Birth to 5 Matters

Birth to 5 Matters is a framework for the delivery of the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Developed by the Early Years Coalition, it builds on the original Development Matters framework from 2012.

Download their free guidance here.

Assessing Birth to 5 Matters in Insight

Birth to 5 Matters supports children's progress towards the statutory EYFS Early Learning Goals (ELGs). However, their division of learning and development into 16 strands/aspects does not directly align with the 17 ELGs:

Our recommended approach to monitoring progress through Birth to 5 Matters in Insight is to make termly summative teacher assessments as your Main Assessment. See below for details and things to consider.

Format of Teacher Assessments

Birth to 5 Matters groups typical progression into broad "ranges":

The guidance recommends that "in summative assessments, comparing best fit judgements of ranges with typical age spans can help identify whether children are roughly on track, or are progressing more slowly or quickly. This information can be useful for leaders and managers in planning for the continual improvement of practice and provision in the setting."

You can customise the teacher judgements that you want to enter into Insight. For example:

1. You might choose to enter the broad ranges. The expectation for a reception pupil would likely be "Range 6" for the entire year, but you can choose the way Insight evaluates the ranges.
2. If you use point-in-time assessment at KS1/2, you may choose to use the same language to assess children in early years (e.g. Just Below, Expected, Above...) Or you could use terminology like Below Typical, Typical, Above Typical.
3. Some schools have chosen to break down the ranges, giving something like Range 1E, Range 1D, Range 1S (Emerging, Developing and Secure). This creates a model of linear progression through a set of steps which resembles what schools tended to do under the old EYFS framework. We don't necessarily recommend this unless you have a clear idea of what each judgement means in terms of a child's learning and development, but it is a fairly common approach.

Entering assessments

You can enter your teacher assessments directly at Enter Data > School Assessments. You'll likely want a Subject Group set up called Birth to 5 Matters, so that you can enter judgements for all strands at once, and make the most of the bulk-fill options to speed things up. Contact support if you need mark schemes and/or subject strands set up.

If you use Insight Plus, you may wish to see the statements for each strand on the Objectives page, and make your judgements there above the grids. Read on for more...

Formative Assessment of Statements

We can import the statements for each strand into Insight, if you'd like to use them as a reference for your teacher assessments, or otherwise assess them (note that Birth to 5 Matters haven't intended the statements to be used as a checklist or box-ticking exercise).

By default, we'll give you 16 grids, with the statements organised by range. Any supported ELGs will be included on relevant grids (some ELGs are supported by more than one strand, so there will be duplication). If you'd like a different set up, just let us know.

Things to Consider

• If you're using the Objectives grids, you'll be able to enter termly teacher assessments there, but you'll need to go to Enter Data > Statutory Assessments > EYFS Profile to enter your end-of-reception statutory EYFSP assessments.
• Note that because the 16 subject strands don't directly correlate to the 17 ELGs, Insight won't be able to automatically calculate your EYFS Profile assessments from any summer Main Assessment you enter. You'll have to make your EYFSP assessments separately.
• This also means that Insight can't make Good Level of Development (GLD) calculations from your Birth to 5 Matters assessments (you'll still get the end-of-year calculated GLD assessment once your statutory data is inputted).