Quality Observations in the Early Years

Some of the questions that we often get on our webinars we run the role of observation in the early years and using observations for planning are:

Observation Two:

George was playing in the sand today, alongside a group of 4 other children. George filled the bucket up with dry sand and T helped him. They took it in turns as they were filling the bucket. Once the bucket was full George turned over the bucket and tapped the bottom of the bucket. As he pulled the bucket of all the bucket up the sand spread out into a little pile. R turned to them and said, “You need wet sand!” George replied, “oh, okay I will get water!” George climbs down the steps to the sand pit, using alternate feet, while holding onto the fence with one hand and the bucket in the other hand. He runs over to the water butt in and out of objects and other children negotiating space. He twists the tap on using his left hand, filling his bucket up. He tries to twist the tap of but is struggling. He turns to the adult and asks, “Can you help me please?” The adult responds and turns the tap off. George smiles and says, “thank you!” before picking up the bucket by the handle with both hands and walking carefully around other children and objects with his bucket of water.

He tips the bucket over the edge of the sand pit, pouring the water in. And says, “Here you go!” Before, again holding onto the fence with one hand as he climbs back up the steps into the sand pit using alternate feet. George, T and R begin to fill up the bucket again. And George asks, “do you think this will work?” R replied, “yes, I do it with my daddy”. And T says, “you have to squash it down!” George says, “Okay, I will push it down!” and pats the sand down in the bucket with his hands between spades full of sand. Carefully, George and T tip over the bucket together. All three children then tap on the back of the bucket before R carefully lifts it off. George smiles as he looks at the sandcastle and says, “Wow! Great!” He then picks up the bucket and walks around the sandpit, reciting numbers as he puts stones into the bucket. All 3 children then begin to decorate the sandcastle with the stones George has collected. He pushes 3 big stones in the top and says, “Look I have 3 big stones!” R says, “We could stick a twig in as a flag” and George replies “Okay.”

Responsive planning: I joined in with George, R and T and we made more sandcastles. I modelled counting small sets of stones as we built sandcastles. And encouraged George to physically move a stone as he counted that one.

Planning ahead: Collecting more items such as shells, glass pebbles, fir cones and wooden numbers for the sand pit to continue to extend this play.

Setting up a loose parts tray inside with tweezers, small items and numbered sandcastle cards to practise counting small sets of objects.

High quality observations are objective, that describe the facts that are seen, free from subjective viewpoints and opinions or prior knowledge, focusing on everything within that moment. For example, observation one is subjective, we are making that assumption from knowledge we hold about the world that George is enjoying playing in the sandpit. However, observation 2 shows how the child is playing in the sand and is more objective, based on the facts and details that we can see in front of us. Observation 2 is an observation that is off higher quality.

High quality observations are relevant and useful, they provide a level of information that give us knowledge of children’s learning, development and interests, but also their stage of development. We are often asked the question of how many observations should you do a week or a term? And my response is a simple one, you should only do observations if they are relevant and useful. There is no thick and fast rule about how many; don’t get me wrong I have worked for companies over the years who have set that base amount one per child per week, or two per child per week. But over the years as a manager I learnt that there is not a universal amount, it is not about how much is in a child’s learning journey, but rather how do we use those observations to inform our practise, our interactions, environment, activities and next steps.

Some practitioners will need to go through the written process more to feel confident about assessing children’s learning and development and having that time to think about how they are going to extend a child’s learning. Whereas other practitioners need very little written record but could speak confidently to you about where a child is developmentally, their skills and how they are supporting their learning and meeting their individual needs. I think it is important to remember that all practitioners are individuals and are at different stages in our training, learning and career and we have to do what we feel is comfortable for individuals, rather than apply a universal rule. This is because when we apply a universal rule, we apply unnecessary pressure and quite often take away the relevant and useful aspect of the observations in the demand to meet a certain quota of observations.

Another important factor of high-quality observations is that they have assessments for learning. Deborah Bullock states the following defining assessment for learning,

“Students are encouraged to take an active role, become self-regulated learners and leave school able and confident to continue learning throughout their lives. Assessment for learning is also referred to as formative assessment, i.e. the process of collecting and interpreting evidence for use byteachers and learners to decide where theyare in theirlearning, where they need to go, and how best to get there (Assessment Reform Group, 2002). It is a process by which assessment information is used by teachers to adjust their teaching strategies and by students to adjust their learning strategies. AfL encourages learning and promotes motivation by emphasising progress and achievement rather than failure.”

Therefore, we are looking for observations that are positive and show progress and achievement in children. That show are interpretations that show where a child needs to go in their learning and development and show how the teacher or practitioner is going to plan for them to extend their learning and development responsively or by planning ahead that are going to help children get to that next goal or step.

Finally, when looking for high quality observations, they have consistent accurate assessments of learning. One of the traps that from my experience early years practitioners fall into especially with online learning journeys, is using the development matters as a tick box exercise and not thinking about what links you are making. Therefore, for example, one day clicking that children are 22-36 months for mathematics: numbers and then the next day 40-60 months, and then the time 22-36 again, then 30-50 months. This demonstrates a lack of understanding about where the child is developmentally, and although the development matters is not a checklist it is a best fit guide, we need to be consistent in how we are linking are observations to children’s learning. This means that when looking for quality we are looking for consistency and evidence that a child is meeting that developmental norm and we should not be clicking that judgement unless we know for sure it is a skill that a child is consistently demonstrating, but also we are considering which age band the child meets in developmentally in general as a best fit.

By Pauline Milsted

Director of Growing Together

Quality Observations in the Early Years — GrowingTogether (2024)