Playing with Numbers

This chapter considers how the EYFS Profile results are produced in ways which are intelligible within the contexts of the study schools and the policy requirements. ¹ The EYFS Profile functions in these classrooms in particular ways, and this has an impact on how the final results are decided by the teachers. Following this, a second stage of ‘moderation’ may occur, during which the Local Authority (LA) has an influence. There is also pressure from the school management, particularly in relation to the need for EYFS Profile results to provide a baseline figure for children's attainment as they progress through the school. These twin pressures can result, as I discuss in relation to the data collected at Gatehouse, in Reception teachers ‘playing with numbers’; that is, changing their results to make them both acceptable, in terms of other patterns of attainment, and intelligible, in terms of discourses of inner city ‘underachievement’.