Chapter 6: Performance Indicators in Primary Schools Baseline Assessment (PIPS 'Reception')

Abstract

This element of the research details the results from the PIPS Baseline assessment for home-educated children: 35 families, each with at least one child aged four years were selected to participate. Families were interviewed, each in their own home, at the start and end of a ten month period. The four-year-olds were assessed on each occasion using the PIPS Baseline measure. The PIPS Baseline assessment data indicated that 64% of the children scored over 75% on the assessment where nationally, just 5.1% of children score over 75%. 'End of Reception Year' data suggested that the children’s progress over the period was less than that associated with school children during their reception year. This observation, however, was offset by the home-educated children’s high baseline scores. The families interviewed came from diverse socio-economic levels. Generally, the home-educated children demonstrated high levels of attainment and good social skills. Common to all the families interviewed was their flexible approach to education and the high level of parental attention received by the children.

6 PIPS Baseline Assessment Results: Overview

From the 35 families in the study, 33 took part in the full 'Start' and 'End of Reception' research and 2 families assisted with the PIPS 'Start of Reception' only. Section 4.6.2 describes the process by which, of 45 families approached, 35 went on to take part in this assessment. All the PIPS Baseline assessments were administered by the researcher in person.

6.1 Results in Brief

The PIPS Baseline assessment data indicated that 64% of the home-educated children scored over 91.5 raw score points (75%) at the 'Start of Reception', whilst nationally, the percentage of children attaining in excess of this score was 5.1%[1]. In standardised score terms, this indicated that 63% of children fell into a score bracket usually occupied by just 2-3% of children nationally (PIPS Project 1997b).

At the end of reception, 2-3% of children were expected to score above the standardised score of 70 (PIPS Project 1997b). In the home-educated cohort however, 21% of children scored above 70. Table 6.1, below, provides the raw score results for the home-educated group (in bold), contrasted with the results given in Tymms et al 1997. Current national data from the PIPS Project is similar to that given in Tymms et al. (1997)[2].

Table 6. 1: details of continuous variables (Extracted from Tymms et al. 1997)

T = Tymms et al. (1997) R = Rothermel (this study)	Mean		SD		Minimum		Maximum
	T	R	T	R	T	R	T	R
Start Maths	20.7	27.71	11	5.96	1	13.00	46	34.00
Start Reading	14.5	68.80	10	14.27	1	38.00	47	85.00
Start Total	35.4	96.51	19	18.42	2	56.00	92	119.00
End Maths	39.3	44.36	14	10.37	1	30.00	86	64.00
End Reading	49.5	109.39	23	45.02	1	58.00	86	187.00
End Total	88.8	155.57	34	52.75	3	95.00	170	251.00

Tymms et al. n = 1700 Rothermel n = 35 (start) & 32 (End)

Despite the high percentages of home-educated children achieving above average scores, their performance in terms of valued added progress was rather poor, in particular, in 'Reading', as Table 6.3 shows.

Appendix 6.1 provides a detailed analysis of national (PIPS Project 1999) and home-educated data relating to the percentages of children correctly scoring each assessment section.

6.2 Raw Scores

Chart 6.1 plots the overall raw scores for the home-educated children: a thick red horizontal line represents the children's mean score of 97 marks, as indicated, and the national mean score of 54 is illustrated by a further red line. The maximum score available in the PIPS Baseline assessment was 120 and it is possible to see from Chart 6.1 that many participants scores were in the upper part of the chart, indicating their high standard of performance.

Chart 6. 1:scattergram illustrating start of reception (home-educated) raw scores

A number of the home-educated children demonstrated a level of achievement beyond the scope of the 'Start of Reception' instrument. Therefore, as Chart 6.1 illustrates by the 120 mark ceiling, it was not possible to record their actual level of ability beyond establishing that the 'Start of Reception' test was well within their capabilities. Since children were not normally expected to complete all of the 'Start of Reception' assessment at the first sitting[3], the CEM Centre, which publishes the PIPS Baseline measure did not make the 'End of Reception' section available until towards the end of reception year.

