Retention of Records

[Stargrower]

I'm having a massive sort out and am debating what to do with paperwork.

The information sheet I have from the Early Years Alliance says...

Children's records, registers, medication records, accident records

- a reasonable time after children have left the provision (e.g. until after the next Ofsted inspection is a requirement or

- until the child reaches 21 (24 for CP records) is a recommendation

If I go with 'requirement', I can (securely) get rid of mountains of paper!  What do you do?

[louby loo]

Not sure really, but watching this with interest as we had to re-register so are now technically  a youngish setting (I took all the old paperwork and dumped it with the last owner (on Ofsted's recommendation I should add!). I am determined not to fall into the trap of saving loads. I have been brutal with the accident forms though and we are not keeping all the 'cuts/scratches' etc.  Head bumps yes keeping.

[Coopsie]

HI

I can only comment from personal experience when a solicitor contacted our nursery regarding a child who used to attend with us. They requested any documents regarding safeguarding as the child who was 19 then was taking her parents to court. Luckily we did still keep the records and we were able to help. So I would think carefully before disposing of items.

[Stargrower]

On 09/06/2021 at 11:50, Coopsie said:

HI

I can only comment from personal experience when a solicitor contacted our nursery regarding a child who used to attend with us. They requested any documents regarding safeguarding as the child who was 19 then was taking her parents to court. Luckily we did still keep the records and we were able to help. So I would think carefully before disposing of items.

  Thank you for replying.  Yes safeguarding records definitely need to be kept.  I think I'm going to get rid of old registers though.   

[Piglet48]

I was queuing old registers and planning? How long do you keep those for?

[Cait]

I think I kept old registers until the cohort in question left secondary school, just in case there was ever a question as to whether a child had attended on a particular day or not.   Planning I just kept for a couple of years unless it had something specific on it that had worked really well, or something of note to amend next time if I repeated it.  Are you preschool? 

[louby loo]

We don't do planning as such - we have a sheet with all the children's names and where they're at on/what we are working on (very basic ie- sharing skills, cutting, etc) we did one sheet for each term and shredding old one as soon as we had the new list.

Registers I'm not sure- we've kept all ours. That said, we registered in 2018 so we haven't got 'that' many yet!

[Mouseketeer]

On 20/07/2023 at 16:49, louby loo said:

We don't do planning as such - we have a sheet with all the children's names and where they're at on/what we are working on (very basic ie- sharing skills, cutting, etc) we did one sheet for each term and shredding old one as soon as we had the new list.

Registers I'm not sure- we've kept all ours. That said, we registered in 2018 so we haven't got 'that' many yet!

We don’t do any written planning either (other than a few scribbles on a white board- occasionally), so would say no need to keep it if you do, I have one folder from 2006 that I keep to reference how ridiculous it got when we were planning every single activity to the nth degree, who, what,where, areas 🙈

I like the idea of a termly master sheet so to speak, we started something similar Sept 2021 but in key groups and then gave up on that, I do feel since we stopped all the Tap assessing when I could pull up summative assessments that I can’t easily see where they’re all at anymore (KP’s can say).

Registers? some say 6 yrs, some say 3 🤷‍♀️, I read that people are scanning and saving all paperwork electronically, the thought of doing that fills me with dread 😟 

Edited July 22, 2023 by Mouseketeer

[Cait]

Mine were excel worksheets anyway, so went on a pen drive.   Thank goodness!