Mary works for a local authority to support early years settings. There can be challenges in evidencing some standards for some candidates because of the role they have and in this instance, although Mary does have a hands-on approach, leading others is the predominant aspect of her work.
Mary had to consider how her practice could show that she personally promoted children's language and communication skills. For S15, assessors are looking for evidence that the candidate plans and provides opportunities to communicate confidently and supports children to practise their skills in a range of situations, can advise on resources to support this and can lead others as well.
In her tasks Mary described planning and delivering a storytelling activity. She described setting up a storysack library for colleagues and demonstrating how to use this with the children. In this activity, Mary talks about how she extended the children's discussions and their vocabulary while sharing the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Open-ended questions were used to promote children's thinking.
Following this activity, Mary discussed the session with colleagues who had been observing to understand how the activities could be incorporated into future sessions.
In the documentary evidence Mary presented the plans for her session showing the focus on developing language skills, with annotated photographs of the storysacks.
On the tour of the setting Mary also showed her assessor the storysacks in use with the children and the way in which language and communication skills had become embedded into others' planning.
The evidence is built up from the combined picture, and although there are discrete references to this standard through tasks, documents and questions, there are other aspects of this standard shown through other activities as well.