Chart 6. 2: pips reception (home-educated) scores according to age

Chart 6.2 illustrates the difference in performance between the children's 'Start' and 'End' of reception scores, contrasted with their month of birth. The pink 'squares' represent each child's 'Start of Reception' score; pink lines extend upwards[4] terminating with an arrowhead, each representing the children's 'End of Reception' score. Two black trend lines have been added, one relating to the 'Start' scores and the other to the 'End' scores: these indicate that there was an increment in attainment, across the cohort, the older the assessed children were.

The mean age of the children in this sample was 53.6 months, with an SD of 7.78, where nationally, the mean is 51.3 with an SD of 8.87. Although PIPS 'Reception' is designed for children aged between 46 and 63 months (PIPS 1999), the national data revealed that children assessed were, in practice, aged within a range of 30 to 76 months[5]. The children in the home-educated cohort were aged between 30 and 65 months[6]. Chart 6.2 illustrates the idiosyncratic variations for some children between their 'Start' and 'End of Reception' scores.

Tymms et al. (1997) found that the difference in performance between the youngest and oldest children (11 months difference) in their cohort was far less than the difference between children's 'Start' and 'End of Reception' scores. Tymms et al. suggested that the 42 point increase they found, as highlighted below in Table 6.2, was associated with schooling. The present study, albeit with a very small cohort, also using an 11 month age range (48-59 months, n=22), encountered almost the same phenomenon, but with a difference of 45.32 points.

Table 6. 2:data extracted from tymms et al. 1997, contrasted with this study's data

	Tymms et al. (1997)	Rothermel (2002)	Tymms et al. (1997)	Rothermel (2002)
n	283**	12*	1700	22
	'Start of Reception' point difference between the oldest and youngest children's scores	'Start of Reception' point difference between the oldest and youngest children's scores	Progress in points for whole group between their 'Start' and 'End' of Reception scores	Progress in points for whole group between their 'Start' and 'End' of Reception scores
Points	18	10.22	60	55.54
Increase in scores between 'Start' and 'End of Reception' and 'End of Reception'			(60-18=) 42	(55.54-10.22=) 45.32

*The two groups of children at each extreme of the 'Start of Reception' year group consisted of, oldest (n=8) and youngest (n=4), thus totaling 12.

**Oldest (n=117) and youngest (n=166), thus totaling 283.

The following two Charts, 6.3 and 6.4, illustrate the home-educated children's raw score performance in reading and mathematics over the ten month period. An upward trend in their learning is clearly visible. The 'End of Reception' scores, however, suggest that the mean-line for home-educated children was converging with the national mean. There is evidence, however, in terms of reading ability as judged using a National Literacy Project assessment, that the disparity continues at least as far as Year Five (Rothermel 1998).

Charts 6.3 and 6.4 show that the home-educated children, as a group, began the year ahead of their school counterparts and ended it still ahead. The individual mathematics scores, as shown in Chart 6.6, below, tended to follow the 20^o incline of the mean over the ten month period, with scores falling fairly evenly either side of the mean. The reading trend was quite different and the mean line for reading actually concealed a considerable variation between individual performance.

Chart 6. 3: reception year maths Chart 6. 4: reception year reading

Charts 6.5 and 6.6 illustrate the individual home-educated children's raw score performance in reading and mathematics.

Chart 6. 5: home-educated children's individual reading performance

The thick lines represent the national mean and the home educated mean, as indicated. The thinner lines each depict the performance of one child over the ten month period. In 'Reading' there is considerable variation in performance, whilst the 'Maths' scores represent a tighter margin of 'progress'.

