tinkerbell1403 Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 (edited) ****Just realised I have posted in the wrong forum - could admin move this to Early Years Observation, Planning and Assessment if possible?***** Morning all, I have searched and searched and been back and forth with ideas of how to revamp our children's learning journeys. I would really appreciate it if anyone could tell me how they document children's learning and development. Also, if anyone has any photographs of their journeys this would be really useful as I would like to inspire my staff team!! Any help or advice much appreciated Edited September 11, 2012 by tinkerbell1403 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Welcome to the forum Tinkerbell and thanks for making your first post :1b If you're considering alternative ways of collating information for learning journeys, and you'd like to look at using technology, we have just developed a new product called Tapestry- online learning journals- and you can read about them here I'm not in practice any more, but when I ran my own nursery we had scrapbooks for each child and once a fortnight we grouped together as a staff for a couple of hours and stuck in the pictures, observations, chatted about the children, and made suggestions for taking their learning further. What are you unhappy about with your current system? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Hi. Can you please forward me the link so that I can purchase this app. Thank you Edie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Hi Edie - Welcome to the FSF! I've replied to your email as well, but just to let you know that Tapestry will be ready for subscribing to in a couple of weeks - certainly by the end of September. :1b 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 (edited) Hope this helps! I use it as the old P scale and highlight as i have planned for and date if i have seen the child actually doing the deed so to say. The large box is for evidence using short/instant/spontanious obs. If there is any long obs i link the date on to the large box. Regards Pussycatdoll 2012 PROFILE 2.docx 2012 PROFILE 3.docx 2012 PROFILE 4.docx 2012 PROFILE 5.docx 2012 PROFILE 6.docx 2012 PROFILE 1.docx Edited September 11, 2012 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panders Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Pussycatdoll, these are really lovely, must have taken a lot of hard work and time to produce these. Thank you so much for sharing them with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 They are absolutely beautiful :1b I am in complete awe - I would never manage to produce anything like this :blink: a million thanks for sharing :1b 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mukerjee1 Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Thank you for sharing Pussycatdoll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoolahoney Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Hi, we use the dev statements but look at it as areas not as individual statements. We then mark each area once a half term with red for emerging, yellow for developing and green for secure to show where they are at. We have a progress summary sheet at the front to see at a glance how they are developing. This is all new this term for us so still adjusting and making changes. It's nowhere near as nice as the others on here but does the job! We call it keybook btw as our learning Journeys are a mix of obs, pics, wows and anything else in date order in a scrapbook, these are done with the children.lj.doc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hoolahoney Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 hmmm... actually ignore the above as looks like you may want to see LJ's more than a keybook and pussycatdoll has that looking all shiny above Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinkerbell1403 Posted September 13, 2012 Author Share Posted September 13, 2012 Welcome to the forum Tinkerbell and thanks for making your first post :1b If you're considering alternative ways of collating information for learning journeys, and you'd like to look at using technology, we have just developed a new product called Tapestry- online learning journals- and you can read about them here I'm not in practice any more, but when I ran my own nursery we had scrapbooks for each child and once a fortnight we grouped together as a staff for a couple of hours and stuck in the pictures, observations, chatted about the children, and made suggestions for taking their learning further. What are you unhappy about with your current system? Thanks Helen. My concern at the moment is that staff are just observing for the sake of observing and arent capturing the meaningful achievements they make. I have recently done a training session with the whole team to explain the purpose of the learning journey and focused on quality not quantity. I would rather see 1 page of quality photos, work products and observations than 10 pages of one sentence observations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinkerbell1403 Posted September 13, 2012 Author Share Posted September 13, 2012 Hope this helps! I use it as the old P scale and highlight as i have planned for and date if i have seen the child actually doing the deed so to say. The large box is for evidence using short/instant/spontanious obs. If there is any long obs i link the date on to the large box. Regards Pussycatdoll Thank you so much Pussycatdoll for posting these. They have given me some examples to show my team and hopefully inspire them to create something similar. They look so user friendly and beautifully presented Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Thanks Helen. My concern at the moment is that staff are just observing for the sake of observing and arent capturing the meaningful achievements they make. I have recently done a training session with the whole team to explain the purpose of the learning journey and focused on quality not quantity. I would rather see 1 page of quality photos, work products and observations than 10 pages of one sentence observations! It is a tricky one, isn't it? I think modelling great observations is the main way you can influence staff- maybe even organising a board with photos of the children and "group" obs comments- just to give your staff some vocabulary and sentences/phrases that are meaningful rather than "The children had a lovely time in the garden!".....eg "The children used the construction kits to work out a way of helping teddy cross the river. They concentrated very hard and built a sturdy bridge for him." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinkerbell1403 Posted September 13, 2012 Author Share Posted September 13, 2012 It is a tricky one, isn't it? I think modelling great observations is the main way you can influence staff- maybe even organising a board with photos of the children and "group" obs comments- just to give your staff some vocabulary and sentences/phrases that are meaningful rather than "The children had a lovely time in the garden!".....eg "The children used the construction kits to work out a way of helping teddy cross the river. They concentrated very hard and built a sturdy bridge for him." Thanks for the tips Helen, I really appreciate it. During the training session I gave them each a copy of a "Meaningful Observation" document produced by a Kindergartern in Queensland. I thought it was very useful and really made us all consider the way we write our observations. Here it is if anyone is interested: http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/early_middle/qklg_pd_mod4_exp2_doc_observ.pdf I have banned the word "enjoy" for a while as I want them to be objective and factual. We don't know for sure that the children are necessarily enjoying or having a lovely time!! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 We've banned that word too!! it has actually helped them to express what they have seen much better as in the How? Why? and what it meant in terms of learning Sorry doesn't really help with your original question of inspirational journals - I'm watching this with interest also! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Thanks for the tips Helen, I really appreciate it. During the training session I gave them each a copy of a "Meaningful Observation" document produced by a Kindergartern in Queensland. I thought it was very useful and really made us all consider the way we write our observations. Here it is if anyone is interested: http://www.qsa.qld.e..._doc_observ.pdf I have banned the word "enjoy" for a while as I want them to be objective and factual. We don't know for sure that the children are necessarily enjoying or having a lovely time!! Thank you for that link :1b I have tried to ban the word enjoy too :blink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinkerbell1403 Posted September 13, 2012 Author Share Posted September 13, 2012 Thank you for that link :1b I have tried to ban the word enjoy too :blink: I was quite blunt with my staff and said to them to describe what they can see. How do they know the child is enjoying themselves. Are they smiling, laughing, telling you????? So far so good. Now just to work on the depth of the observations!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panders Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 I banned the word "always" years ago, because nobody is "always" happy/ brilliant,/sad/ helpful, ....etc. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conker Posted September 13, 2012 Share Posted September 13, 2012 Thats a really interesting link, it just shows that one worthwhile obs, properly written is worth half a terms random photos! :1b 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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