Bryan Slater Director of Education	Distribution
	Infant Schools First Schools First and Middle Schools Primary Schools Special Schools with YR class

This document needs your action as detailed below:

ACTION	Title	Foundation Stage Profile Moderation
	Summary of contents	Letter with Job Description, Application Form and Person Specification
	Associated documents	Foundation Stage Profile Document
	Date	1September 2004
	Summary of action required	Please circulate to YR staff
	To be completed by	1October 2004
	LEA Contact	Fiona Musters Primary Adviser	(	01603 433276 ext 222
	E-mail address	fiona.musters@norfolk.gov.uk
	Norfolk Self Review reference	1. How high are standards?
	Document reference	153-04

Foundation Stage Profile Moderation

Local Education Authorities are responsible for establishing moderator systems for schools and settings in their area. We are keen to work in partnership with schools by appointing teachers with recognised good early years practice to become Foundation Stage Profile Moderators. The skills and experience required to become a moderator are outlined on following pages. We hope that many teachers will come forward and regard this opportunity as a way of extending their professional skills and that schools will benefit from the enhanced skills and experience that the teachers acquire. Applications from teachers who live or who would not mind travelling to the west of the county are particularly welcome.

All LEA moderators will expect to –

q Receive at least one day of training to become a moderator;

q Attend one half day moderator’s meeting each term;

q Attend at least one cross LEA moderator agreement trial each year;

q Work for no more than 16 days per year in moderation activities within schools/settings;

q Serve for three years as a LEA moderator.

All moderators will receive –

Travel expenses at the county council rate of 24.2p per mile.

All moderators schools will receive –

Supply cover costs of £164 per day.

Norfolk Professional Development Centre on 15 October 2004.

Moderation will take place at a number of times during the year, not just in the summer term. Clearly we will wish to keep any disruption to the children’s learning and teachers’ work load to a minimum and therefore moderation would not take place close to the beginning and end of terms or during Ofsted inspections.

I would be grateful if you could share this letter with your colleagues in the early years and encourage them to apply using the attached forms. Application forms need to be returned by 1 October 2004 and addressed for the attention of Fiona Musters, Professional Development Centre, Woodside Road, Norwich, NR7 9QL.

Yours sincerely

Fiona Musters

Primary Adviser

Foundation Stage Profile Moderator

Job Description

To organise, facilitate and conduct moderation of learning in the foundation stage through visits to settings and cluster meetings.

The following descriptions from the foundation stage profile handbook gives outline information on the likely structure for moderation procedures.

Moderator Visits

Moderators could be responsible for a group of schools/settings, visiting a proportion of these each year. During the visit they could be involved in some of the following activities:

q Selecting, observing and talking to three children one each from a list provided by the practitioner, which groups the children into those working towards the early learning goals, those working around the level of the early learning goals and those working beyond the early learning goals. These observations would then form the basis for discussion and a comparison of the moderators observations with the practitioners recorded assessments for the foundation stage;

q Joining or conducting a staff meeting agreement trial;

q Discussing arrangements for the involvement of parents in the completion of the profiles;

q Discussing any scale points practitioners are finding difficult to assess;

q Reviewing outcomes from agreement trials held previously.

Moderation Meetings

For those settings that do not receive a moderation visit in any particular year, moderators can conduct half-day moderation meetings for the relevant practitioners from their group of settings. Meetings could be conducted in the following ways:

q Practitioners would be asked to bring profiles for three children across the ability range. They could be asked to talk about their observations of these children and to provide some evidence for a particular assessment scale. The range of assessment scales covered by the meeting would depend upon the moderation focus during the year of the moderation cycle;

q Moderators could present anonymous assessment evidence for the assessment scales that were the focus for moderation during that year of the moderation cycle. This evidence would be for group discussion and agreement;

q Pairs of practitioners could share profiles for a number of children and discuss the evidence supporting the assessment judgements;

q Moderation will take place at a number of times during the year, not just at the end of the year;

q Any disruption to the children’s learning and teacher’s workload will be kept to a minimum and therefore moderation will not take place close the beginning and end of terms, during Ofsted inspections.

All LEA moderators will expect to –

q Receive at least one day of training to become a moderator;

q Attend one half-day moderator’s meeting each term;

q Attend at least one cross-LEA moderator agreement trial each year;

q Work for no more than 16 days per year in moderation activities within schools/settings;

q Serve for three years as a LEA moderator.

All moderators will receive -

q Travel expenses at the county council rate of 24.2p per mile.

All moderators’ schools will receive -

q Supply cover costs of £164 per day.

All short listed applicants will be required to attend a short interview at West Norfolk Professional Development Centre on 15 October 2004.

Application forms need to be returned by 1 October 2004 and addressed for the attention of Fiona Musters, Professional Development Centre, Woodside Road, Norwich, NR7 9QL.

Foundation Stage Profile Moderator Requirements

Professional skills

Essential

q Ability to make astute observations of children’s learning in a variety of contexts;

q A good listener of children and adults;

q Ability to communicate clearly with practitioners from a range of foundation stage settings.

Professional Knowledge

Essential

Understanding of the principles of teaching and learning within the foundation stage;

Understanding of the part that good assessment plays in effective teaching and learning.

Experience

Essential

q Minimum of five years teaching experience;

q Minimum of three recent years teaching children in nursery or reception year;

q Some experience of leading colleagues through inservice training.

Desirable

q Experience in establishing early year’s practice within school.

Personal Qualities

Essential

q Friendly disposition that puts people at their ease.

APPLICATION FORM

FOUNDATION STAGE PROFILE MODERATOR

NAME
CURRENT SCHOOL
Teaching Experience in the last 5 years including your current appointment.
School	Date of appointment	Year groups taught	Dates	Experience of named baseline assessment schemes
Special Needs experience;

Any other relevant information for example; advanced skills teacher, good Ofsted foundation stage report, involvement in other LEA projects and initiatives, work with other providers of early years education.
Date	Experience
Please write why you would like to become a foundation stage profile moderator and describe the particular skills you would bring to the job. (No more than 200 words) Many Thanks

Please return by 1 October 2004 to Fiona Musters, Professional Development Centre, Woodside Road, Norwich NR7 9QL or fax 01603 438273