Some of our Partner schools have been trialling the new Foundation Stage Profiles for Early Years since late last year and now have lots of profile data to work with. The revised framework covers children from 24-36 months, 36-48 months and with final Early Learning Goals at the end of the Key Stage. They will not be adopted in the UK untill September but we have used an early draft of the profiles to help  our schools prepare well in advance.

Observations of a child are recorded by ticking off observations in the MarkBook using the “EEE” criteria of Emerging, Expected and Exceeding.

The statements within an age range are organised under the three prime areas for development (Communication and Language, Physical Development, Personal Social and Emotional Development) and the four specific areas for learning (Literacy, Mathematics, Understanding the World, Expressive Arts and Design). An overview sheet for the whole class is available with coloured boxes indicating the degree of completeness in each area with Dark Green, Green, Yellow and Pink indicating 85%, 60%, 35% and 10% as Exceeding respectively.

Click to enlarge the EYFS residual sheet.

Clicking a child’s name in the sheet will provide a star chart of an individual’s total scores for each of the areas (in Green below) overlaid on the mean scores for the whole class (in Blue). Each axis in the plot represents one of the areas.

The star chart provides a very easy way to spot strengths and possible weaknesses for a child. While the overall figures in blue may highlight areas which need to receive more attention and time in the classroom for the group as a whole.