Virtual assessment - reception

[benthecat]

DD has a virtual assessment for local independent soon. It’s for a reception place. Basically it’s a Zoom “interview”. Given she will never sit still to FaceTime her grandparents, I foresee a car crash! How will teachers assess 3/4 year olds virtually? Any thoughts?

I think they will be happy to watch her play and interact.

If they expect more and your Dd can’t do it then it’s probably not the best environment for her?

That's a bit mad as it penalises children less used to using technology. Our local independents are still going ahead with face to face assessments for reception.

Zoom gives quite a false picture of some children. I had introductory zoom calls with our teacher before starting and while my child was quite pleasant to the teacher, she wandered off to get things to show her etc and didn’t listen at all. one of her friends is a boy who is lovely, bright and chatty. His mum said he just sat there in stoney silence, started crying and then ran away saying he didn’t want to talk to the teacher because she smelt of poo and had a poo face. He is honestly normally the most engaging and lovely child who talks to everyone. His mum was mortified.

I think you just have to go with the flow and hope for the best!

Different schools are taking different approaches. Some are letting parents know exactly what will be expected and some not.
Happy to have a chat if you wish to let me know which school this is for.

Anyone in London heard from pre-schools yet regarding what's going to happen for 4+ given widespread primary school closures?

We've heard from a school we've applied to that assessments can go ahead in person as the govt has said independent school ass' can take place. So I think everyone should be ok unless they've heard otherwise.

JAGs is cancelling their assessment and doing it all based on school reports / head recommendation plus in the end a 5 minute video of the girls doing activities.