How to Write Better Observations in Early Years

INTRO

Despite less emphasis being placed on observations in early years by Ofsted, observations remain an important part of the planning and assessment in early years and many of your settings and nurseries will still use them to help to learn more about and to develop your children.

In this video we will explore the key things needed to write good EYFS observations.

So that you can write better observations for you children.

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Intro Vid

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In today’s video I will be supporting you to write better observations in early years.

Despite less emphasis being placed on observations, it still remains so important.

Why?

The main reason for completing observations in early years is to understand the children in your setting, recognise their interests and skills and to find out how they learn through play. This gives you the opportunity to evaluate the way in which the setting’s provision is set up and use the observations to develop next steps.

These next steps provide practitioners with ideas for what can be provided, in order to move children on from their current learning. This should reflect the interests and learning styles of the children.

Observations are all about understanding the children in your setting, including how they’re developing, what they’ve been up to, and what they’re learning through their play. But observations also

· Provide a space to record and celebrate children’s achievements and interests.

· Help you improve and develop your centre for the children in it, informing planning, and staff training. A good observation enables educators to see how children are processing through the areas of learning and development.

· Allow parents to understand the progress their child is making, including how they might improve the home learning environment.

· Are one type of formative assessment that feeds into the summative assessments you might make later on.

When writing your observations you should follow your settings guidance on this. Though, all good observations should include:

· A rich description – now you don’t need to write paragraph after paragraph but it should give a clear description of what happened and the interaction. You should describe the interaction that is taking place between the child and either another child, an adult or an object. The description doesn’t need to be long and cumbersome, but should paint a picture of the interaction that is occurring with that child. When writing your description you should try to make sure that you can hear the child’s voice in the observation and that you can get a feel for the child’s play and ask yourself, what does that mean for the child’s learning? Quoting the child is a very effective way to do this as it clearly shows the child’s ideas, thought processes and how they are engaging with others around them.

· Any progress the child has made. You should also make it evident as to why this activity or developmental event was relevant to this unique child and their progress or interests. Good observations give a clear insight into the child’s learning and, over time, they should show progression. When observing a child look for:

o New skills that the child demonstrates that hasn’t been seen in previous observations

o Learning which builds upon skills or knowledge

o Interests that the child demonstrates

o How they are showing the characteristics of effective learning in their play.

It’s also important to recognise if there are areas that a child is having particular difficulty with, in order to be able to provide opportunities to rectify this. Use this to consider any skills that the child would benefit from practising, such as counting or fine motor skills.

For example, if you’re observing a child using puzzles and, during the time you’re observing, you notice that the child is finding it difficult to fasten the small pieces together, this is your opportunity to note this as a next step. Within the setting, either later on that day, or later in the week, fine motor skills activities should be provided to encourage the child to build the muscles in their hands to make fastening small objects easier.

· You should also be thinking about the length of time that the child was engaged in the activity.

· And exactly what they were doing, with details about resources and words they used.

· You should also interpret and give information on what you are seeing. You will know your children, therefore you will be best place to understand what learning is taking place in that interaction so try to make sure your observations reflect this. This could include recognising certain skills emerging in the child, it might be noticing a schema that the child is displaying an interest in, or you might be explaining the thinking behind their actions.

· You can include what you did too, note how you interacted with the child during the event you’re observing to show how you’re helping to scaffold that child’s play and learning.

There are lots of different types of observations you can write. From anecdotal records, to photo observations to running records to snapshot observations.

Though, no matter what type of observations you write you should follow these ten steps.

1. Define the purpose – Know your goal to focus on specific skills, interactions, or overall development. Align your goals with the development areas listed in your curriculum.

2. Choose your method – Choose an observation method that aligns with your curriculum and constraints – such as time, access to equipment, and child-teacher ratio.

3. Set the scene – Provide a brief description of the setting – the time, location, and individuals involved. These create a better understanding of the environment and enable routine observations.

During the observation you should:

4. Describe what you see – Describe the interests, abilities, and skills of children in the following ways:

a. Ask what the kids are doing, touching, and saying when they have free time, space, and resources.

b. Note how children react to activities, surroundings, routines, and unexpected situations

c. Observe the child’s interactions with adults and other children.

d. Make notes of other ways the child learns, such as schematic behaviours.

e. Mention the child’s temperament, levels of happiness, and participation.

5. Be objective – try not to make assumptions about what the child may be feeling, be objective and describe what is actually happening so that you can give an accurate image in your observation

6. Talk about influences on behaviour

7. Use clear and concise language

Once you’ve written the observations you should then:

8. Reflect and analyze – After observing and taking notes, reflect on the development areas of the observation. Take note of what the observation implies and evaluate progress so far.

9. Share and collaborate – recording the observation does not end the process. You can use the observation to create reports to share with parents, colleagues, and specialists. Sharing the reports can help build a comprehensive understanding of the child. These reports may also prove useful for the child if they are well-preserved. And you can use them to create next steps for the child.

10. Stay flexible – Your observations of the child are the foundation of your planning. But, children change quickly and unexpectedly and make it impossible to plan for the weeks ahead. Therefore, any plans and routines must be adaptable.

When writing your observations, you can also use this useful acronym that I learnt from Famly to help write better observations which is the SHARE method.

Start with

· The Spark – What started the moment?

· What Happened? – Describe the moment, and what went on.

· The Assessment – What is your assessment of the meaning behind what happened?

· The Response – What did you do to extend or scaffold the moment?

· The End Result – What happened after your response?

As the practitioner your role in observations is very important. In order to support children in their development, it’s important that you are able to:

· Recognise the learning that the child is engaged in

· Build on the learning of the child so that you can get the best of the ‘teachable moment’

· Use open-ended questioning to help the child provide their reasoning and ideas.

Conclusion

Observations should not be used just to tick a box to say that it has been done. This is what used to happen a lot, before changes were made by Ofsted and still sometimes happens. We should be moving away from having targets for the number of observations we have to do for example three per week. We should be doing observations now when they are meaningful.

The purpose of observations is to provide information, such as next steps that help to inform decision making for planning in the setting, so that we are able to move the child’s learning on as quickly as possible. The insights that observations provide, such as the child’s interests, skill progression or barriers to learning are vital for setting up provision that reflects the individual child’s learning needs.

The more the learning is tailored to the individual, by reflecting on their next steps from observations, the further the child will be able to go on their learning journey.

Hopefully, this blog has provided you with some ideas to help you with EYFS observations in your setting.

If you’ve enjoyed the video, make sure to hit that like button.

For more support with your observations, get a copy of a good observation sheets that you can use in your setting by clicking the link on the screen. You can also get access to it by clicking the link in the description.

There you can also get access to next step sheets, individual support plans plus lots more to support your children’s development.

On the screen now is also a video YouTube thinks you will find useful. Check it out to continue your learning.

Thank you for watching and I wish you all the best.

God bless.