Observations And Planning Formats

[Guest]

Hi All,

 

I need to do lots of observations on one child for my FD.

I am particularly looking at Cognitive, Language and possibly social development.

 

Can anyone give me any tips or ideas to any good planning formats eg. time sampling?

Would like to do tracking plan but can't see how this would be done on a year 1 child.

 

Hope this makes sense

thanks

[Lorna]

Have a lok at the EEL project- it gives you a format to use for child involvement and observe them over a short period...... well worth looking at...... but you need the time to read the information and then digest it before using it.

 

L

[Guest]

Have a lok at the EEL project- it gives you a format to use for child involvement and observe them over a short period...... well worth looking at...... but you need the time to read the information and then digest it before using it.

 

L

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Thanks Lorna,

 

I don't work in early years so what is the EEl project and where would I find it?

Regards

[Guest]

Hi there,

We've used in Reception this year a format called an event sampling sheet which you might find useful. It is basically a simple grid with a sheet for each child you are focusing on. The headings are Date, Time, Where is the child ?, What are they doing ?, Who are they with ?, Language used and Comment.

We've used this on a focus child and just made a brief observation perhaps every 5 minutes. (It takes about 20 seconds to fill out the boxes each time ... but after 5 or 6 observations it can give you some useful patterns etc.)

We've found this a quick and really useful snapshot of observations. I think this would be useful in Year 1 too. We found it most useful when the child was involved in activities they had freely chosen as this told us the most about their language and social skills. I hope your Year 1 is not like ours where the children have a totally controlled, timetabled and rather (I think !) narrow curriculum ... no play at all ... but that's another debate !!!

 

Hope you find this useful. We've found it an efficient way to do quick observations.

 

Best wishes

Galleon

[Guest]

Thanks Galleon but like you we have a very structured year 1 curriculum.

 

I'm sure that I could adapt the plan in some way maybe for a lunchtime free play observation.

Thanks for your help

[Lorna]

The EEL project was designed by C Pascal as a tool for looking and assessing provision in schools- although it has been mainly used in Early years it is more than usable in any primary classroom.

It involves a proforma that gets you to look at what the child is actually doing and how involved they are in the task- it gets you to look really closely at the said child- you do need another adult to look after the rest of the class for a short period, but I have managed to use it with my TA fielding the others whilst I obseved individuals or groups of children.

 

I found out about it from my local university....

I will try and look out the details to see if I was given information about where to obtain it--- although I remember them saying it wasn't cheap.

 

L

[Guest]

Thanks Lorna,

 

Is it the SPEEL project because I have a copy of that somewhere

 

Thanks again

[Lorna]

don't know- never heard of the SPEEL project!!!

 

But the EEL project comes in a bluey/ green folder thingy- so if itthe same colour it could be.

 

L

[Guest]

Thanks all,

 

I've checked the SPeel doc that I have and I don't think its the one you mean. So Will look out for the eel project.

 

cheers