Reception reports - what is exceeding this year and progress made?

[BeatriceBean]

Hello, I'm pleased with my daughters report and really only concerned with the comments from the teacher as I'm not overly fussed about the target driven eyfs reporting BUT I'm curious....

• How exceeding does a child have to be to get exceeding? How many in a class would get them - as in is it only a few in a year, or 1/3 of a class?
• Do many get exceeding in the non reading/writing/maths areas in reception? I'm not sure if they have had the chance to "exceed" in technology/ world/etc - not that I mind as I wouldn't change anything about the reception year my daughter has just had, its more of a curiosity about the concept.

Finally "progress made".. I used to be a teacher (not infant) and I don't get this. It isn't like effort grades is it - I don't get the difference between very good/expected etc. If a child starts reception reading already and finishes with "exceeding" do they still ge very good progress or expected? I just don't really understand how progress made relates to very much - especially if the child has already "progressed" well in preschool so comes in already meeting some goals.

England figures summarised by gender:

It isn't really surprising that the girls out perform the boys I guess. I read somewhere that at this stage a girl is typically 6 months ahead of a boy the same age (not true for all children I recognise).

gosh rhetorician that actually sounds worse! Ours is similar - social skills, interacting, etc but only 3 step scale rather than 5!

Last year when DD was in reception she got exceeding for reading (was "free reading ie beyond stage 11) however her best friend on stage 10 didn't

HT said a child had to be working at an NC Level 2C to be exceeding.

Out of 90 kids (in reception) DD was the only exceeding in the year.

In the reception class (last year) that I am in one day a week (not my DC school) 3 kids got exceeding out of 120 (for art/design for 2 of them & PE for 1 of them).

DD also got expected level for writing when quite frankly, she wasn't! She got write/structure a story v well (at the time) but was NC Level 1A/2C so got expected.

She could

That's obviously not happening at all schools though simpson because 18% of children were given a '3' for reading last year.

Some schools are obviously a lot tougher than others - which makes comparisons rather meaningless!

The whole thing is clearly utter nonsense. A system of assessment where fewer than half of boys in the country achieve a 'good level of development' indicates nothing more than that the system is entirely wrong. If it weren't politically motivated bullshit, anyone with any sense would look at the results and say, 'we haven't got this quite right'.

Apart from anything else, an assessment system claiming to measure whether children have achieved a 'good level of development' or not that takes no account of the different ages of the children being assessed is clearly nonsense. It is meaningless to have the same developmental expectations of children aged 5 years 10 months and 4 years 10 months.

Just a quick question...if exceeding means 2c at end of FS what level would the school be aiming for at end ks1? 4c??

Simpson your school is obviously tougher than the average school if on average 18% get exceeding in some areas.

The thing that scares me is how similar expected in YR and Level 1 (I.e. y1 standard) are on the grid linked to above...

I think DD's school have lower 'exceeding' standards than some mwntioned (although they correspond with the grid) as DD did very well.

Calamitous - I agree!

This is what I think makes me cross is that it doesn't seem to be universal in all schools.

A friends DC got exceeding last year for blue level (in reading).

Just wondering if the schools who gave out lots of exceedings are giving less this year or vice versa.

Looby - DD's target is a 3A as that is the highest they will let her go!

(Don't get me started!)

CalamitouslyWrong you might find this quote from 2012 interesting:

"A report by the government describes the results of the EYFSP pilot, which took place in the summer term of 2012, and shows that only 41% of the 20,000 children reached the “Good Level of Development” in the prime areas of learning; personal, social and emotional development, physical development, communication and language, and in the specific areas of maths and literacy. This covers 12 of the 17 early learning goals in the revised EYFS.

Megan Pacey, chief executive of Early Education, said it would be at least two years before it would be possible to see if the system worked."

Maybe two years later we're finding out it doesn't?

But then the DofE wouldn't cock-up, surely?

Link to article - www.parenta.com/2013/04/02/eyfs-profile-fails-60-children-pilot/

So only 40% are expected/exceeding, but nearly 20% are exceeding... is the expected categery a bit pointless.

Are we really telling 60 % of parents that their children aren't progressing enough :( That's sad.

A 16% difference between boys and girls is quite a big difference. If I served you 16% less cake than your neighbour! you'd notice that your slice looked a bit mean.

It's is interesting that the reports from last year (a) don't report whether these differences are statistically significant (it's a big sample, so it may well be) and (b) completely ignore the age issue. I'm guessing that's because the age data highlights fundamental questions about the validity of the whole exercise.

And we can't have people saying, 'wait a minute, the premise of this entire thing is utter bollocks', can we?

that fucker gove we can decide that 4 year olds should have mastered differential calculus and achieved native speaker status in Ancient Greek if he likes we like; it doesn't mean that it's a realistic or reasonable aspiration. When only 44% of all the boys in the country are meeting your definition of 'good', any sensible person would reconsider their definition.

Not a stealth boast (honest ) but DD got exceeding in everything except one of the maths ones and writing. Turquoise reading level.

I love the data above. Going to have some fun with this!

They are the figures from the 2012 pilot, Beatrice - about 80% are meeting or exceeding now they've adjusted it a bit.

I've just been looking for an age breakdown too, CalamitouslyWrong - I'd expect the data to be recorded somewhere so you could compare in roughly three groups (birthday in each term) - but if it does exist, I can't find it.

Ah thanks Cheebame. Am I right in thinking they made some targets harder this year too (maths?) so that will affect things too?

I really think this is all unfai on reception teachers, and those parents told their child is emerging...

Well done Nitram junior :)

Cheebame: only someone hopelessly invested in something would look at the results of a pilot where only 41% of people tested could achieve the expectations and claim that it would be another 2 years to find out if it worked. The comments about not comparing apples with apples are incredibly disingenuous, given that there are screeds of data about reception age children's development out there in the world to compare to and work from.

I don't think it's accidental that you can't find those figures, cheebame. Because suddenly deciding that you want reception children to perform like nearly 7 year olds will affect the not yet 5 year olds more than the nearly 6 year olds. Maybe not every single one equally, but statistically you're going to see a difference.

Have they adjusted them for this year then?

Last year it was 50% who made the expected level.

Looby - I think one of the biggest problems with how reception children are now assessed is that it is not uniform across schools and is open to each schools interpretation. For example, last year my dd's school had her reading level 5 (she was capable of more but school capped reception reading at level 5), and she was given exceeding for this whereas other schools were reluctant to hand out exceeding for children in stage 10/11. My dd received 13 exceedings and although bright she's not spectacular, whereas parents on here with children who were clearly way ahead were only being given expected. What I'm trying to say is that it varies too much from school to school to be a useful form of assessment. I wouldn't worry about your dd - level 10 is fab. My dd is reading level 10 currently at end of year 1 and has just been assessed as a 2A for reading which is a year ahead.

Having read the background about gradings, I think my DD has been marked quite leniently at her school. She got quite a few exceedings and the rest expected.

The only area where I thought she'd genuinely get exceeding are the art related ones as she is really quite good for her age.

I think she's doing well but she's certainly not at the reading levels others are at and she got exceeding for reading and writing.

So is age taken into account? She's a late May birthday.