How can the ofstead inspector possibly know this?

[learnandsay]

In our 2011 ofstead report the lead inspector writes that when starting school the children's abilities and levels of understanding are wide ranging but better than in most schools..

How can he possibly know the abilities of most starting children in most schools? Isn't that statement unknowable, misleading and unhelpful?

I would have thought that someone, somewhere collates the starting abilities of most children in most schools. Either from nurseries or maybe from the school's internal assessment of where the children are when they start.

So no, I don't think its misleading or unhelpful.

There will be a national average of where most children are when they start, and each school will know where they sit.

"unknowable, misleading and unhelpful" - certainly Ofsted fits this description

I would love to see the wretched body abolished and replaced by something that actually helps teachers to improve their teaching and enhance children's learning instead of waving a big stick at teachers and proclaiming we are all shit.

"I would love to see the wretched body abolished and replaced by something that actually helps teachers to improve their teaching and enhance children's learning instead of waving a big stick at teachers and proclaiming we are all shit."

Well quite, but that's a different argument completely.

Don;t the teachers spend the first few weeks at school assessing the childrens level in order to benchmark change over the year? Ours certainly did. Whether you think thats valid or not is a different argument but I assume that what the inspector uses.

I also imagine it's based on the assessments that the school makes when the children start in Reception.

However, we have 2 local infants schools in which (according to Ofsted) "children finish KS1 at broadly average levels".

95% of these children (and very few others) then move on to a junior school where (again according to Ofsted) "taken overall, the intake is slightly below average".

It's relevant because a lot of Ofsted's comments are based on the levels children achieve later on. A school dealing with children who are unable to recognise numbers and letters when they start has a trickier task than a school whose intake are already writing their name.

There are baseline assessments done (and/or brought forward from nursery) and that is what will be used, perhaps with other data believed relevant (eg ESOL and FSM). So I think your assumption that start points are not known is not quite right.

So, say, just for the sake of argument, that my daughter has been doing, and loves, test the toad on the BBC maths webpage, and can understand subtraction when using an abacus, isn't it unlikely that any teacher is going to find this out? And isn't it unlikely that teachers are going to find out that their children are history mad, and actually know quite a lot about the ancient Persians? Unless you ask all the children what do you know about the Persians? how are you going to know? It's a bit like the child who knows something about infinity at the age of five. It doesn't sound as though his teacher has much of an idea what he knows.

Surely all you can gauge is whether or not the children can answer the questions that you ask them. But that's not the same thing as understanding what they know. Wasn't that the problem with the old 11+ exam, that it had a middle class bias? And had to be changed over the years to test the child's ability and not its social status.

School will have specific tests to do, like a SAT test for 4yos. They will be assessed on whether or not they can do certain things - recognise shapes, say the alphabet, etc and be scored accordingly. You're right that individual skills such as knowledge of Persian history will not be tested. But it is I suppose the best way that they can find to see what level children are compared to others.

So then as a parent if you're looking at 2 primary schools and see that both schools have children leaving Yr 6 attaining on average but one school had children starting below average and the other school had children starting above average then that may influence your decision on which school you thought would provide the best education.

Thanks, Viva. How can I find out more about these tests? I've never heard of them. Presumably all schools would have to use the same test, otherwise how could they compare results? And if they do use the same test can I get a look at it?

So, say, just for the sake of argument, that my daughter has been doing, and loves, test the toad on the BBC maths webpage, and can understand subtraction when using an abacus, isn't it unlikely that any teacher is going to find this out?

I don't think it's unlikely at all. DD is quite good at and interested in arithmetic and her teacher discovered within a few days of her starting school that she was interested in (v simple, obviously) multiplication. I don't think her school is unusual or particularly on the ball otherwise, though it is a nice friendly sort of place.

I'd have thought that school would all use the same test. No idea where you'd find them or even if you can. Curious as to why you'd want to look at it to be honest, its not worth preparing for.

My children had development books that followed them through nursery and to school. Lots of milestones, observations and developments were recorded there.

Ha, ha, I want to satisfy myself that it's impossible to tell what starting abilities all children have! I must say, I'm prepared to be impressed if the test really gets anywhere near assessing it. I'd really like to know what they think they're testing.

