'In her own words'...Truss' that is!!!

[Simona]

Warning ...this blog may raise your blood pressure...something that Truss seems to be doing very regularly these days!

In Her Own Words | Freeing the Angel

I believe the govt is now proposing to test children at 5 in Reception.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consul...accountability

There has been no consultation with the EY sector but 4Children have had their say and they are in favour...
4Children develops, influences, and shapes national policy on all aspects of the lives of children, young people and families...and they are also helping the govt to develop cms agencies!!!

are you in favour of more testing for young children?

http://www.4children.org.uk/Files/43...ment-FINAL.pdf

[FloraDora]

Tricky ..... On one hand I am against 'testing' children, but we all assess children in our own way so that we know next steps....

All reception teachers assess children on entry...so that their planning is informed by what the children need to learn and so that the schools can show OfSTED the standards on entry. And it wasn't that many years ago that every child had to complete a formalised assessment - in our area it was called PIPS.
The big debate in this area is the form that assessment takes: currently a reception teacher usually assesses via observation through play and planned activities around the Foundation stage Framework, making the communication and language, physical development and PSHE equally as high priority as Literacy and numeracy.

The proposals in the consultation are for a baseline just for English and Maths - like it was a few years ago. In doing this they are ignoring all the research and knowledge that went into setting up the foundation stage framework and even though they have just revised it, are concentrating only on two areas that the framework does not consider the important areas at this age.

In their explanation of the updated framework they say:
'Stronger emphasis on the three prime areas which are most essential for children’s healthy development. These three areas are: communication and language; physical; and personal, social and emotional development.'

Yet they propose only to test 2 non prime areas!!


Its interesting that she has spoken out today, given that the consultation only closed on Friday and they cannot possibly have collated the views. ( I wrote 3600 words of my opinion! Which I reckon is average for anyone replying)

There is no hint in the consultation document that they are formalising the 2 year check into a test - this is a valuable assessment to pick up developmental delays -in case early intervention has to be explored like speech therapy or physiotherapy, not to blame LEA's if they have too many children scoring low - are we really going to have league tables of authorities and average 2year old scores??

The world has gone mad on accountability....assess yes, its important for individualised learning journeys.... But there is no benefit to the child for 'testing' at 2 or just testing maths and English on entry in to school.

Why produce a framework then ignore it .. Why ask for consultations then ignore the views...

I thought we lived in a democratic country. It feels more like a dictatorship!