Guest Posted November 9, 2008 Posted November 9, 2008 I've just joined the site, so please bear with me. My first question stems from a planning discussion we had last week at our preschool. Once children have left to go to school, how long do we need to hang on to any observations we have on them?
Cait Posted November 9, 2008 Posted November 9, 2008 I generally keep them for a couple of years - but any worthwhile ones will be in their Development and Learning Records anyway, so the parents have them when the child leaves. I have to say - you can go on keeping stuff forever! It's daft enough that insurance certificates have to be kept for 40 years! I'm not sure whether we all have the storage capacity to keep everything, so my general rule of thumb is that I keep something for as long as it is relevant and interesting. This is generally a couple of years. Although I have to say that my children were very excited to read some observations I made of them playing when they were small (20 years ago) it caused a huge amount of hilarity - and an awakening of memories!
Guest Posted November 9, 2008 Posted November 9, 2008 Hello singalongsally, love the name Agree with caits' comments, just want to add a warm welcome to the forum and thank you for your first post, the first of many I hope. Peggy
Guest Wolfie Posted November 9, 2008 Posted November 9, 2008 Welcome to the forum singalongsally! I didn't keep any observations of children once they had left - a summary of learning and development went on to the next provider and we gave all the other observations and photos to the parents to keep.
Helen Posted November 9, 2008 Posted November 9, 2008 A warm welcome from me too We didn't keep any observations either; they went home with the parents in the child's Special Book.
Inge Posted November 9, 2008 Posted November 9, 2008 we only keep copies of those children we were working with other professionals, or if we had some need for the observation, in case someone comes back and asks about them .. tend to keep them a couple of years.. but did have an enquiry about something 3 years after the event, to see if we had reported something.. lucky we did keep the copies and we were being told we had failed to report a need, when all letters and obs backed up our reporting of it..need to evidence everything again! Inge
Guest Posted November 13, 2008 Posted November 13, 2008 Thank you all for your replies. It's interesting to see what others do.
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