Assessment In Nursery

[Guest]

Hi! I was just wondering how people managed their assessment. I work in a school nursery and an NQT. I don't feel that I am doing enough assessment, in particular formal written down observations. No one has ever said that I am doing anything wrong but its just my gut feeling that if we were OfSted it would be something I would not feel confident about.

 

I am being observed by the head next week and feeling a little nervous as I have planned a bit of a mish mash of things leading into xmas.

 

Really would just like to hear how people manage things in nursery.

 

Thank you

 

Nina

[Guest]

I am at the end of my NQT year (had my final observation this week: Yippee!) and have been in nursery since Easter. When I joined there was v. little assessment & observation: each child had a focused obs carried out at some stage in the year, which followed where they worked, who they played with & had photos. It was more of a record for parents, as it was sent home at the end of the year. I was advised not to bother introducing anything new in the way of obs & assessments at that stage in the year. Since September, FS as a whole have been adding to the children's 'learning story' books. In the nursery, these have been separated in to each area of the FS curriculum. If one of the adults in nursery notices anything or hears anything which shows development, it is noted down on a sticky label (we have clip boards of labels dotted around the nursery) with their name & date. An example: one of my boys this week had the head phones on & said "This is like on the aeroplane". This sticker went in the KUW section of his book. On Friday after school I sit & allocate all the weeks labels to the books; it's something I really enjoy doing - it really hilights children's interests & strengths & also those children who you find you have over-looked & don't stand out in any particular way: I still have a couple of children who have nothing in their books yet.

At some points during the week an adult is left to join in with children's play, which is an ideal opportunity to add to these obs. Also, during carpet times I scribe things the children have said with their names so I can add these later.

Other assessments are carried out during set activities when an adult has a class list which they note down children's comments on.

We carry out an initial assessment when the children start with us: things like whether they are toilet trained, play with others, which shapes/colours they know etc.

The only focused obs on specific children I have done in the nursery, was on a couple of boys who are causing me concern. This is done for me really to see how best to tackle their behaviour etc.

 

Hope this is useful.