ofsted report on Infant school. I have a question!

[HonoriaGlossop]

OK, had a copy of my ds's school's latest ofsted report, which is fine.

What interests me most is a couple of comments relating to the children and I'd love to know your thoughts;

"Most children enter the school with average or below average attainment"......

and under 'acheivement and standards'

"most children start school with skills well below those expected"..........

It just interests me about 'average attainment' and the level of skills that are 'expected'.

I wasn't aware that skills and 'attainment' were measured for those entering school. Surely when you ENTER school you are not expected to have attained anything?? Isn't that what school is for??? Mightn't you have attained other things not measured for by Ofsted?!

When I met ds' teachers before he started school they did not make me aware what skills were 'expected' and what level of 'attainment' my ds should be at (at 3!)

OK, slap me and put me back in my box if I'm being too precious here but does anyone else think this terminology from ofsted is just a tad paternalistic, and smacks of the view that "Well, you can't trust the parents with the kids, they just deliver 'em and we do everything else".

What you think?

hmm, bit late for this today I think. Am off to bed. Will bump tomorrow!

HonoriaG

I think that this may be a reference to the Foundation Stage Profile, which is done during the Reception Year. So 'enter the school' would mean 'go into Year 1'. And the 'skills' they mention are things like being able to do up your own coat, recognising your own name, knowing which way up to hold a pencil, etc. (not reading, writing and 'rithmatic). Oh, and it's the teacher who 'measures' this, not Ofsted. But Ofsted will have access to the statistics (not info on specific children, afaik, but general statistics like the fact that, say, 25% of the children in the class could recognise their own names when they entered the school). But I could be wrong on all this. A teacher will probably come along and enlighten you soon. Meanwhile I'll keep it bumped for you.

The reason they measure this is not to 'judge' kids at age 3 or 4, but so that they can measure 'value added'. So, a school which has children who come in with above average attainment and achieves above average results in KS1 SATS has not 'added' any 'value' to the kids it has taught. But a school which takes kids with below average attainment and achieves above average KS1 results has 'added value' to the children it has taught.

This doesn't mean that I agree with 'testing' 3, 4 or 7 year olds at all, btw. But I am a school governor, and from my limited experience that's how I'd understand these comments.

Sorry HG... cross posted. I am a bit slow tonight (have had a wee drinkette...!)

oh, thanks ellbell! The thing is it seems to be very clear that when they talk about 'entering the school' they really mean entering the school in reception, as they go on in the same paragraph to talk about those entering year one!

Maybe it's just me but I do find this language they use, and the idea of 'attainment' and 'expected skills' quite bizarre for those entering RECEPTION!

When they enter reception it is my understanding that htey undergo some sort of baseline assessemnts so they can measure progress over the year.

In DS nursery[he starts in sept] but even in the playgroup he has been at for the past year they follow foundation level from nursery class through to end of reception. The level from my understanding works on social development, physical and educational. At the end of reception they should be able to write their names, recognise letters and numbers and I think be reading some basic words. It is in Year 1 'formal' assessments begin.
For foundation level DS playgroup just sent home a sheet of targets and some were dated and ticked when he had completed them. Some of them were things such as feeling empathy and showing caring towards others. Then there were things like can write name and recognises numbers and letters.

thanks nemo and cece. I get that there have to be these baseline assessments when they enter reception so that they can measure progress, but no-one told me that these baseline assessments have an 'expected level of attainment' or 'expected skills' they should have.

I just feel a paternalistic sort of judging tone from this idea. If it's the case that there are expected skill levels and levels of attainment on entering school, why not inform parents?

However I know it's not a biggie, it's just needled me. I do see the benefit of having a measure of their skills so that progress can be measured.

I think the point is that there is an average level of skill, rather than an expected level. It does tend to vary from school to school (why it varies is another thread altogether, I don't have the answers) and it just gives an idea of how well the school is meeting the particular needs of the children.

But it isn't the school that "expect" children to be able to do certain things - this is just a Government measure so that they can compare very roughly 2 or more sets of children from different parts of the country. And if a school is in a catchment where in general children do come in without knowing their letters or shapes etc then that school in particular is unlikley to tell parents "by the way we expec6 your child to know x, y and z before they come to us". Hence teachers emphasise the most basic of personal skills - hanging up coats etc. Also bear in mind the difference in ages and experience between autumn born and summer born children - giving out a set of standards applicable for autumn born children would freak out most parents of summer born children.

Agree with Ladymuck. Imagine 2 schools which had children with broadly similar levels of attainment on starting school. Fast forward to Year 6 and one school has 70% of children achieving say level 4 in SATs and the other school only 40% or 50%. You would probably ask why the results were so different given the supposedly similar skills of children entering the school. This 'value-added' is increasingly how government and indeed parents are judging and choosing schools. It's supposed to allow us to compare schools with a similar intake.

I don't think it's got anything to do with telling parents what their children 'should' be doing at age 4 or 5.

I could be completely wrong here but I thought the reason the government set up the free preschool places for all 3 year olds was because with childcare being so costly lots of parents were using either grandparents or childminders.

I thought that this meant that when 4 year olds were entering school they may not have experienced any formality to the day, ie sitting down and completing an activity, recognising their name etc

My son is just 4, attended the preschool of one of the top 10% schools in the country and starts there in September. We had parents' evening and we were given info on what to help our child with at home, in my son's case writing his name, he wasn't even 4 (he is a june baby) plus learning to count a pile of things so he could learn to separate out the objects. My friend's daughter is 5 in September so has attended the preschool for 5 terms and it really shows.

They also asked us to teach them to learn to put on their coat, they had to pick their name from a table and post it into a basket etc

On the Ofsted report for my son's school it does say that Foundation stage is Nursery and Reception and says that the teaching is outstanding. In fact the entire school gets "outstanding" in every catagory. The school runs workshops for parents to see how children learn and how to continue teaching at home.

I think they just need a base level of what children can do and obviously this will vary especially for autumn babies to late summer babies, but they can only measure success by knowing where they start from. There will be a general view of what they can achieve when they start school just like all those baby books saying that at 5 months your baby can roll over, some do it earlier, some later, but the target is still 5 months.

A child starting school should ideally have a certain level of speech. It helps if they are toilet trained and have some manners. Prehaps attainment is a strange word for these skills.

Prehaps it would be better to say "development". However "development" would also be a bad word to use as it would unfairly suggest that a child with advanced speech in urdu/ polish, but can't speak a word of English was developmentally delayed.

The reports are a tool for looking at the performance of a school rather than individual children. Low income families, who do not speak English are at an educational disadvantage to rich families that can afford to give their children interesting toys and experience. Also wealthy parents often have a better level of education than poor people.

It is more challenging to teach in an area with social problems. It is not fair to judge a school purely by SATS results.

Reallytired is spot on - its nothing to do with can they read and write..more to do with their language development, which can't really be taught more aborbed through the child's enviroment.