Transition to Year 1

See how schools can use profile data to plan for individuals, groups and schools.

Schools should make significant use of the important information contained within the profile as children move into Year 1. Communication between Reception teachers and Year 1 teachers is key for planning future teaching and learning. By discussing the needs of the children, planning for future teaching and learning is strengthened.

At individual child level, the Year 1 teacher will use the profile data to identify a number of aspects. The relative performance of individuals in different areas of learning will need to be looked at closely:

• for some children, the need for a more focused intervention in particular aspects of learning and possible use of intervention programmes such as Early Literacy Support;
• identified strengths and weaknesses in individual children's attainment will help to identify individuals' goals and targets for each term and the end of the year;
• the progress made by the children over the course of the Foundation Stage will indicate potential to improve in Year 1;
• tracking systems will need to include existing attainment from the profile and then current attainment recorded as National Curriculum sub-levels.

At group level, the profile information will be invaluable to teachers in identifying particular aspects which will have a bearing on their approach to learning and teaching within the Year 1 class:

• activities to be planned and grouping of children for some specific activities will take account of FSP outcomes;
• where there are a significant number of children who have skills below the expected level, for instance in speaking and listening, the teacher will want to ensure that sufficient emphasis is given to the development of this aspect for relevant groups of children, such as making use of in-class support to allow for a greater use of spoken language for specific activities;
• relative performance of groups of children who commonly underachieve can be identified at an early stage, in order to plan for appropriate action to be taken.

At whole-school level, the total average profile score and Threshold Measures provide the opportunity to compare the profile of the year group with previous groups, to help look forward to future attainment.

Year 1 teachers will be undertaking regular observations of children to assess their attainment, and recording these in order to judge the progress that they are making.

For children who have not reached the Early Learning Goals, it may be appropriate to continue to use the criteria from the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile in order to support assessments based on observation of children at work.

By the end of Year 1 it is expected that attainment will be consistently recorded against National Curriculum sub-levels.

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