29th September 2022
5 Ways to Get Your Early Years Assessment Spot On.
Baseline assessment in England shows the teacher, I believe nothing useful. Right? All our reception class last September 2021 achieved a no score. So where do we go from here?
These are the five ways I assess in my two-year-olds, Nursery and Reception.
- Draw a person – scientific approach created by Goodenough and later adapted by Naglieri
- Baseline assessment using age specific ‘I can statements’ – highlight pink for start of the term
- Targets set from initial baseline ‘I cans’ plus half termly tracking through I cans
- Online learning journal. Contains only photos that evidence the I can statements
- Dependent on your SLT understanding of EY – paper back up but showing a journey of progress
In the latest EYFS England document it called for less assessment and while this may seem confusing for me it means less staff on devices recording pointless pictures which they then document and often our online platform becomes an Early Years Facebook.
The document says when we assess individual children:
‘Practitioners should draw on their own knowledge of the child and their own expert and professional judgement’
It goes onto to say:
‘They should not be required to prove this through the collection of physical evidence.’
Whilst this sounds great, and ideally professional judgements should be respected and go unquestioned, we have a problem. Many of our senior leaders need evidence and ask for books in Early Years because they do not understand that evidence in paper form is not always possible, owing to the level of the children’s development.
If you have a clear assessment pathway and you educate your SLT they will love what you provide and gain a deeper understanding themselves of EY requirements.
Here are the five ways in a little more depth.
- Draw a person an approach developed by Goodenough and then adapted by J.A. Naglieri. Simply get each child a completely blank A4 sheet of paper and a pencil (I use black felt tips as I like a clear definition). Ask the child to draw a person, say ‘can you draw you?’ Tap the paper to signal them to start and just observe. If they draw more than one person say, ‘which one is you?’ Label who else they drew. If the drawing is ‘chaotic’ ask the child to show you which is them? Or what bit of you are you drawing? (Never comment or give missing parts). This DAP shows how much of the child’s brain controls the body. You will instantly see whether your children have arms, fingers or even hands if they do not then fine and gross motor muscles need developing and strengthening. Repeat every half term.
- Baselining using ‘I can’ statements for nursery and reception (I am creating some two-year-old assessment statements, but I feel physical and communication and language should be assessed first). Simply print a set per child and highlight what they can do. Continue to highlight throughout the year with different colours per half term (I highlight mine every 5 weeks)
- Create targets from baseline assessment and continue to highlight progress as it is achieved. As previously said, I do mine every 5 weeks, so I know exactly where my children are. I set new targets continuously and for reception if the majority are at expected, I will jump onto Early Learning Goals and then into July I will assess on a transition document ready to transfer data and ‘I cans’ into year 1.
- OnLine learning journey that evidences the achievements of the ‘I cans’ only these statements appear as comments from teams. I.E. I can count to five. I am beginning to count beyond ten.
- Folders containing all of the above, Draw a Person in date order, I cans, targets and then evidence from their lockers (Join as free member and watch the locker display training on www.school.spreadthehappiness.co.uk
Make sure the evidence in the folders shows a progressive journey that is easily seen.
I talked about these five tips and more in our Early Year’s Facebook group
I hope you have found this useful to see more tips daily follow our Instagram @spread_the_happiness_
Happy smooth assessment journey
Shonette
