Parents' evening (Reception) - how to ask for evidence of progression

[Ginmummy1]

My daughter is in Reception (turned 5 end November). We had a parents' evening in October, which mainly covered how she was settling, attitude to learning etc. We received a written report at Christmas, plotting her progress against each of the 17 Early Learning Goals as emerging, developing or secure.

The next parents' evening is in a fortnight's time, and we'd really like to come away from it with an understanding of how she is doing, both against government expectations, and also in terms of her own personal progress since her baseline assessment (the results of which have not been revealed to us to date). What specific information can we expect the teacher to provide, and how best should we ask for it?

A bit of background about DD: when she started at school she was already reading quite confidently, was slightly ahead with maths, and probably age-appropriate with writing. Her language, communication, reading and comprehension are her 'best things'. No problems with any social or self-care aspects.

The school have been accommodating with her reading - she chooses two books per week at an appropriate level for her (just moved up to lime). However, she never brings any maths or handwriting work home, so we don't really know what she's doing at school. We'd like to know that they have some sort of end-of-year goal for her, and that we can support what the school is doing to help her to reach or exceed their expectations.

Is it reasonable to ask for baseline data? All we know is that she was given 'secure' in 8 of the 17 early learning goals in December, but as this is for 40-60 months and she was already 61 months this doesn't feel terribly meaningful. What could/should we ask for?

uhoh1973 Thu 10-Mar-16 13:52:48 - MumTryingHerBest, no I'm not suggesting that but if we had known at the time we could have helped her.

If the teacher is already helping her then you don't need to. If you think the teacher is not helping her, then I would fully understand your concern.

Children's progress does not follow neat lines. Children have periods of rapid progress and periods of slow progress. It is not realistic to expect teachers to give constant updates on progress. Once a term is really enough. It has to be remember that the teacher has 30 children in the class.

A more able child often finds year 1 more stifling than reception. Good quality play based learning can stretch the more able child.

I took the view that reception was for building social skills and learning how to follow the school day.

Started being bothered about attainment in year 3.

DD was reading before school and is G&T, DS was fab socially but struggled academically but caught up fine and DD isn't at school yet but is bright as a button.

I'd leave reception to be about the child as a whole in terms of fitting in and interacting with peers and behaviour and not sweat the academics just yet.

Oh and never listen to the other parents. The ones that tell you little Johnny is flying with this that and the other are normally stretching the truth.

MumTryingHerBest, I never said children can outgrow playing.

Actually, I got that "past play based stage" idea from ds's reception teacher. He was having a lot of minor difficulties in reception, and the teacher said he will enjoy yr1 better, because it's more structured. And it was true.

Wales is play based until 7 I believe. As are many parts of Australia where kindergarten continues later. I often wish we had that model.

I have to admit, my ds isn't normal. He was counting backwards from 1000 and reading words before 2. I only know my child.

I think the 'they don't start so early in other countries' isn't really comparing like with like in some cases. I was chatting to a German friend and her DS won't start school until 6, but it will be straight in to something more like year 1. They don't have a play based year within school. Foundation is so different to year 1 and it means that we have almost all children experiencing a year of EYFS under the auspices of a school entirely focused on education, not childcare. They have a qualified teacher too.

I'm not saying that children are all developmentally ready for what they get in the UK, but many are.

An update for completeness, following receipt of a report last week and the parents' evening a couple of days ago.

The latest report has graded DD as secure in all of the EYFS goals, and the lengthy written report has given us some useful pointers to future progression in the form of some 'next steps' which the teacher is working on with her.

From the report and the parents' evening we got a strong impression that the teacher is doing a great job in terms of keeping DD challenged and learning in a way that is appropriate for her. Most importantly, we were reassured that DD is happy and settled at school, is eager to participate, follows the routine and is managing and enjoying her friendships.

After all my concerns a couple of weeks ago, after reading the report we didn't feel any need to ask for additional evidence. We are happy that the teacher will continue to give her opportunities to progress at an appropriate pace for DD through the final term. I'm more relaxed about it all now I feel confident what the next steps are, and will try to enjoy the last term of having DD in Reception before the homework load increases in Y1. Thanks for all your comments.

Yay gin!