intended to be a summative assessment for the end of the year, so looking at numbers part way through the year is a bit meaningless - even though schools love to do it (mine included). This is because the vast majority of assessment needs to be via the child's independent work. So taking writing as your example, the child needs to be doing writing activities independently and an adult needs to see them doing it - and not just one time - so the child may have done work to contribute to many points, but the teacher has not yet seem sufficient evidence to know that they are secure in that point. Some scores may have been skewed by the type of activites that have happened in class and the provision of resources.

In terms of final assessment, the expected level of development is reflected in a score of 78 across the board (ie an average of 6 in each category). A good level of development is where a child scores at least 6 in all areas of CLL and PSED as these are seen to have been the most reliable indicators of possible achievement in KS1.

The current assessment criteria lead to lots of irregularities in the scores. Physical development is easy to achieve. Number is easy to achieve. Creative development is so massively complicated that LAs can't decide what should and should not be scored. The whole thing is going in the bin this year and something new happening in Sept.

I work with Early Years, and I would say that you need to pay more attention to what the teacher is actually saying about your child and place far more importance on that than the different scores your ds is given.

The EYFS in my setting, is used more as a tool for teachers to ensure that children are progressing in all the right areas and it helps us to identify the the things we need to provide more learning opportunities on.

Obviously you are interested in this because it is the start of your precious child's education, but do try not to get too hung up on numbers and scores. You will have a good idea about how your child is progressing without them, and I'm sure your personal observation assessment will be a much more accurate way of judging your child's progress.

Thanks ever so much for everyone's input. Clearly the teacher thinks he's average in so far as his target is 6 which I'm happy with.

RiversideMum that's a good point that he may not have had the opportunities to demonstrate his abilities so I may well not be getting the full picture. But the impression I got was that in some areas the teacher really did think he had problems. They are working on some intervention for both his writing, linking sounds and letters and social development. Obviously if they think there is a problem it's great they are doing something about it.

IUseTooMuchKitchenRoll you're right I need to not get hung up on the numbers. I am worried though because there is such a difference between what the teacher is saying about him compared to what I see and what his nursery would say. I know they are struggling to get to grips with him in that he is not easy to motivate and is not responding to their sticks either. I'm not overly shocked because he's an independent little so and so but it worries me that the fact that he's a bit awkward might mean they think he's not able.

Thanks again for your comments it's been very helpful.