Chart 6. 6: home-educated children's individual mathematics performance

6.3 Value-Added

The home-educated children's value-added performance in maths and reading is portrayed in Table 6.3, below. The value-added has been calculated using the children's standardised scores to measure their progress over the year relative to calculated expectations of progression nationally. Since value-added allows for maturational effects, it should be noted that even those children with double negatives may have made progress[7].

The second column of figures in Table 6.3 indicates the percentage of children nationally who would be expected to fall within each of the categories listed in the first column. The third and fourth columns present the percentages of home-educated children falling within each of these categories.

As Table 6.3 indicates, the home-educated children's value-added performance did not follow the pattern predicted by national norms. In particular, Table 6.3 shows that, in 'Reading', 54.5% of home-educated children demonstrated an increment in learning equal to the lowest measured reading band, normally containing 10% of children nationally. The anticipated improvement in reading ability, seen in 50% of the school reception class population, was evident in just 12.1% of the home-educated children.

Table 6. 3: value-added results over a ten month period for mathematics and reading

Value-added	National % of children in each value-added category	Sample % Maths	Sample % Reading
++	10%	15.10%	9.1%
+	15%	9.10%	9.1%
0	50%	51.50%	12.1%
-	15%	12.10%	15.1%
- -	10%	12.10%	54.5%

The sample's mathematics and reading performance over the 'Reception Year' is further illustrated in Scattergrams 6.1 and 6.2.

Each scattergram presents the children's total standardised 'Start of Reception' scores plotted against their 'End of Reception' standardised scores. The central diagonal line sloping up, left to right, indicates the 'predicted end score' for all the children, calculated using national statistics. Those children above the line fared better than expected, whilst those below the line did not do as well as anticipated. The outer two diagonal lines indicate the perimeters within which 95% of children are expected to fall. As Scattergrams 6.1 and 6.2 show, most of the home-educated children lay within the 95% mark for mathematics whilst their reading scores fell short of expectation.

Scattergram 6.1: participants' mathematics performance in terms of expectation

Scattergram 6. 2: participants' reading performance in terms of expectation

As has been illustrated above, the home-educated children did not achieve the value-added expectations calculated according to national standards. The children did, however, begin the year with a substantial head start over national norms and maintained their lead through to the 'End of Reception'. As has been suggested by Rothermel (1998), this lead, in terms of reading ability,[8] has been seen to endure at least until 'Year Five', aged 10-11.

The following section seeks to explore the PIPS 'Reception' data in terms of how children from particular sections of the group performed as judged against the remainder of the participant cohort.

6.4 Correlations

Using standardised scores a Pearson Correlation table was produced (see Appendix 6.2). There were some differences from the findings of Tymms et al. (1997), namely, amongst the home-educated cohort there was a lower correlation between 'Start [of Reception] Maths', 'Start Reading' and 'Start Total', and the 'End Total' scores. Tymms et al. had found these correlations to be at least 0.68 whilst the highest amongst the home-education sample was 0.27. The home-educated sample data did, however, show significant correlations between the 'Start Total' score and the 'End Maths' and 'End Reading' (both .56), as had Tymms et al. (0.67 and 0.72 respectively). Therefore, whilst the home-educated group start scores were poor predictors of total end achievement, their start total did correlate well with the end results for maths and reading.

6.4.1 Difference in Performance: Children from Religious and Non Religious Families

The PIPS Baseline data showed that at the 'Start of Reception' the children from religiously affiliated families performed on a par with the secular families. At the 'start of reception' the mean standardised score for the children from religious families was 69, and for secular families 69.75. By the 'end of reception' religious families' children averaged 65.4 and the children from secular families 56.71. The mean for the standardised scores was set at 50 and about 66% of children were expected to score between 40 and 60: the 'End of Reception' mean score for children from secular families, therefore, had moved below this score band.

These scores suggested that the home-educated children started the 'year' with above average scores, yet failed to maintain the same lead at the 'End of Reception', noticeably experiencing more difficulty with the second part of the assessment than the first. Relative to the standardised mean of 50, it was found that whilst scores relating to children from religious families fell 3.6 points over the ten month period, the scores of their secular peers decreased by 13.04 points as illustrated by Table 6.4, below.

