Observing and Assessing children free essay sample

In accordance to the ethical guidelines written by The British Education Research Association (BERA, 2011), the names of the children and school, where used, have been changed in order to maintain confidentiality and anonymity. KU 1. 2/KU 1. 5 A pen portrait of the child For this essay I will be using Aaron, the child I used for my last essay â€Å"Including all children†. Aaron is a six year old boy who has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Aaron is a physically big boy for his age with a matching personality. He has bright blue eyes with red hair which is often the reason for him being bullied. When Aaron is not in a good mood, which is quite a lot of the time, he has a scowl on his face that can make him look quite menacing, but even though he can look like this, he is in fact extremely big hearted. He is always trying to please his teachers and his peers, and it is this pleasing that more often than not, gets him in trouble. Aaron tries very hard to gain adult praise and takes great pleasure in receiving it but is overly sensitive to criticism. Why do we observe and assess? The reasons we observe and assess is to see if there are any difficulties the child/children may be having and in what areas and to see if what we are teaching the child/children is actually being learnt. Observations can also help show what can influence behaviour over a period of time. Koshy (2010, p9) sees any kind of â€Å"action research†, such as observation, as â€Å"a continuous learning process†, with its main purpose being to improve practice. For each child to fulfil their potential we must all work towards better outcomes. It is through the sharing of information gathered through ongoing observations to classroom staff, outside agencies and professionals that relevant strategies can be put in place. KS3. 1 PPS4. 2 In Lord Lamings report ‘Every child matters’, (DfES, 2003a) it highlights the importance of services working together to avoid children falling through the net. ‘Every child matters’ was given legal force in the children’s act (2004), and called for professionals to share information and to work collaboratively. Teachers often rely on the teaching assistant to observe and take notes as to which child isn’t getting the hang of it and feed this information back. This shared way of working and the way that all classroom staff and professionals need to be communicating with each other are highlighted in the Foundation Stage Curriculum Document Observation can provide starting points for reviewing the effectiveness of provision, and such observational assessments of children’s learning can be used to identify strengths, weaknesses, gaps and inconsistencies in the curriculum provided for all children. Assessments can be used to plan and review the provision and teaching as well as to identify those significant moments in each child’s learning which educators can build upon to shape a curriculum that matches each child’s pressing cognitive and effective concerns. The Open University (2013) refers to Vygotskys idea that the focus on the next steps in teaching (and learning) takes us into the area of development Vygotsky called ‘The zone of proximal development’ (ZPD). Vygotsky used this concept to argue passionately that assessment does not end with a description of a pupil’s present state of knowing, but only begins there. (Vygotsky (1978:85). Observations and assessments are the essential tools of watching and learning by which we can both establish the progress that has already been made (Summative assessment) and explore the future – the learning that is still embryonic (Formative assessment). According to Kristine Black-Hawkins et al, (2007), there is an enduring and widespread perception amongst policy makers and practitioners that certain groups of children, in particular those who find learning difficult, have a detrimental effect on the achievements of other children. With this in mind, Black and William, (1998) suggests that low attainers do especially well in classrooms where formative assessment is a strong feature. (Black and William, 1998) KU1. 1 KU1. 2 The Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage sets out detailed formative assessment suggestions. It recommends that all practitioners should: Make systematic observations and assessments of each child’s achievements, interests and learning styles. Use these observations and assessments to identify learning priorities and plan relevant and motivating learning experiences for each child. Match their observations to the expectations of the early learning goals. KU 1. 4 Observations Observation one is carried out straight after the lunch time break and is during a 30 minute teacher lead whole class science activity investigating light sources. This links to The National Curriculum under Science, Physical Processes Light and Sound, (DfES, 2004). KU1. 4 The whole class are sitting on the carpet with the teacher (Miss X) with the blinds on the windows down. There are two hoops, one yellow one red in the middle of the circle along with various items to test for light sources and light reflection. The children have been put into five attainment based groups, each group has 6 children. Based on his attainment, Aaron is in group C. The children have to decide where each item should go, either yellow hoop for light or red hoop for reflector. Aaron is fidgety; he will not sit still and does not take part within his group. Once the objects are in the hoops, Miss X hands torches to all children telling them to place them on the floor in front of them. Aaron sat back down but did not put his torch down, he’s shinning it on the ceiling, Miss X told him to stop and put the torch down, Aaron sighs and tutts, and complies, extremely