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characteristics of learning.....again !


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Hi, i have got all my learning journeys up to date and have a tracker sheet for all my areas of learning so i can see at a glance where all the children are up to.

 

What i am struggling with is how to record my Characteristics of Learning ?

 

Am i meant to record a CoL for every observation i do, as well as the area of learning or should i do some obs based on the CoLs and some on the area of learning ?

 

Sorry to sound thick, just need some guidance :blink:

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We use the attached pre-typed obs forms - still 'post it' sized but with COL included.

Thank you for sharing that ;) . Does it not need to be more specific, i.e which sub heading of each CoL it should be ?

 

We do you something similar, but i find staff are simly just ticking all 3 boxes, when in fact i feel it should actually be quite specific to a certain Obs ?

 

We do have a tracker sheet for the CoL, but i am finding it impossible to complete because on the obs sheet they have simply ticked every heading. Am i making sense :huh: ? If i were to fill out the tracker sheet now as it has been recorded on the observations, then every child would have completed every characteristic of learning in the first half term !!

 

My head is pounding with all this....... and got to go on a safeguarding course in 2 hours as well :(

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Guest griffclan

Hi, we found the same problem that when we did post it note style obs we weren't recording COL. So we have linked observing COL to a a more detailed planned observation that we do for each child (usually every 2 weeks) just to make sure we are observing this some of the time. Staff still do post it note obs as and when and sometimes will note a COL on this but only if it tends to be very obvious.

I do think we should perhaps be looking a little more specifically at the particular COL rather than just the broad title, our obs sheet shows more detail - makes the form look very busy with a lot of writing on it but I'm not sure how else to do it!

We also use a tracking sheet for COL but these are just completed termly.

I've attached a copy of our planned obs form and the tracking sheet,

 

Planned Observation Sheet Sept 2012.odt

Characteristics of Effective Learning - tracker.odt

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Hi, we found the same problem that when we did post it note style obs we weren't recording COL. So we have linked observing COL to a a more detailed planned observation that we do for each child (usually every 2 weeks) just to make sure we are observing this some of the time. Staff still do post it note obs as and when and sometimes will note a COL on this but only if it tends to be very obvious.

I do think we should perhaps be looking a little more specifically at the particular COL rather than just the broad title, our obs sheet shows more detail - makes the form look very busy with a lot of writing on it but I'm not sure how else to do it!

We also use a tracking sheet for COL but these are just completed termly.

I've attached a copy of our planned obs form and the tracking sheet,

 

Planned Observation Sheet Sept 2012.odt

Characteristics of Effective Learning - tracker.odt

 

Thank you very much for sharing :1b

 

I'm going to have to make a confession now - we haven't been recording CoL at all :ph34r:

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Gasps!!!

 

I've been doing them on all my photo obs. Little bit of description, couple of development statements and then the CoL. "Ricky was really engaged with this activity. He was exploring the bug from all sides, using the magnifying glass. He was willing to have a go at holding it and seemed to enjoy the sensation of the tickly feet on his arm. When he had put the bug outside he went to get the plastic ones out and engaged In open-ended play for quite some time"

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now forgive me for saying this but can someone point me in the right direction....where does it say we hve to record this all the time. I can only find...

1.10 In planning and guiding children’s activities, practitioners must reflect on the different ways that children learn and reflect these in their practice. Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning are:

since when did reflect mean write?

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now forgive me for saying this but can someone point me in the right direction....where does it say we hve to record this all the time. I can only find...

1.10 In planning and guiding children’s activities, practitioners must reflect on the different ways that children learn and reflect these in their practice. Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning are:

since when did reflect mean write?

 

Double phew! Now that was my understanding too - but was beginning to think it was just me! :1b

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How about..."Still searching for the reduction in paperwork" or "can't play with you now I am too busy writing about you"... Sorry if I am sounding bitter I just do not know where it is all going to end. Spent the morning out of session doing supervision meetings with my four staff, we all work in the same room, and three of us have worked together for the last ten years. We are a really close team who talk and reflect openly and honestly on a daily basis, and now I have to fill in boxes to prove this. :mellow:

Anyway on a different note I am on a course tomorrow about how to lead your setting through Ofsted!!Hope that it is going to be useful and I leave feeling positive otherwise I may just lose the plot and go :bananas:

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How about..."Still searching for the reduction in paperwork" or "can't play with you now I am too busy writing about you"... Sorry if I am sounding bitter I just do not know where it is all going to end. Spent the morning out of session doing supervision meetings with my four staff, we all work in the same room, and three of us have worked together for the last ten years. We are a really close team who talk and reflect openly and honestly on a daily basis, and now I have to fill in boxes to prove this. :mellow:

Anyway on a different note I am on a course tomorrow about how to lead your setting through Ofsted!!Hope that it is going to be useful and I leave feeling positive otherwise I may just lose the plot and go :bananas:

 

Tis flamin' ridiculous isn't it :ph34r: If someone, anyone can tell me how this improves outcomes for the children then please do I'm all ears....

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I went on a course about the revised EYFS at the Early Excellence and there was not much emphasis put on the COL at all - it was literally mentioned that it had been included in a more obvious way but that this is what we base our environment and teaching on anyway and the only real change was the BRIEF summary that it expected at the end of reception. We tend to write things anyway on our obs about how engage the child was, perseverence, etc and I may do a BRIEF summary to pass onto the Reception teacher and possibly highlight obs in different colours to show where the child has shown different characteristics of learning?

There was DEFINATELY more emphasis on PUTTING OUR CLIPBOARDS AND POST-IT NOTES DOWN and spending more time interacting with the children. Record only things you may forget or are particularly special, take a photo to remind yourself of something happening - what we write down is different from person to person and setting to setting. But this is definately easier said than done!!!

Green Hippo x

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Tis flamin' ridiculous isn't it :ph34r: If someone, anyone can tell me how this improves outcomes for the children then please do I'm all ears....

 

Oh pleeeease.......you really are rattling my cage now.........!!!!! : (

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Thank you very much for sharing :1b

 

I'm going to have to make a confession now - we haven't been recording CoL at all :ph34r:

snap!! whoops!! just trying to get used to new statements etc at mo x

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We haven't been recording them specifically but lots of them are things that we say naturally in our observations (or equivalent phrasing) so I feel I can argue that they are in evidence event hough I don't have a box to tick which characteristics are shown - so my intention is that next week when we look through our key childrens observation journals we will note down any gaps or areas which we are not not seeing much evidence of and make a conscious effort to plan for these in our next steps \ plods whatever the current favourite term is. So if we see for example that a particular child is not exhibiting the characteristics in the keeping on trying section for example then we will try to plan to give them opportunities to develop these skills. It is all a bit crazy really because we already were doing this sort of thing but despite the call for less paperwork I feel I need to document this process where as before it would have been something just incorporated into our thought processes.

 

Mel

x

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Isn't part of the point of them to do with reflection (as pointed out elsewhere) in that if you aren't seeing/hearing those kinds of behaviours, then your provision isn't enabling children to be resilient learners and ready for the next stage in the journey when they move on?

 

It's only the EYFSP where it has to be recorded for parents and Yr1 teachers.

 

If you are trying to write down what you think the actions or commentary from a child "means" at the point of it happening, then really you are writing an assessment, not an observation and 1 assessment doesn't make a judgement anyway. Doesn't professional knowledge of how a chld learns come from knowing them over time and being able to use a range of observations in different contexts, of what you saw or heard, to reflect on their learning apptitudes?

 

Cx

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