Table 6. 4: standardised scores for children from religious and non religious families

	Start of Recept-ion mean score	'Start of Reception' points above norm 50	'End of Reception' points above norm 50	End of Recept- ion mean score
Religious (start n=11) (end n=9)	69	19	15.4	65.4
Secular (n=24)	69.75	19.75	6.71	56.71

There was no significant difference between the 'Start of Reception' raw scores for the religious and non religiously affiliated children, but there was a significant difference in raw scores between the two groups' 'End of Reception' scores[9]. Chart 6.7 shows how the children from secular backgrounds demonstrated slower progression over the ten month period than their religiously affiliated peers.

Chart 6. 7: 'years' progress of children from religious (start n=11 & end n=9) and non religious families (n=24)

6.4.2 Difference in Performance: Children from Professional and Non Professional Families

The following Table 6.5 provides the mean scores of the children at the 'Start' and 'End' of their 'Reception Year', when classified according to their parent's social class category (Rose and O'Reilly 1998). The parent falling into the highest social category was used to determine the social level of the parents together: thus the unskilled categories are not represented in the scores analysis because all parents in those categories were partnered with those who fell within higher categories.

Table 6. 5: pips 'reception' mean results classified by parental social class (n=35)

Category	N children Start/End	Start of Reception Mean Total	End of Reception Mean Total
Class 1 High managerial & professional occupations	13/13	67.0	55.2
Class 2 Lower managerial & professional occupations	11/10	68.0	56.5
Class 3 Intermediate occupations	3/3	75.3	65.0
Class 4 Small employers & own account workers	4/3	75.5	62.6
Class 6 Semi-routine occupations	4/4	70.5	71.0

Table 6.6 shows the division of scores according to social class. Children whose parents' occupation[10] put them into classes 1 and 2, were grouped together, whilst those in classes 3, 4, 6 and 8 were placed into a second group. Children from the lower end of the socio-economic class scale significantly outscored those from the upper spectrum of the scale.

Table 6. 6: pips 'reception' mean results classified by social categories

PIPS	Social Classes	Mean score (standarised)	N	Significance of start/end differences[11]
'Start of Reception' mean	1 & 2	67.6	24	p<.037
	3,4,6 & 8	73.6	11
'End of Reception' mean	1 & 2	55.7	23	p<.015
	3,4,6 & 8	66.7	10

Table 6. 7: proportion of parents in each social class (rose and o'reilly 1998)

Category	% of parents in category.	No. of parents in category (n=70)
Class 1: High managerial and professional occupations	25.71%	18
Class 2: Lower managerial and professional occupations	34.29%	24
Class 3: Intermediate occupations	5.71%	5
Class 4: Small employers and own account workers	8.57%	4
Class 5: Lower supervisory, crate an related occupations	0	0
Class 6: Semi-routine occupations	7.14%	8
Class 8: Never worked and Long term unemployed	14.29%	10
Parental Occupation Unknown	4.29%	3

Table 6.7 provides a breakdown of each parent by social class. As can be seen, 60% of parents were categorised into Social Classes 1 and 2.

6.4.3 Difference in Performance: With Television, Without Television

Table 6.8 provides the mean scores of two groups of children, those with and those without televisions in their homes. There appeared to be little difference between the means.

Table 6. 8: children's mean scores, from homes with/without televisions

PIPS	Television in the home?	n	Mean	Significance of difference
Start
no	13	69.07	p<.808
yes	22	69.77
End
no	12	59.66	p<.841
yes	21	58.76

6.4.4 Difference in Performance: Boys and Girls

There was a significant difference between gender performance at the 'Start of Reception', but by the 'End of Reception' any difference had almost vanished. At both assessments, however, the girls outperformed the boys, as can be seen from Table 6.9, below.