slowly. Miss X picked up each item from the hoops, one at a time asking if it’s in the right hoop. All the children put up their hands to answer saying ‘ooh, ooh I know’, but Aaron shouts out. Miss X said ‘I will only ask people who have their hand up’. Aaron continues to call out. Miss X picked the mirror from the red hoop and asks if it’s a light source or light reflector. Children start asking questions because as she held the mirror, light from a gap in the blinds reflected onto the ceiling. To explain this, Miss X told each group to get a mirror each and use one torch. She told them to shine the torch onto one mirror and see if they could line up all 6 mirrors to create a chain of reflections. During this activity, Aaron kept shinning his torch onto the ceiling, into other people’s faces and waving the torch around. Because of this Miss X took his torch away and took three minutes of golden play from his chart. Aaron started running around knocking chairs over, shouting ‘it’s not fair, I hate school’. Unfortunately, at this point Miss X asked that I abandon my observation to help minimise disruption for the rest of the class and take Aaron to a quiet corner to let him calm down. Observation two is carried out late morning, based on a 30 minute free play time (Golden time) The children are in the resources area which is a brightly decorated room with lots of children’s art work on the walls. All the walls are lined with shelving units packed full of games, puzzles, paper, art supplies, with areas dedicated to home learning, ICT, arts and crafts, water and sand box, book corner, music area. Aaron is smiling he seems to enjoy this time, he starts playing a maths game on the computer, he’s mumbling to himself, yelling out in a musical tone ‘yes, I got it, I’m good, I’m good’. A group of girls holding babies are playing in the home corner sitting at a table using the tea set. A group of children are in the arts and crafts area wearing aprons painting. There are three children in the reading corner all sitting on cushions on the floor reading books quietly. Aaron leaves the computer and starts talking to the girls in the home corner, he tells them ‘you look like my mum and her friend, she has a baby’ he then says ‘they sat at the table all day talking, drinking coffee and let the baby cry’ with a grin on his face he then says ‘so I gave the baby a cuddle and it stopped’ Aaron then ran to the art area but does nothing; he just stands looking at what the other children are doing. Aaron gets a game of snakes and ladders out, he gets all the bits out then leaves it on the table and returns to the arts and crafts area. He sits down spending roughly five minutes lining the colouring pencils up in front of him in a uniform manner then starts to draw. As he draws he’s humming with his tongue poking out his mouth, he’s very fidgety whilst sitting, he’s wiggling and tapping his feet on the floor. At one point Aaron stares out the window then continues to draw, when he finishes with a colour he places it back exactly where it came from. The teacher calls out ‘tidy up time now’. The teacher walks over to Aaron, tells him to finish off what he is doing and start tidying up. Aaron scowls and says ‘wait a minute I’m nearly finished’. Two minutes pass and Aaron puts the pencils away and carefully folds his picture saying ‘it’s for mummy she will love this’. Conclusion Although I am confident in my abilities to support the children, I have spoken to my schools deputy head teacher requesting more in depth training in observing and assessing in accordance to my schools policies to further my knowledge and confidence in supporting the children I work with to improve my workplace performance. KS3. 3. Through what I have learnt planning for this assignment, I would like to take a more active roll in assisting my class teacher in providing assessments and observations to help her support children’s development and learning in her classroom. From my observations made with the collaboration of my teacher, she has spoken to my schools Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) recommending that due to his behaviour problems and his temper tantrums progressively becoming worse, that his Individual Education Plan (IEP) be changed to better aide him with his future learning by putting more resources/ techniques and support (for example, extra support in class with either a teaching assistant or other adult to sit with him during lessons) into place. PPS4. 3 Although I found this assignment quite difficult to start once I got into it I really enjoyed doing it and I feel the practices and approaches learnt from this module related to how we observe and assess children in a learning environment have influenced me in a positive way. It has enabled me to pay more attention to pupil’s actions and reactions as I now feel more receptive to what I see and hear. (Total Word Count – 2750) References British Education Research Association (BERA) (2011) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, London, BERA Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2011) Convention on the rights of the child [online] Available at www. bera. ac. uk (Accessed 17 January 2014) Department for Education (DfE), (2003a), ‘Every child matters’, [online] Available at webarchives. nationalarchives. gov. uk (Accessed 17 February 2014) Kristine Black-Hawkins, Lani Florian, Marty Rouse, (2007), Achievement and Inclusion in School’, Routledge Chapman Hall Publishers. The Open University, (2013), ‘Study Topic 9: Observing Learning’, E111 Supporting Learning in Primary Schools, Book 2, Milton Keynes. The Open University. The Open University, (2013), ‘Study Topic 10: Assessing Learning’ E111 Supporting Learning in Primary Schools, Book 2, Milton Keynes. The Open University