Learning Journals

[Guest Cathryn1974]

HI

I currently work in a Reception class which has just come out of special measures. I am a bit concerned though about how we are monitoring progress through learning journals. We basically put in all post it notes observations and then put an FSP or Developmental band reference to it. This means that someone may see a child counting to 10 every week and put it in again! There is no real progression as such it is just everything. We do also put photos and any incidental or teacher led writing etc. but they just seem a bit haphazard.

 

Would anyone please let me know how they monitor progressand and do learning journals. I have been thinking about doing a formal observation on everychild twice every half term and also have more focused activities that come from the children (observation) which will show true progression. In temrs of post it notes - unless they are part of learning journey that can be shown in full in the books then I would discard them after we have used them to feed into planning.

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Love

 

Cathryn X

[Cait]

Hi Cathryn,

 

Welcome, I've not chatted to you before, but hopefully I can be of help. There have been lots of discussions on here about Learning Journeys/Stories/Journals and I think you'll find what you are looking for if you do a forum search by clicking on the 'Search Forum Posts' button at the top and typing in 'Learning Journey'.

 

If you don't find anything helpful, pop back and let me know and I'll see what I can find for you.

 

What you have said in your post is very much the way we do it and we have stickers on our notebooks to remind us -

 

I want to record this because:

 It is a behaviour incident

 I want to remember it for future study

 It is an exciting development for this child

 It gives me ideas for an activity for this child

 I want to share it with someone else

[elaine7]

Another way I've seen a colleague follow up long observations is to record the next step on a separate sheet and have this ready to observe as it happens. Several children could be listed next to the hoped for behaviours/ELGs/profile points. This sheet could easily be copied and updated weekly if you have many observers.

[KST]

As I stick in my observations or photos etc I tick of the profile point it relates too. Once I have a few examples for that scale point, with 80% Child intitated I highlight it and then don't collect evidence for that point. I write next steps in the learning stories next to the observations, I then use these to write an individual plan for the children each half term which is what we use to see where they need to go in their learning and it helps focus our observations - hope that is useful and makes sense!