Early Years/ Foundation Stage Teachers

[LemonFritz]

I’m so sorry to crash this board as a parent - thank you to all the teachers and TAs for your hard work.

My son got exceeding for every area of the EYFS last year - I assumed that this was not overly common.

My daughter has just finished the EYFS and has also been given exceeding for all areas.

I have not discussed this with anyone other than my husband so I have no reference points. I do know it is totally unecessary to compare with others and that my children are only 5&6.

However, I am curious to know if exceeding all elements is actually very common?

This is a normal state school and other than reading the school books each week the children do no formal learning outside of school

Given it’s happened twice in our family, it’s obviously pretty common.

Probably, not obviously

You'd expect between 10 and 30% of children to get exceeding, depending on the intake. So not massively unusual, especially if the child has had lots of early experiences and can talk well, as some areas are judged on how much the child can talk about them.

Oh right, thank you. The teacher last year indicated that DS was unusual so I was surprised for DD to get the same. Especially as she is younger in the year and has some other challenges.

My DCs live in a literature/ conversation rich home so probably appear precocious.

This came up on another thread earlier.. Last year 2.6% of children got exceeding in all 17 areas nationally.

Pretty sure that isn’t going to be evenly distributed among schools though.

It's not that common and it's pretty hard to justify so it's only given out when a child really is exceeding.

I used to moderate reception teachers assessments.

If I were you of just be really pleased, your children will have a good start in life!

I see! Thank you for your expertise and taking the time to reply. Yes, I appreciate not all schools/ teachers will assess children identically.

I was quite surprised to be honest. My DC both seem happy and fairly average - given I can only compare them to each other, perhaps I need to recalibrate my version of average.

It’s not necessarily just assessing differently. Different schools have very different cohorts on entry. The attainment of children on entry in a leafy MC area is going to look very to different to the attainment of children in a deprived seaside town. That will be reflected in the attainment a year later.

That makes sense, thank you.

Did your son get "greater depth" this year? My DS1 got exceeding for reception but not much after. If he still has "greater depth" then that is a good sign that he really is above average.

The reports had working towards, working within and working above expectations. I don’t know whether “working above” directly correlates with “greater depth”?

He got excellent effort and working above for everything. He is September born though so probably just old.

Greater depth is only given in Year 2 and Year 6. Working above means that if they continue on that trend then they are expected to achieve greater depth.
They might not though, children don't achieve in a linear fashion. :)

I think it’s very rare, I have been assessing my reception children at the end of EYFS for years and have never given exceeding in all areas to anyone (we’re based in an affluent area where most of the children have a good start at home)
Well done your kids!