Observing and documenting children's interests

On this episode Angelica talks to Di Chilvers, who is an Independent Advisory Consultant in early childhood education having worked in the early years sector for over 45 years as a Nursery Nurse, Teacher, Senior Lecturer, Adviser and National Strategies Regional Adviser.

Di has created an assessment tool called the Development Map, which is a holistic, child centred way of mapping children's development and progress. She is also the creator of The Observation Toolkit, which she touches on in this episode.

Angelica asks Di - what should we choose to observe? We are constantly observing children, but what should we really focus on? How do we know what children's interests truly are, and which ones should we follow? And amongst all of the workload pressures, what and how do we record and document our observations?

Di talks about observation in action, activity based interests, 'interests in motion', a fluid curriculum, working theories and much more...

Episode breakdown:

02:30 - The starting point is observations
06:27 - Observation, assessment and planning at the centre
07:00 - Child-centred practice through the lens of observations
09:10 - Statutory duty to observe - Observe, assess, plan
10:00 - Observing during continuous provision is vital
11:10 - Should we observe during pre-prepared activities?
13:00 - Observing for outcomes and statements
16:30 - Observation in action - What does it actually look like?
18:20 - The traditional view of how we record observations
20:00 - You don't need to write all observations down
24:20 - Working smarter not harder!
25:20 - Documenting with photos
28:30 - Observations and interests informing the curriculum
29:20 - A fluid curriculum and letting observations spiral
30:50 - Learning in action boards
32:50 - Activity based interests and superficial observations
35:00 - Working theories and 'interests in motion'
40:00 - Floor books and observation, assessment and planning in action
41:40 - Children's Development Maps and The Observation Toolkit
44:45 - Can you talk about your observations to parents, your SLT and Ofsted

47:20 - Observing children is a privilege - Listening to children's voices
47:40 - The pedagogy of listening - The 100 languages

Find out more on The Voice of Early Childhood website: www.thevoiceofearlychildhood.com