Have a look on the TES website and see if you can find anything.

I have vague memories of dd being assessed at nursery - early years goals or something. That kids are meant to have reached certain levels of things they should be able to do. There was a big long list and some things she could do, some she needed help with but could kind of do and some she hadn't yet reached.

There would of course been things she could do which weren't on the list. So while she maybe couldn't catch a ball she could ski quite well. They wouldn't know she could ski. She may not have been able to do something to do with letters but she knew some French - they didn't test her French. So no, its not perfect but it does give the school/govt an idea of how that individual school are doing. I should imagine its how the schools Value Added Score is worked out for league tables.

This might be related

www.underfives.co.uk/elg.html

It's not really ability they're looking at, I don't think. Isn't it more skills-based? So, can a child count some objects or identify letters or whatever. This obviously gives a bit of scope for seeing if they can take that further if it's easily accomplished.

When my children started at reception the nurseries they had been too before produced a report to send to school. And they were all assessed by the reception teacher within the first few months.

They don't assess the starting abilities of every single thing children might be good at or interested in (eg interest in history - isn't an ability its an interest) but they are (in our school) assessed on the key things that they coninue to be assessed on throughout school.

I think you are way over thinking this.

No the assessment isn't going to determine every facet of your childs abilities or interests but will determine where on the "reading, riting, rithmatic" (and the other EYFS categories) spectrum she is on.

I totally hate Ofsted. They have caused untold misery to a lot of people. They ruin lives. And should be ignored and disbanded. Sorry to be a drama queen!

If your child has had any form of pre-schooling then there will be assessments of his/her abilities and achievements that will have been passed on to the reception teachers before he/she starts school. So yes, they will have a measurement of the levels achieved by the intake, exactly as they do at intake into secondary.

Whether it means anything useful is a completely different matter!

When DS2 started in reception (Wales so possibly a bit different) we were provided a few months after he started with the results of the assessments that they gave him in the October. There were in the 6? different areas of the EYFS - literacy, numeracy, personal development, pe, knowledge and understanding of the world, creative ability. They then showed what age range he was at e.g. 3-4 is the level expected at the end of nursery, 4-5 is the level expected at the end of reception, 5-6 end yr 1 etc. Within each section they then gave 3 examples of how he reached the age range they had given him and a further example of something he needed to do to have achieved the higher age range.

e.g. for numeracy they knew he could count to a certain value, and do addition, but didn't go to the higher age range as he couldn't do subtraction.

When DS1 started in reception (several years ago, but when they were first piloting EYFS, but we didn't get specific output from the testing) the teacher was very well aware that he knew a LOT about the Tudors and Romans. Mainly as she commented that it would be better if he was more socially adept and knew about Teenage Turtles or Power Rangers instead (unfortunately as DS has Aspergers telling him what to be obsessed about wasn't really an option). Now in Yr5 DS still teaches the class with his knowledge of historical facts that not even his teachers have known. However, there is a very big difference between knowing facts and understanding their relevance, hence in EYFS they look at not just knoweldge of the world, but how the child understands it too,

If your DD is super bright then I'm sure the teachers will be able to bring this out and spot it quickly. If she's been at nursery the staff there will probably mention it too. Also these are perfectly reasonable things to discuss with the teacher at a school or home visit. Saying she enjoys numbers and history with brief examples seems sensible to me.

You may find this document useful, describes how they test and compare data in Wales - for both entry level to EYFS and end of EYFS. Assume must be fairly similar to England.

In our school we don't test the children on entry for baseline assessment, but build up a knowledge of their abilities through observing them and interacting with them during the first couple of weeks. We currently assess them against the Development Matters statements from the EYFS document (whether they start with us in nursery or reception). This gives us an idea of their level of development in all of areas of learning and we record this as a starting point. We have to measure progress against this and produce the data for Ofsted. Ofsted commented in our report 'The majority of children start in the Foundation Stage with language skills far lower than average.' This statement is based on the data that shows most of our nursery children are working within the 8-20 month range for Communication, Language and Literacy Development on entry into nursery at 3 years old.