Learning and development

The purpose of Better Start

In order to have a clear overview of children’s progress in your setting, you need to bring together the wealth of information you will have gathered for the individual child into a manageable summary of progress. The purpose of Better Start is to help you record that summary.

The summary of the child’s learning and development should be based on a holistic view of the child. It will be a best-fit judgement that you make based on all the information you have gathered and know about the child.

Better Start is used to summarise the development of the child in relation to their chronological age band. This will be defined within the seventeen aspects in each of the seven areas of Learning and Development. The seven areas of learning should be used for guidance. Practitioners need to be very familiar with the Early Learning Goals and child development milestones in order to support the process of continuous assessment.

Better Start gives you the opportunity to enter summative assessment data four times throughout the year: Baseline, Autumn term, Spring term and Summer term.

As indicated in the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework 2024, when assessing whether an individual child is at the expected level of development, practitioners should draw on their knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgement.

When are the tasks open?

The first task will be the Baseline assessment. This task will open at the beginning of September, at the start of each academic year and close in October. This will provide a baseline to identify where each child is within their learning and development in each of the seventeen aspects of learning. This can then be used to measure progress throughout each term and across the academic year.

If a child joins the provision after this task has closed, then the first task completed for that child will become their Baseline. Key workers should continue to closely observe any children joining the provision throughout the year, to ensure a baseline is established and recorded in order to accurately indicate progress.

The second task will be at the end of the Autumn term and will be open between November and December.

The third and fourth tasks are the Spring and Summer assessments and will open at the start of each term, closing towards the end of term.

Guidance for specific dates will be given in advance of the task opening.

What information should be used to form a best-fit judgement?

A best-fit judgement should be made using a wide range of information about a child’s learning and development. This information may include:

• Observations of the child across different areas of learning and in a range of situations, both indoors and outdoors
• Day to day interactions between the adult and child and the child with their peers
• Photographs / videos / children’s work
• Discussions with and information shared by parents and carers
• Discussions with other professionals involved with the child or family
• The format in which this information is kept will vary from provider to provider

Making a best-fit judgement

From this wealth of information, you will use your professional judgement to decide if the child is on track or not on track for each aspect of learning. As early learning is not linear, some children may be on track in some aspects of learning and not on track in others.

When forming a judgement about whether an individual child is at the expected level of development (on track), practitioners should use the information outlined above and draw on their knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgement to come to a holistic best-fit judgement.

How to record and submit data

Better Start is located on the Coventry Early Years Provider Portal.

Over the academic year, there will be 4 summative data tasks to complete on the Better Start portal.

The following guidance demonstrates how to complete a task and download reports based on the summative data inputted.

1. Task One - Start of the Autumn term. This information will form a baseline for new children.
2. Task Two - End of the Autumn term.
3. Task Three - End of the Spring term.
4. Task Four - End of the Summer term.
   • 4.1. Please note - for Reception classes, the data submitted for Task Four will be used for the EYFSP.

Information gathered on the Better Start portal will allow you to track children’s progress over time.

Ensure that this type of data is covered within your privacy notice. If it is not currently, review and update your privacy notice as appropriate. Further, ensure that parents and carers provide their written consent for their child’s assessment data, this could, for example, be included within your induction information.

Once the Coventry Data Team open a task, the provider will receive an email notification.

This is when practitioners will be required to start entering children’s summative data.

Therefore, it is advised to continually gather formative data on children’s learning and development during the term, in preparation for each task opening.