Guest Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Hello, everyone! I manage a private pre-school where we take children from 2 years. It is getting to the end of term and I am thinking about what to give the parents when children leave. The majority of our leavers are leaving to go on to nursery in a school, where they will complete the foundation stage. In the past we have given parents a one or two page summary under the 6 headings of the areas of learning and have included with this pieces of work and observations/photos from the child's file. These summaries are obviously more detailed for those children that are going onto reception, but they follow the same format. In the past we also used to give a copy of the stepping stones tick lists which are, of course, frowned upon now. Can I ask what you give to your leavers? Or do you give the same sort of thing? Thank you in advance for your help and ideas! Anna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_8466 Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Welcome to the Forum Anna! We are a pre-school like you: some of our children stay with us until they reach statutory school age, others go to a state nursery when they are four. We have a document on which we track their progress through the stepping stones of the EYFS however whilst we do highlight when they have achieved a stepping stone, it is more designed to show the practitioner where there are gaps in our observations, and plan for their individual learning journey. I feel the need to explain that because I wouldn't want anyone to think I did ticksheets!!! This is something new this term, produced in the hope that parents will be able to look at a particular area of learning and development and see for themselves where we have observed learning taking place. Inserted in the back of this tracker when they leave will be all their observations so the two can be passed on as necessary, or kept as a record in the family. In addition to this we give them their "special book" which shows their progress from the day they started - lots of annotated photographs, examples of things they've done etc. This provides a really good illustration of the story of their time with us, and at the back we get them to draw pictures showing their favourite activities, their friends etc to act as a reminder. The staff all put little farewell messages to the child in here too, and if the children are going to 'big school' we put some photographs in there showing the transition period: anecdotes about what happened on their school visit; who they played with, photos of them in their school uniform etc. This year I will also be giving families a CD with every single photograph ever taken of their child at pre-school too. No wonder we're all so busy at this time of year! Maz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wolfie Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Hi, just wanted to welcome you to the forum! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_79 Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Hi Anna and welcome. Cant help with your query but Maz's ideas sound lovely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_8466 Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Cant help with your query but Maz's ideas sound lovely. Thank you: but any other suggestions are always gratefully received so I'll be keeping a keen eye on everyone else's ideas... Maz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_7317 Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 We have a All About Me profile book which contains observations on the child, development records, examples of work, learning journeys and individual curriculum plans which have been gathered throughout the childs time with us this is all in one book which is then given to the parents when the child leaves Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Hello Annita and a warm welcome from me too. If you type record of transfer into the search you should find where this has been discussed before. The search feature is found at the top right side of the screen, above calendar.live chat. gallery. and blogs. Happy searching, lots to find and read. Peggy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 6, 2007 Share Posted December 6, 2007 Thank you everyone. Maz, what you do sounds great - a photo CD! I think what we are doing is fine, you have reassured me! We also use the EYFS assessment scale sheets which we highlight and date (NOT TICK!!), although these are new this term and so for this batch of leavers are not very complete. Thank you for all your help. Anna x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_8466 Posted December 6, 2007 Share Posted December 6, 2007 We also use the EYFS assessment scale sheets which we highlight and date (NOT TICK!!), although these are new this term and so for this batch of leavers are not very complete.Anna x I'm glad you feel reassured that you're doing all the right things - sometimes we just need a bit of reassurance don't we? When we introduced our EYFS trackers I did provide time in the session (and some extra pay to cover the work they inevitably did out of hours too!) to put on all the historical information which although was a pain for the staff (and a little expensive for me!) it did help put the child's overall learning and development in context. Newer members of staff who took over responsibility for their key group from another practitioner found it useful to be able to re-read the observations more closely than they had probably done before. They all said it was a really useful exercise because they feel they know their children a bit better now from reading about what they had done and said in the past. Parents were certainly very impressed with the amount of work involved, but even more at the knowledge of their child's progress it gave. So hopefully we're onto a winner.. Maz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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