Long Observations

[MrsL]

I'm just wondering how everyone organises their long observations? We have previously been told that it is necessary to do 1 per term for each child. Is this set in stone does anyone know, or a bit of a myth?

 

We find the long observations really useful at the beginning of the year as we get to know the children but at this point of the year we are finding them a little pointless. We rarely catch wow moments and are only observing things that we already know. Short post it observations when we see/hear wow moments seem much more valuable as we already know the children really well by now, so don't need to write down everything we see.

 

Do we need to still be doing long obs all the through the year or are short ones ok now? Or am I organising the long obs wrong? We do have a rough timetable for the long ones so no one gets missed out but we don't stick to it religiously. If a child isn't doing something very interesting then we don't just observe them anyway!

 

Any tips?

[green hippo]

Hi,

we used to do 1 long obs per half term per child but like you felt that we were often just confirming things that we already knew so we have decided to only do 1 long ob at the beginning of the year and 1 in the last half-term. We do short obs all the time and find them much more useful. We do still complete long obs when needed - e.g. if we have worries about a child etc.

I started a thread on this a while ago and lots of people replied saying that they don't do them on a regularly basis and that it was never something that was supposed to be so set-in-stone but used as part of a bank of observation tools as and when necessary.

Green Hippo x

[Guest]

hi,

i only do long obs on children that are on the SEN register in my class or recieving outside help like speech and language.

with all other children i complete short pot-it note obs.

Lou

[catma]

We have previously been told that it is necessary to do 1 per term for each child. Is this set in stone does anyone know, or a bit of a myth?

 

Just do what you need to do to inform your knowledge of the children. When they were a new thing especilaly for schools there was lots of common sense guidance to help practitioners feel secure.......as we've all moved on now then it's more about need. If a child needs more because it would be more useful then do more etc!

 

Cx

[MrsL]

Thanks for those replies! It is what my gut instinct was telling me, just needed some reassurance!

 

Up until now we have used the long observations as our informant to set next steps but this isn't working for us either so need to find another way! Could anyone share experiences of how they track them etc so that everyone gets some next steps regulary etc.

 

Thanks!