How Much To Document? and avoiding the observation race!

Documenting the learning that the children are doing is part of the process of being an early years educator. However we don't want to be doing too much that it takes us away from the child and the importance of the learning. 

What exactly is documentation? This is the process of recording down the child's learning and responding to this in a way as an educator that allows us to deepen their level of learning or provide challenge. 

Although we have many visitors of the blog working internationally, we also have a large proportion of visitors working here in the U.K and with the revised EYFS curriculum as of of September 2021. 

Having worked with many educators here in England over the last year, it has come up in many discussions that under the new EYFS 'there is no requirement to document children's learning.'

In this blog post I want to reflect on the value of high quality observations and unpick why there is still a place for these in our every day early years practice. 

The Great Observation Race

In my first teaching position in a large foundation stage unit I quickly became aware of what I like to call the 'Great Observation Race'. Whereby it became a 'thing' for the key person to see how many written observations they could each collect on their children each week. Some staff would even come into work much earlier than was required each day so the could stick the observations into each child's learning journeys. I remember the competitive aspect of the staff that had filled a learning journal (meant for the whole year) by the time we reached the end of the first term. 

I must admit this was a race I failed in (and it wasn't because I wasn't working hard enough!) and even as an inexperienced early years educator this approach to collecting observations didn't seem right. I seemed to naturally spend my time in adding to the environment, setting up opportunities that would respond to the learning I had seen or finding books on topics I knew would link to a particular child's interest. 

When reflecting on the great observation race we can consider the following questions when evaluating the quality of the practice going on:

• Did the observations contribute to a greater understanding of the child's learning?
• Were the observations showing new and significant moments of learning?
• How did working in this way (head down and writing on a clipboard) affect the quality of the relationships made with the children and the quality of the interactions to move learning on?
• What was done with the observations once they had been recorded? Was the information used in a way to plan for future learning opportunities?
• Did the quality of the observations show us information on the context of learning? How the learning happened, the child's wellbeing or their key life skills used?
• What was the impact of recording so many observations having on the staff's mental health and wellbeing?

With all of this in mind we can understand why a review of the way children's learning was evidenced and documented was needed. 

The Different Forms Of Documentation

• Post it note observations
• Display
• Scrapbook
• Learning Story
• Video
• Audio
• Transcript of an interaction
• Children's work
• Child voice

Why do we document and who is it for?

The purpose of quality documentation can take 3 main purposes.

1. It is there for you as educator to consider the significant learning that has happened and plan accordingly for future learning opportunities that consolidate, deepen or challenge. Used here as part of an effective assessment process and helping you see where the child's learning is at and where it is going. 

2. Documentation needs to be there for the child to support their learning process and  allow them to review and revisit this learning. This allows them to make links with old learning and link it onto new.

3.Your documentation is also there as a form of two way communication with families to show the learning that's going on and support a dialogue there.

How do we move forward?

Well, it is true that Ofsted have reduced their expectations on the amount of paperwork they want to see regarding observations and written evidence.  No more mounds of post it notes, photos and endless observations!  They will still want proof that you know your children well, that you have identified their starting points, interests, progress and next steps. You will need to talk about each child’s learning journey with confidence. And if you’re not doing observations, you might not be able to provide this evidence!

Only carrying out observations will help you provide the answers:

• How did you establish the child’s starting points on entry
• How do you plan for the child’s future learning?
• How do you know if the child is progressing typically for their age?
• How do you communicate effectively with parents to share information?
• How you plan a curriculum that supports each child’s learning and developmental needs?
• How can we see the evidence of child led learning in the environment

How do we document going forward?

• Quality over quantity
• Building a curriculum built on a number of different approaches; In the moment planning, child led learning, Hygge, Wanderlust Child Nature Study, Reggio, Montessori.

It's up to you to think how best can we meet the needs of the children and keep asking yourself what do our children really need?

To discover more on documentation and creating high quality documentation that doesn't affect your wellbeing take a watch of my keynote speech at the Hygge in the Early Years Autumn Conference.