The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile: How Well is it Working

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The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile How
Well is it Working?

• Christine Merrell
• CEM, Durham University

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• Background
• Is the EYFSP reliable?
• Does it fulfil its primary purpose?
• Impact of using reliable objective assessment

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Background

• 1998
• On-entry Baseline Assessment became a statutory
  requirement
• 2003
• Foundation Stage Profile
• Emphasis on observing childrens behaviour
• 2008
• Early Years Foundation Stage Profile
• Stronger steer on assessment through observation

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Reliability

• Observation of children participating in
• everyday activities is the most reliable way
• to build up an accurate picture of what
• children know, understand, feel, are
• interested in and can do.
• (EYFSP Handbook, 2008)
• Where is the evidence for this?

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Reliability

• Is all development observable from
  child-initiated activities?
• Failed to find figures for reliability or
  predictive validity

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Primary Purpose

• The primary purpose of the EYFS profile is to
• provide year 1 teachers with reliable and
• accurate information about each childs level of
• development as they reach the end of the
• EYFS, enabling the teacher to plan an effective,
• responsive and appropriate curriculum that will
• meet all childrens needs.

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Statistical First Release,2008

• Majority of children work securely within (6
  points or more) the Early Learning Goals for all
  assessment areas.
• Area with the highest percentage of children
  working securely was Physical Development (89)
• Lowest was Communication, Language and Literacy
  Writing (61)
• Girls achieve at a higher level than boys.

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Distributions of EYFS scores
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Distributions of EYFS scores
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Distributions of EYFS scores
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Distributions of EYFS scores
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• Does Objective, Reliable On-Entry Baseline
  Assessment Improve Key Stage 1 Results?

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PIPS On-Entry Baseline Assessment

• First developed in 1994
• Now used in
• England
• Scotland
• Wales
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Netherlands
• Germany
• South Africa
• Hong Kong
• International Schools

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• Computer-adaptive
• Assesses
• Early reading and vocabulary
• Phonological Awareness
• Early maths
• Personal, social and emotional development
• Short-term memory
• Test/Retest Reliability 0.98
• Good Predictive Validity

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• National end of Key Stage 1 SATs data for 2000/01
  2006/07 academic years for state schools
• Selected 2 groups
• Non PIPS Users
• PIPS Users

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PIPS Users

• 531 schools (approx 18,000 pupils per year)
• Used PIPS continuously between 1996/97 and
  2002/03 then stopped when FSP was made statutory
• 2002/03 cohort took KS1 SATs in 2005

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Analysis

• KS1 levels for each subject converted into point
  scores
• Then standardised mean 0 and SD 1 within
  each year and subject
• Used teacher-given results

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Results
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Conclusions

• Conclusions from analysis have to be tentative
• Interesting trends over time
• Suggest that using PIPS is beneficial
• Is the Foundation Stage Profile fit for purpose?