Reports

[Christmasberry]

Can anyone tell me how reception reports are worked out please? Is it done on a child as an individual or on how they preform in the class without taking their age into account i.e oldest or youngest.

I think at Reception level they're very aware of the child's age and take this into account. And I think it's more how they 'perform' as an individual, and their own abilities.

Have you concerns over something?

Slightly yes just that my son is the youngest in his class but on as high reading level as the older ones, but only got expected I just thought he was been under sold a little, it doesn't matter on the scale of things, I just wasn't sure who it was worked out. Thank you for your reply.

I don't think age comes into it- there are descriptions of what a child should be able to do at the end of reception and these are "expected" levels regardless of age. If he's the youngest though he's still doing very well :-)

Reports are about the child not the class

Sorry mrz I don't really understand your comment?

The expectations are age related but as a year group not by age within that year. Although teachers do take this into account on a day to day basis.

Expectations are not based on what other children are doing or a child's comparison to them.

You asked if the report was on the child as an individual and my reply is confirming that the report is about the child.

The grade of emerging/expected/exceeding is based on the level descriptions. Standards are set pretty high, so to be exceeding a child would need to really stand out as being ahead of where they should be.

They seem to be judged per child against the guidelines, but it must be hard for teachers not to compare with the rest of the class.

There is a document against which staff measure children - DH found it last night when we got pfb's report. It describes a typical child at each level, so maybe for writing under Emerging it would say "forms cursive letters of varying sizes", Expected might be "writes using cursive letters of consistent size" and Exceeds might be "forms letters confidently, joining letters together" - disclaimer, I haven't got the document in front of me any more.

When we looked at a few descriptions we were happy that the box he'd been placed in described him adequately, and the level above was more than he is currently capable of.

The statistics say that around 47% of children average at least "expected", but 52% of the oldest children in the year. In other words, it is unsurprising that the August birthdays get more emerging/expected and the Septembers get more expected/exceeds.

The whole scoring system sounds comically Harry Potter to me

someone said on here yesterday that reading levels relating to the expected/exceeding criteria varied greatly between schools. some are putting them as exceeding on book band blue (is that 4?) and others not until book band Turquoise (7). that is quite a range.

Horry - would you be kind enough to find out the title of the document you're referring to and let us know - many hopeful thanks in advance!

Hang on, asking DH...

Here you go. Quite dense but hope it is as useful to you as it was to us.

It's a PDF btw so you will probably not be able to view from a phone or tablet.

Thank you Horry

The profile handbook is only a small part of the process
www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/assessment/eyfs/b00217443/eyfs-exemplification

My DC school are not giving exceeding out unless the child is work at NC level 2C.