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There was a perceived expectation of the types of assessment practices that were deemed by OFSTED to be necessary in order to be judged as a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ setting. This perception of accountability to external forces played out in all of their narratives of

assessment practice, as well as their comments on the discussion site (Appendix C, OFSTED video thread). In their own settings, the participants talked about the necessity to provide visible evidence, as well as demonstrate how the leadership in their settings had systems for supervision, monitoring and appraisal to ensure standards were being met by all

practitioners. They acknowledged that although none of the practices they alluded to were ‘statutory’, they found themselves in a “Catch-22” (Jackie) situation of needing to have sufficient paperwork to prove their worth.

For Ruth, Lucy and Helen in particular, the interpretation of the type of assessment

practices that OFSTED would deem appropriate tended to result in mechanistic approaches to evidence gathering and documentation. They talked about how the Early Years Outcomes (DfE, 2013) were being interpreted in a hierarchical and literal manner. This resulted in a

115 requirement to collate a number of observations in order to assure a developmental

judgement was accurate.

Ruth: That’s what you find yourself doing sometimes...When you haven’t got that observation to ‘prove’ that they’ve done it because if the observations not there…even though we know that child... [FG Session 1]

Jackie: Physical proof you need, because you feel like your own professional judgement isn’t going to be good enough. [FG Session 1]

Helen: You see we are not allowed to do that.. It has to be tracked…I can’t put anything in that isn’t tracked. [FG Session 2]

Lucy acknowledged the importance of making reliable, consistent judgements:

If you’ve got one piece of evidence, a lot of the staff would say “that’s it, they’ve done it” …Whereas...that might have been a one-off, they might not actually be able to do it...It might have been a fluke…They might be able to do it but they haven’t got that back up. [FG Session 2]

She was also mindful of how a literal interpretation resulted in practices where children were put in “boxes” and, consequently, judgements were neither authentic nor ethical:

We do long observations which don’t show nothing and we’ve told the manager they don’t show nothing...We have to do it every half term...Every six weeks we have to do one for each child. Sometimes that’s not showing anything...Like sometimes you do sit and think...“Oh I didn’t see that before, I didn’t look at that child in that sort of way”. Whereas sometimes you’re doing it for the sake of ‘it has to be done’...And we’ve told the manager...And that’s it…It needs to be done. That’s the response we got…It’s been brought up in team meetings, it’s been brought up to the regional manager.

Our area manager will come round every few weeks and she’ll go through our

profiles, and if there is anything that’s not...Or if you can see, say, you know…when a child really enjoys going on the bikes…and that’s really all they do…So you got a few photos of them doing it...throughout the progress...So you can see them growing up ...But that will get ripped out because it’s already been in the profile, that shouldn’t be in there again. If they’ve done it, they’ve done it - ticked off and go on to the next thing. [FG Session 1]

116 An additional consequence of this type of practice meant that there were missed

opportunities to gain an insight into learning characteristics or funds of knowledge. Helen: … in our tracking...Where it talks about say, them mixing colours - we have

columns next to each statement, three different columns where there are three spaces for three different observations. And when the columns are done you don’t put anything else to do with that within their file…yeah, I know (!?) [laughs] ...So when you doing a lot of creative activities...And you’re getting a lot of different stuff…You can’t put the rest of it in their file because it has already got three pictures or observations in it. [FG Session 1]

On other occasions the observations were amended in order to make them ‘fit’ for their designated purpose.

Ruth: …when I’ve been checking reports, one that I’d actually wrote I felt that I really knew that child, and what they were up to. But I couldn’t ‘fit’ them into a box...and I thought I’ll sort of ‘highlight’ across the boxes they were in ... and that caused a major thing because they weren’t ‘fitting’ into one, so I found myself trying to then change what I wrote...[FG Session 1]

The challenge, therefore, for the participants was the extent to which the evidence that was produced was deemed to be reliable and valid. Lucy, Hannah and Ruth talked about how they were expected to check and moderate the assessments made by other members of staff. Interestingly, this happened on a one-to-one basis, and it was not always done with the other member of staff present.

There also seemed to be some concern if documentation of learning showed too much progress. Lucy problematized this in terms of children being “too ready” when they moved from one room in the nursery to the next:

I have been pulled up...and also the Two’s [room hosting toddlers] have been told off…If I was to mark in babies at 20 to 36, if I was to mark in there, then they went to Two’s that would be taken out because then they’ve not got anywhere to go. [FG Session 1]

The requirement to demonstrate added value meant that despite children making good progress in the pre-school and nursery settings, the documentation that was sent over to

117 the receiving room or school was sometimes disregarded. This went as far as schools

apparently amending judgements of the levels children had achieved in order for them to be able to demonstrate good progress. Kathy and Jackie shared anecdotes of how the records that they had sent over to the reception class had been “marked down” so that children who they deemed to have made progress that exceeded expectations were downgraded to the earlier band.

Jackie: I’ve got to say that I’ve been told by the reception class teacher that it doesn’t really matter what we put, because the head will mark them straight back down to 30 to 50 months for every single child because they want to prove that they have made progress. [FG Session 2]

Jackie: We’re not, not getting them ready. We are, but schools are in effect marking them down, so they can show they’ve made progress and yet ….

Kathy: I don’t think they look at those transition sheets you know.

Jackie: Now I know they don’t...They go in a cupboard, or it stays in the file, and they don’t look at it. [FG Session 1]

Lucy also talked about how the validity of the records that had been compiled by staff in the pre-school room had been questioned by teachers in the feeder school.

Lucy: We’ve just done a pre-school tracking meeting and the results back were “they can’t possibly be that high”...they wanted evidence, if that is what they think it is...

Jo: And what did they class as evidence?

Lucy: They wanted observations, photos, our planning to see if we had planned for them to be able to achieve...They wanted it for about 20 children!

Jackie used the analogy of a “criminal offence” to describe this type of practice, but acknowledged that schools found themselves under equal pressure to prove their worth and consequently had their own “game plan” by “massaging” the data that was sent over to the school in order to demonstrate to OFSTED added value.

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6.3. How are practitioners mediating their professional habitus with