Managing Observations

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

 

I work in a large nursery within a school and are getting even bigger next year! We will have 52 in the morning and 52 in the afternoon!

 

Dues to this, we are looking at organising our observations on an observation wall somehow, so we can see who has observations, who doesn't and target certain children for areas of learning. Has anyone got any photographs of how they do this? Have done this before in a school which was a one form entry school, but with so many children, obviously space is an issue. We also want to try to encourage parents to add to the profiles too.

 

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks!

[AnonyMouse_2157]

hello there we are also a 52 PT nursery although we are split into beginning and end of week. We have a couple of systems for obs - firstly ad hoc ones where we make notes (photo/mental ones) to add to their journeys and photo folders on the PC; secondly planned obs - this is where the key person has one session a week to focus on whichever children they need to - we do not plan what we want to observe as this will depend on what the children are doing. We observe the child and make notes onto small message type forms that are colour coded to correspond with the child's colour group.

 

We take the photo add it to the message and highlight which area/s of learning it covers, whether they were scaffolded in their learning by another peer or adult (we have a little ladder symbol on the form) and what steps could be taken next.

These obs are then put on an observation wall where the parents can view them (it helps that they are colour coded). The following week these are taken down and put into their journals and new obs take the place. We manage to observe around 6 children in this way each week and have a sheet that is divided into the areas of learning and aspects s that we know what/how much evidence we have got. We find this useful as some children can 'escape' the radar if you know what I mean.

 

We also have a large photo frame near the observation wall so that parents can view what has been going on in the nursery on a day to day basis.

In light of the changes this system may well change in September!