Assessment in Early Years FS
When forming a judgement about whether an individual child is at the expected level of development, teachers draw on their knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgement. Formative assessment and responsive practice takes place during every interaction with the children. Teachers do not wait for formal assessment periods to put into place learning experiences and support for children to achieve, this is done in the moment or as soon as possible after an interaction. A summative assessment in each area of learning will be made at the end of each half term when the teacher will meet with the Headteacher to discuss each child and flag any areas of concern. During each half term each child will be observed during an extended period of learning and assessed using Development Matters 2021.
The delivery of our EYFS curriculum is dependent on teachers’ knowledge of the child and paedological expertise and our teachers are committed to quality interactions with the children and therefore we prioritise this over excessive documentation and recording.
Half termly observations of children will be shared with parents, via a piece of educational software called ‘Tapestry’. At the end of each week the parents will be updated on the learning the class as a whole have experienced during that week using Tapestry. Tapestry is hosted in the UK on secure servers which conform to very high environmental standards and are proactively managed 24 hours a day. Each observation we make can be downloaded directly onto the system and linked into your child’s personal profile.
Each child has an individual account set up for parents and relatives to access. By logging on with a secure username and password you can access your child’s journal. You will be able to view the observations as a learning journey, flipping through your single child’s observation pages, in time-order, or filtering in flexible ways to access your favourite records. Tapestry also allows you, as your child’s primary educator, to add observations and photographs of your own, as well as share your comments. We love to hear about learning and WOW moments from home to share with your child in school. At any time you can download a PDF of your child’s learning journey to share with friends and relatives.
NOTE: Parents are only able to view their own child’s journal. However, because children play in close proximity with their friends it does not reflect a true picture of their time at school if photographs are only of a single child. Therefore, photographs of your child may appear on their friends learning journeys.