Table 6. 9: difference in performance between boys and girls

PIPS	Gender	n	Mean	St. Dev	Significance of difference
Start	female	18	67.0	7.8	p<.012
	male	17	60.7	6.2
End	female	17	66.0	13.3	p<.473
	male	16	62.9	11.73

6.5 Assessment Commentaries

6.5.1 Qualitative Data Emerging from the Assessments

Administering the 35 PIPS Baseline assessments to home-educated children in their own homes twice over the assessment period, provided an opportunity for the researcher to conduct interviews with both them and their families. This section explores the comments that emerged during the Baseline assessments. The remarks and researcher observations combine to provide a remarkable commentary upon the children's assessment experiences besides providing an insight into their learning environment that might not have emerged without the assessment as a catalyst. The illustrations serve to show the different skills and abilities that home-educated children develop and the way in which they expect their learning to be relevant, broad-based and open to, or encouraging, questions.

6.5.2 What's in a word (or in a picture)?

Bertha knew she had a fiddle but not that it was also known as a violin and so when asked to point to the violin in the picture, she was unable to do so, despite her own instrument sitting upon a nearby shelf.

Gregory Howarth's mother also played a fiddle, not the 'violin' and he too was unable to point to a violin. Mr Howarth remarked that the PIPS Baseline pictures did not allow for diversity in cultural knowledge.

Janet Keel, was not quite 3 and a half years old. Her reading was not strong: she experienced difficulty with all the assessment words and with written numbers. Her picture recognition and mental mathematics skills were good and the picture based maths were simple for her. Both parents were surprised at how well she did and were very pleased. Janet herself was keen and interested. The microscope that she was asked to point to, however, posed a particular problem because Janet had not seen one that style. She and her sister had regular access to a modern microscope, whereas that used in the illustration, as shown in Image 6.1, was an old model and quite different to what they were accustomed to using. Janet knew what a microscope was, she just could not see one in the picture.

Image 6. 1: picture vocabulary

When asked to point, in a picture, to an encyclopaedia, Erica Walker asked:

'What is an encyclopaedia?'

On the same point, Mr Jagger asked:

'What happens when a child asks a question such as, "What is an

Alphabet?" and "What is an encyclopaedia?"'

His son had just asked both these questions. Mr Jagger continued:

'Are they encouraged for showing initiative?

Rita White, upon being asked to point out, 'some jewellery' in the above Image 6.1, said nothing, instead, ran off to gather up some necklaces and a crown for 'Dobbin' her rocking horse. She then collected a blackboard and as words were read out to her, she, instead of pointing them out in the pictures, wrote the words out and attempted to find matching object around the house. This made the assessment rather a long process, but it was apparent that she was understanding the questions, even though she opted for an unorthodox method of responding.

William Jagger's mother remarked that:

'This test is very middle class. Words like 'Violin' and 'Saxophone' are unsuitable because a child should not be marked down just because he has not been exposed. A child could be very skilled in other areas. William's nephew knows all about steam trains which is very technical.

Both Mr and Mrs Jagger were professionally involved in music and so William had been exposed to a diverse collection of musical instruments.

6.5.3 Story Time

Sheila could not understand how the story sheet, depicted below in Image 6.2, represented a book and so her mother had to pick up a real one to illustrate the point.

Upon being asked to indicate where the story began, Bertha Heslop thought it best to start with the shortest paragraph. Rose White, however, tried to look at the previous page. As Rose could read, she found the assessment question perplexing because she was expecting to find the title page for the story. William Jagger pointed out that the answer could be 'either page' because neither bore a heading; he wondered, therefore, why the story should start on one page as opposed to the other. After all, both pages, William noted, began with new paragraphs.

Image 6.2: ideas about reading

Rita was further confused by the question:

'Can you point to a word on the page?'

She wanted to know:

'Which word?'

Asked to point to a full stop, Rita managed to touch each one simultaneously using one hand.

