overmydeadbody your argument that it's all simple only applies if it is actually simple. As has been mentioned up thread it can be far from simple with some schools assessing children as being exceeding when they hit 1b, while others insist on a child being well into level 2. This represents a significant difference.
Whilst the individual school may know what their exceedings mean for them I remember threads from last year where there were differences between reception classes in the same school, and it wasn't just parents reporting this.
expecting, it is true that expected doesn't fit exactly with NC levels or rather the year 1 requirements of the new national curriculum, however with exceeding then there is more of a match. The reason for this is that if a child is exceeding the EYFS then they should already be being differentiated work in line with the national curriculum. The issue is that EYFS doesn't cover all of the areas of the NC so some areas might not get covered in a reception class.
Nevertheless if a child is exceeding then they are likely to be at least meeting some and perhaps most of the year 1 new national curriculum requirements, depending entirely on their abilities. A gifted reception child may be working well into year 2 in some or many areas, but the school can still only report this as exceeding.
If you really want to understand what your child's report means you have a couple of options.
Firstly you can ask your child's teacher if they are prepared to provide your with more information. The nature of this information will depend on how they intend reporting progress from September when the new national curriculum comes into force and levels no longer have to be used.
Some schools may not be prepared to answer this question yet (others already have the information on their websites). If you are referring to your own child receiving a report with all exceedings then I would have thought the teacher might be amenable to such a conversation because as part of the process of assessing a child as exceeding the EYFS teacher should have spoken to the year 1 teacher and receiving exceedings across the board is quite unusual (more on that later).
Your second option is to work it out for yourself by downloading the new national curriculum information and matching up from the detailed text what your child has been assessed as already achieving. Check both year 1 and year 2.
Regarding what is average, it works like this - there are 17 early learning goals 1 point is awarded for emerging, 2 points for expected, 3 points for exceeding.
The average point score is 32.8. Achieving expected in all areas has a point score of 34. Achieving exceeding across the board has a point score of 51.
About 1% of children nationally achieve a point score of 51, although how accurate that is if different schools or Local Authorities are using different criteria to determine exceeding is debatable. I think roughly 5% achieve a point score of 45 or above. If you think that over 40% of children nationally achieve level 5 and above at KS2, it's only when you get to level 6 that you get a similar %s.
I'm not saying that a child achieving a point score of 51 on the EYFS will go on to achieve a level 6, I am saying that nationally it's as hard for a child of 4/5 to achieve a point score of 51 as it is for a year 6 child to achieve a level 6.
If you'd like to understand this more, and also understand what a what a Good Level of Development is then please read here. It's very interesting that only 52% of children nationally achieved a Good Level of Development in 2013 - I think it shows just how much higher the bar was raised in the EYFS.
Hope that helps and apologies that this has turned into such a mammoth post!