Cait - Your Mini Observation Sheets....

[Guest]

You may well have posted them before, but I just saw the example of your mini observations for each statements, and think they are brilliant!

 

Do you just fill out these sheets or have a general learning journey as well?? These sheets would really help some of my staff cut down on the amount of observations they do that really don't cover anything at all.

 

Would you mind sharing them all? I'll understand if you don't wish to

 

Thanks

Clare

[thumperrabbit]

I've just had a look and I have to agree..... do you do this for every area of learning Cait?

I have some staff who write war and peace and this would certainly help to cut obs down!

[Cait]

Yes, it's for all areas. Staff handwrite into the boxes and I type them in each half term. (I do mine directly into the computer) Ideally staff would type them straight in but their typing skills are not too hot and I spend so much time flitting back and forth helping with things that it is one of those jobs that's easier to do myself. Plus it gives me the opportunity to monitor staff's observations and help the less confident see why what they have written in one area might be more relevant in another. When children leave I simply delete the rows they've not got an obs by and the parent gets a full record.

 

You know me - always happy to share something that's of some use to someone! Let me know how you get on

x00_blank_pt_2.doc

[thumperrabbit]

Thank you Cait these are fab

 

Just another question do you have a separate area that you put your photos? We sometimes have a photo to put next to the ob

[Cait]

yes, photos can go in here, and we often do that. We use photos in the long obs and to stick onto the back of a picture or something the child has produced to go in their file. Photos are also stuck into home diaries and we make pages of pictures up to put into learning story files too to show various things

[Guest]

Thank you so much for sharing Cait xx

[Guest]

Those are great Cait, must have taken you ages to type, but very worthwhile for staff to be able to see where development is taking place. Also I would imagine they provide a continuous reference for the things they need to be looking out for? Thanks for sharing them.

 

I noticed they are 29 pages per child. Does it take long to print them off for all your children when they leave?

[Cait]

Not really, they are rarely 29 pages long when children leave, after we've chopped out the blank ones

[Guest]

Cait - they're great! Thanks so much for sharing.

 

I've got a child leaving to go to Nursery soon adnd these are going to be a great help with the transition.

 

Nona

[Cait]

wow, 87 downloads! hehe

 

I'm glad you like them Nona

[Gezabel]

wow, 87 downloads! hehe

 

Oops and one of those was me!!! grovelling apologies for not posting before now to say thank you.

 

Do you mind me asking do you add more than one comment? for example showing confidence you have a great example of a child asking for help with the computer do you record other instances perhaps in differenct contexts?

 

NOT criticising in any way just asking

[Cait]

Yes we do, sometimes there could be 3 comments against a criteria, where one was was nice, but not particularly strong - especially for the green and black ones.

 

We add comments from parents too, from the children's home diaries

[Mouseketeer]

we use a similar version, put a cover on it and include a 'notes from home' sheet, it is 17 double side sheets but have room for notes, stickers, photos (and the school kindly print them off for me), mine only start at 22/36m though.

Assess_record_use.doc

[Mouseketeer]

forgot to say ignore the letters a,b,c,d.........and bold print A,B,C...are the ELG's all staff have added these to each statement in their eyfs guidance as well so it makes knowing whats on planning sheets easier than the e1,e2,f1 etc.......too much fuss.

[alis2son]

Hi Cait,

 

Love the mini obs sheet, we use a tracking sheet with all the statements and ELG's on along side photo's, 10 min obs, and post-it notes, and this would be so much easier and paper friendly!!

 

Just one question tho... What do you do about parents viewing the document in between the child starting and finishing with you? Do you print them out as they are and allow parent a copy? or do they view on the computer?

 

Thanks,

 

Ali

[Guest]

Thanks for sharing these are great, you've obviously put a lot of work into them.

 

These will be great to use alongside the trackers that our LA have produced as we do a baseling within 4 weeks of the children starting, then your sheets could be adapted to concentrate on gathering observations againsts the next age / stages that the children are working through.

 

Much appreciated!

[Cait]

Just one question tho... What do you do about parents viewing the document in between the child starting and finishing with you? Do you print them out as they are and allow parent a copy? or do they view on the computer?

 

Thanks,

 

Ali

 

 

Hi Ali, Parents come and look at them in the files whenever they like, and can be quite helpful in contributing anecdotal evidence for them. We start with "Mum reported that" for these ones

[thumperrabbit]

Hi Cait

 

Lots of us obviously are loving your sheets!! another question.......do any of your parents question why they may not have any ob against one of the statements?

 

Obviously we know that they maynot be done in order, but we find the parents start to question things like this and if it's anything like last year we all of a sudden had a rush of obs from parents saying mine can...count to 10 knows letters & sounds etc even when with us they definately didn't!

[Cait]

Inevitably they do, but we say things like 'OOh I wish she'd do that here!' or it can go in as a 'Mum reported that..' statement. We do explain to parents about the fact that these are only updated on the computer every half term from key person notes, and that it may be that they have a quote, ready in their notebook, but not written up in the file yet (which they do once or twice a week). We build up a lot of excuses, as I'm sure you do too!!

[Cait]

I had a parent in last week to look at her son's file, and she's gone away really enthused about what they are doing at home and how it ties in with the EYFS. She's written loads of really useful stuff in his notebook and is actively looking, she says, for opportunities to do things!