planning and assessment in childcare settings-can anyone help

planning and assessment in childcare settings-can anyone help

by: timmylums - 03-04-08 18:54

I would be grateful if anyone could give me some advice, I have recently qualified with a degree in Early years education, during my training and placement I was taught that observing, planning, assessing and evaluating was paramount in encouraging and supporting a child's development. I am currently working in a private daycare setting where this regime seems to be of little importance.  If a child attends full-time then they need to have one planned activity per week, part-time means one or two a month. Time to complete the process aformentioned is very limited and some staff are struggling to keep upto date but activity plans are never written out, the suitability of the activity is never assessed nor is the child's ability to meet the learning objective.  Am I being too fussy or have things changed since I did my training as I know from experience in school or education settings it was pointless doing an activity if you did not assess or evaluate the learning that had taken place. Can anyone tell me if there is a set requirement or guide for this within the private sector as surely children are entitled to some structured planning.        

by: joshuajones

You are absolutely right, planning, observation, assessment and evaluation is essential to plan for developing and supporting a child's learning. And as a student I am sure you had plenty of time to do it.

But Hey, join the real world, Nursery Nurses unlike Teachers very rarely if ever get time out to plan, evaluate etc etc, most will take work home. Most will do as much as they can to ensure childrens needs are met, and planned for effectively, and they will have to prove to Ofsted that they do it.

That said, one planned/focus activity a week does seem a little sparse, we do at least one a day irrespective of whether the child is part time or full time. We plan for B23 and Foundation stage at the moment, and evaluation of activities is usually done on the hoof as we go along.

In an ideal world all you say would be done, unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world.  

by: timmylums

Thanks for your reply joshuajones, you have confirmed all my thoughts but I just wanted to make sure that my opinion was not wrong. Time is always a problem but we are not allowed to take work home as we are told that anything containing information about a child must not leave the premises.  i do think though that more obs and planning should be done but then more time is required and then we are down to the old ratio thing again. It is definately a vicious circle in this real world isn't it?      

by: Rose

The EYFS suggests that we observe, analyse and plan from what we have seen, mostly through child initiated play, so maybe they are preparing for that, rather than planning a focused activity that may or may not be fitted to each child. A lot of activities I've seen carried out are for the NN to tick a stepping stone to say its been covered rather than to say the child has achived the relevent skills to do it independently.

Most observations can be carried out without the need for a member of staff to sit with pencil and paper at the ready. A lot of what we observe comes from day to day events, and doesnt always need to be written down. Its in our heads, we know our children, how they prefer to learn what they are interested in and we plan for that. Maybe your collegues are good at remembering the important stuff.