After having the unfinished story read to them, the children were asked:

'What do you think might have happened next?'

Rita had already declared her version of events before any of the questions had even been read out to her. She did, however, expect there to be a 'correct' end. Asked if she often corrected her daughter, Mrs White replied that she did. William decided what had happened in the story before he was being asked: notably his parents told him he was right, whatever he said.

Often, the children replied 'don’t know' in reply to the question about what happened next: this meant, however, that they did not know what happened next; they did not mean that they could not think of an answer. Many of the children, perhaps because of an unfamiliarity with school norms, could not grasp what they were being asked to do.

Mr Richardson commented that:

'The instructions need to be more explicit. Home educated children might find this question difficult, not because of the task, but because of the wording. From my teaching experience, I'd say that school children would expect what they saw happening and what was anticipated by the narrator, to be the same, whilst the home-educated children would not understand, from the phraseology used, that they were expected to produce a pre-determined 'right' answer.'

Certainly, it was this researcher's experience that many of the cohort found considerable difficulty with this exercise.

This did not prevent some children giving their versions of what happened after the children in the story spotted a cat up a tree, as comments from children A, B, and C illustrate:

Child A:

'They came and pulled his tail and danced along the fence'.

Child B:

'Pull the tail and the cat will fall down'

Child C:

'Muffin goes bonk'

Mrs Wentworth, whose daughter gave answer 'C' giggled:

'What happens when the child gives Muffin's story a politically incorrect ending?'

6.5.4 Rhyming Confusion: Rhyming Fun

Image 6.3, below, shows one of the pages from the rhyming section. Children were asked to say which of the words associated with the 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th pictures rhymed with that relating to the 1^st picture, e.g. hat and cat.

Image 6.3: what rhymes with hat?

When Erica answered that 'cherries' went with 'berries', it was unclear whether she was rhyming or making a 'small, round and more-than-one' connection, particularly since she had paired 'hat' with 'head', as other children also did, regardless of whether they understood the concept of rhyming or not. William also, matched 'butterfly' with 'bin'. Colour was a further obstacle, since 'sun' and 'run' were the same colour, as were 'nose' and 'toes'. Rose Woods also experienced difficulty in making 'rhyme' connections when there were more obvious relationships to refer to. It certainly appeared the case that the children were processing the strongest and most familiar associative links first, regardless of whether they understood the task[12]. Some children scored poorly 'on task' and yet were skilled 'rhymers': some others, who did not understand rhyme, nevertheless, scored moderately well.

For Roger Richardson the rhymes were elementary; before there had been time even to explain the exercise Roger had rhymed every row correctly. Another child, John, also found the task ludicrously simple and yet refused to complete the rhyme section, preferring to demonstrate his talent at rhyming 20 or more words at a time and stringing them into silly rhymes:

'berry, kerry, merry, gerry, zerry, rerry, fiddly diddly middly piddly'

It was at odds with the underlying rationale of the assessment that such children score zero.

Brian Carey's answer to a question of whether or not he understood rhyme was immediate:

'Ged went to see Ted in his shed

Ged was in bed and he had a bad head.'

William's father suggested that the rhyming section would have been better without the pictures, that, he observed, distracted the child from the task. Certainly, all the children found the exercise easier when they were allowed to say the words themselves. William could also rhyme expertly, yet he did not understand the language used in the assessment. His father prompted him with:

'Those silly verses we make up'

William found rhyming a hilarious activity: his father talked of his son's natural tendency towards rhyming. He later enquired, in view of William's difficulty with the wording used in the test:

'Is the aim to see whether the child understands the language used for explanation or whether he can rhyme?

Erica also did not appear to understand this task until her mother said:

'You remember those silly word games we play.'

Such parental reminders sometimes made the difference between a child being able or not being able to complete the task. It was the word 'rhyme' that confused the children, not the concept. The test instructions themselves helped to explain the nature of rhyme and certainly school children taking the assessment would have been familiarised with the concept of rhyme as part of the 'Literacy Hour'[13]. None of the home-educating parents went any way towards providing answers.

