EYFS Assessment
Assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan activities and support.
"Ongoing assessment (also known as formative assessment) is an integral part of the learning and development process. It involves practitioners knowing children’s level of achievement and interests, and then shaping teaching and learning experiences for each child reflecting that knowledge. In their interactions with children, practitioners should respond to their own day-to-day observations about children’s progress and observations that parents and carers share". (EYFS Statutory Framework Section 2)
Assessment should not take practitioners away from interacting and working directly with children, or require excessive paperwork. Practitioners should use their knowledge of the child and their professional judgement to assess whether a child is working at the expected level of development. Parents and/or carers, and any other relevant professionals should be kept up to date with children’s development and progress.
The Statutory Assessments in the EYFS comprise of:
The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP) Handbook details the reporting aspects for any rising 5 children currently in settings or schools.
The changes from the previous version are detailed here.
To support practitioners with assessment, the Early Years Team have put together a programme of termly Agreement Trialling sessions.
These sessions provide practitioners with an opportunity to talk about children’s development with their peers, discuss what ‘on-track’ looks like and what support may help those children with Health Needs SLCN assessment and additional support. Sessions are split into assessment support for 3-4 year olds and assessment support for 4-5 year olds and details of upcoming sessions can be found on our CPD pages.
The EYFS Profile is a statutory assessment of children’s development at the end of the academic year in which children turn 5, usually reception year. Each child’s level of development is assessed against 17 early learning goals (ELGs) across all 7 areas of learning in the EYFS. For each ELG, practitioners assess whether a child is meeting the level of development expected at the end of the EYFS, or not and this information is used to ensure a smooth transition into year one. All local authorities collect this data and report on the number of children achieving a good level of development (GLD). To be awarded GLD, the child must meet the expected standard in each if the following ELGs;
- 3 x personal, social and emotional development goals
- 2 x communication and language goals
- 2 x physical development goals
- 3 x literacy goals and
- 2 x maths goals
The summary of attainment for Nottingham City can be seen by following this link below. This document shows;
- The GLD figure for Nottingham
- The highest and lowest areas of attainment – including which areas have increased (in green), stayed the same (in orange) and declined (in red) when compared to last year
- Nottingham City attainment overtime and in comparison to National
- The attainment of our boys and girls in the City