6.5.5 Reading

Gregory had not been taught to read but had picked up casually on the words, Sainsburys, Rocket, Car and Bus, scoring 44 and 49 respectively for 'Start' and 'End of Reception' reading, despite being one of the very youngest members of the group.

Mrs Graham declared that she would not know how to 'teach' reading. Her son scored 71[14] at the 'Start of Reception' for Reading.

Like many children, Sheila Smithson knew only one class of letters, lower case: other children knew only uppercase because their parents had considered it most important that their children learn first to read emergency warnings. William experienced difficulty with letter recognition. His parents believed that since the most important words (e.g. 'EXIT', 'FIRE DOOR') were written in uppercase, this was the place to begin. William's father pointed out that many children learn lower or uppercase letters in isolation and that the test did not allow for the child who has learned using a variety of methods, phonetic, word, name, upper or lowercase. William, it transpired, wrote with a typewriter, where keys are labelled in uppercase; he was considered by his parents to be quite an 'able' typist. Mr Jagger also found the letter displays in the assessment to be unappealing, commenting that they would have been:

'Better in colours with less on a sheet.'

William's own response to being asked to read out letters in a mixture of upper and lowercase, was:

'Can read some, some I can't'

His parents pointed out that William preferred to draw answers rather than say them. In this respect, he was similar to Rita White who had chalked her answers on to her chalkboard.

The two letter sheets were divided into types of letters, with the apparently 'easier' letters on the sheet 1 (left) and more difficult ones on sheet 2 (right) .

a	e	c	k	J	Q
o	D	s	W	z	F
g	L	i	T	u	V
m	P	H	N	X	Y
	B			R

An Independent Sample T-test showed, however, that the difference in means for the children's scores on each letter sheet was small, as Table 6.10 shows.

Table 6. 10: the difference in scores between the two 'letter recognition' sheets (n=35)

	Mean Score	St. Dev.	Significance of Difference
First Page	9.19	4.24	p<.367
Second Page	8.18	5.05

The following section, 'Words', required children to relate one of four words to an accompanying picture. Mr Walker, however, pointed out that one of the words, 'aeroplane', disadvantaged some children simply because so many children's books now opted for the word 'plane'. Asked to point out the word 'car', Brian silently left the room, returning with a book which he opened. He pointed out a word on the page; it read, 'car'.

6.5.6 Arithmetic

During the 'Start of Reception' maths section, where the child is shown, say, a picture of three rabbits and asked to add or subtract from that number, Jack Green enquired, 'How about if I covered them up with my hand?'. During the 'End of Reception' assessment, a number of the children, when asked to cover up half the four bicycles, placed their hands, either over just the top or bottom only of the bicycles or, as in some cases, over one half of each bicycle, as shown in Image 6.4.

Image 6.4: can you use your hand to cover up half the bikes?

Gregory Howarth covered up the items, where subtraction was involved, and also employed a time gaining technique:

'I have to think first'.

Sheila Smithson's maths skills were fine but she suffered a slight problem remembering how many puppies she had seen before they were covered up. William also experienced the same problem with this question.

Jack consulted a number line for his mathematics that he could imagine using even when not actually touching it. His overall end score of 60 masked the 88 points he achieved in mathematics.

William's mathematics assessment showed that he was above average, although he did not understand the phrase used in the assessment, 'one more'. For children introduced to advanced mathematical language from a early age, it was evident that some 'child-based' phraseology, such as that used in the assessment, confused them. Mr Jagger had a Mathematics degree and Mrs Jagger commented that she never initiated a mathematical session with her son, preferring instead to follow his lead:

'William will start to add and then if I am in the mood I will start up, if he feels like it.'

Steven Graham was quick at mental mathematics, whilst Roger Richardson, having completed his 'End of Reception' assessment, quipped 'have you got any more easy sums for me to do? He had scored 30/30, computing all sums quickly and effortlessly, in his head, eg. 430+210.

6.5.7 Idiosyncrasies

Terry was an unusual boy, very much a child but with reading skills beyond his years. He lived on a large 'grey' estate in a depressed industrial town, with his disabled parents. Both parents were strict, fundamental Christians who considered 'the belt' an appropriate remedy for misbehaviour. Despite this apparent harshness, the household was child-centred and both parents were clearly proud of their son and doted upon him.

Terry's father described coaching his son in reading and mathematics whilst his mother worked with him on writing. The emphasis was on the 'three r's' and they had adopted a routine of 'fixed subjects but no fixed time'. Mr Upton commented that:

'Sometimes we feel progress is slow'.

He described his son as 'lazy' because he would rather read his 'Noddy' comics, although he added that Terry understood the importance of education and complied because of this. The shelves of the family's small terraced council house were packed with reference books and videos relating to history, music and children's interests.

During the assessment Terry traced the letters with his finger, reading them easily whilst doing so. This, he said, helped with the 'funny script' (font). Where there were too many pictures he became confused by them and when there were too many random letters on a page, this too made the task of recognition more difficult, despite his being a fluent reader. His writing did not mirror his reading ability although the letters were clearly recognisable. Terry chose to use the pseudonym 'Dipsy' (Image 6.5). He referred to his parents as Lala and Tinkiwinki.[15]

Image 6.5: Terry's name as he wrote it

Curiously Terry did not like the number 8: 7 was his favourite number but 8 he ignored. What was remarkable was Terry's ability to 'correctly' compute arithmetic whilst removing 8 from any equation: thus, for Terry, 10+8=10 whilst 10+17=27. He disliked the planet Neptune for its eighth place from the sun. Terry's parents referred to his mother's many miscarriages: at the time of the interview and subsequently, it would have been improper to make further enquires on this point, but it is quite possible that Terry's dislike of the number 8 was in some way connected with these miscarriages.

During the second assessment Terry had been joined by a new sibling whose presence had provided him with an opportunity to take a break from his study routine. Nevertheless he retained his lead in the assessment, scoring 78 and 74 respectively.

6.5.8 A Poor Value-added Score?

Jane Moore was growing up in an autonomous atmosphere. Her score at the 'Start of Reception' was 76, yet her 'End of Reception' score was 57. By the time of the second interview her life had changed dramatically. She had moved from a suburban house in a busy town, to living communally, in a community, some miles from the nearest road. There were a number of other children in the community and, together, they had created a world of their own, 'independent' of the adults around them. From morning till night, Jane and her peers were masters and mistresses of the rambling, decaying property where they lived and the many acres of land surrounding it. The impression of an observer might have been reminiscent of 'Lord of the Flies'[16]. For Jane, the 'End of Reception' assessment could not possibly have reflected ways in which her awareness had grown and extended over the 'year', or give so much as a hint of the sophistication and power of her new, 'child' world. These aspects of her experience were visible to the researcher during her second visit and also emerged as a result of the interview, in which both Jane and her mother spoke of the changes to their lives over the previous year.

6.5.9 Creating Context

Many parents acted as Bertha's did during the 'Start of Reception' assessment, by interrupting the picture identification sequence to add questions of their own: this was generally a response to the child, as he or she picked up on all sorts of clues in the pictures, making connections with ideas beyond the assessment. Mr Richardson remarked, after observing his son during the assessment, that:

'Attention can drift - you saw how seeing the tent led Roger to recall his holiday in a tent and lose sight of the task. This had nothing to do with his skill 'on task'.'

John Chatwell, who scored 65 and 53 respectively, only wanted to answer questions in the way that suited him. Thus the assessment was not easy to administer although it was clear that he was far more capable of the assessment tasks than his results showed him to be.