How to Write 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:

·         What makes a high-quality observation?

·         Do we have to do a written observation?

·         How many observations should we do in a week or a term?

So, below we intend on discussing these questions in a little bit more depth, from my perspective as a previous manager in the early years. What was I looking for quality wise in observations? So, what does make a high-quality observation, what are we looking for? Let’s look at two examples, of observations written for the same activity and of the same child.

Observation One:

George enjoyed playing in the sand today. He played with his friends and made sandcastles. He counted stones as he put them into the sandcastle.

Assessments: Characteristics of Effective Learning – Shows particular interests, maintains attention and focus on an activity of their choosing. Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Making Relationships – 30-50 months: keeps play going by responding to what others are saying and doing. Mathematics: 30-50 months: Uses some number names accurately in play. Recites numbers in order to 10.

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.”

Assessments: Characteristics of Effective Learning – Shows particular interests, maintains attention and focus on an activity of their choosing. Personal, Social and Emotional Development: Making Relationships – 30-50 months: keeps play going by responding to what others are saying and doing. Mathematics: 30-50 months: Uses some number names accurately in play. Recites numbers in order to 10.

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 by teachers and learners to decide where they are in their learning, 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

The Why Behind World Book Day

World book day is fast approaching, with the 4th March 2021 just around the corner. I know there is that part of me that thinks, how absolutely crazy, March already where has 2021 gone so far. However, I also think lockdown, covid-19 and changes over the last year now more then ever is the time to question why? Why do we do the activities that we do or celebrate the days that we do?

In recent years I have watched world book day evolve and change more and more, did you know that world book day has been around since 1995? That is 26 years of celebrating books, but each year on year I feel the financial pressure for parents to invest in costumes, dressing up as your favourite book character. With supermarkets lined with costumes and a burden of another non-uniform dress-up day, donations accepted – don’t forget your pounds!

I remember as a child at primary school joining in world book day, the pressure for my mum as we were on a tight budget with 3 children, that meant she needed to find or make 3 costumes no pressure! I was also the easiest child ever whose favourite book was the BFG and for about 3 years in a row I went in a (borrowed) summer dress that was yellow instead of the normal blue school colour and pig tails in my hair and was Sophie.  But I see the pressure year on year on parents to buy costumes, or get creative and make you own costume – but why? Why are we asking parents to do this? Are we loosing the meaning of world book day?

So, what is the real reason behind world book day? Why do we celebrate world book day on the 4th March 2021? World book day begun in 1995 and was created by UNESCO to celebrate authors, books and to encourage young people to read and enjoy books. To celebrate those unique books, authors and to create opportunities for everyone to enjoy books.

In the UK world book day is one of the National Literacy Trusts biggest events of the year. Where we give away over 15 million £1 book tokens, that is nearly one for every child and young person under the age of 18 years old. Why? Because we want to make books available for everyone, we want access to books to be enjoyed by all, not matter your background or social economic status. All children have the right to read and share books with their families and friends. Yet in recent years for some places world book day has become a paid school uniform day, which to me kind of takes away the point and value of the vouchers altogether!

Even more so did you know that 16% of adults in the UK according to the National Literacy Trust are considered to be functioning illiterate. This is a shockingly high number of adults, imagine now if we could change this and we have the power to create change as a society. So why not start with this at world book day – rather then thinking about dressing up as our favourite character. Let’s focus on supporting children’s literacy skills to make a difference for the future generation.

Let’s invest in their literacy skills, create a love for stories opportunity to share books, as the world as reinventing around us due to Covid-19, we actually have an amazing opportunity right now to reinvent and refocus what world book day means to us, means to our setting. Whether that is through distance learning, in the classroom a mixture of both, or the commitment to putting children’s literacy first that is renewed this world book day. The opportunity to begin some initiatives that are going to make a difference to all families lives that we interact with.

Here are a few ways we can recommit to world book day and thinking of how we are making a difference to children and families lives this year:

1.       Set up a lending library or a book swap scheme.

2.       Share stories and story sacks with the children in person or online.

3.       Make a setting world book day book, with stories from the children.

4.       Make sure you have leaflets, resources and information for parents about literacy courses or support in your area.

5.        Act out your favourite stories with the children – the 3 billy goats gruff or Goldilocks. Unleash the story tellers within.

Mostly though, let us put the sharing of books, the celebrations of authors and illustrators become the centre of our world book day again this year. Now is the time to refocus and reinvent and consider what we do and why we are doing it!

By Pauline Milsted

Director of Growing Together

Our Journey into Early Years Online Training

In August 2020 Growing Together developing early years launched our first ever early years online training. Our first event was our webinar ‘Childhood Trauma and Covid-19’. I was filled with nervousness as I logged onto the online webinar platform to do my first ever early years online training. After many hours of preparation, reading and more importantly practise and talking the topic through with anyone that would listen to me. Apologies to all of those friends who are not early years focused!

Early years online training was a completely different experience to my previous training I have delivered, which has been face to face and you can read peoples cues of engagement and easily get that interaction. For many of my first webinars, I felt like I was just chatting away to myself as I could not see anyone on the other side until we stopped to do activities; this was a new and strange feeling for myself.

I was so excited to receive some amazing reviews from our first series of webinars, which gave me the confidence to keep going. Susan and I are so excited by how much this early years online training has grown and developed and we really appreciate all of the feedback we have received as we continue to develop our webinars series and support professionals working in the early years sectors.

It is absolutely crazy to think that we now offer a range of early years online training as we are continuously releasing new webinars. Did you know since that very first webinar in the beginning of August 2020 we have run an amazing 58 webinars?! Even more incredible is that we have many more planned for the new year! You can check them out here by clicking on our link to our online training on the website.

In a year that has been very challenging for everyone around the world, as we social distance, lock down and spend more time on our own. This has really opened up a world for online training, and although we miss the opportunity of the physical coming together of training and having a chat over a cup of coffee or tea. We have seen the power and value of the early year’s community coming together online in our webinars, people pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and turning the videos or microphones on. Learning a new way to work, share ideas and connect with one another. What an amazing privilege we have had as a company to bring professionals across the early year’s community together in our online training.

We have spoken to people from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Omen, Malta, India, Dubia, Australia, Finland, America and China, just to name a few places. Wow, what an incredible opportunity we have had to bring people together who have a passion and care for early years through our online training all over the world. We would just like to take the opportunity to thank you for being a part of this online training journey with us. We can’t wait to continue to develop our online training for the early years more.  

Have you filled your bucket today?

A wise friend once asked me what do you do to fill your bucket? The idea behind this is that in order to give love, compassion, patience, kindness and are all for the children in our care and our colleagues that we work with that first we have to fill up our bucket; because we can’t give to others and help others if we are always running on empty.

As we come up to the hustle and bustle of Christmas at the end of a very uncertain year with lots of challenges, added pressures and a pandemic that has certainly changed all of our lives. I think now more then ever is the time to take stock and think, how do we look after our own well-being and ensure that we don’t run on empty. Whether, that be having a bath, going to the allotment, snuggles with the dog on the sofa, a nice relaxing walk or cooking a lovely meal. How do you give to yourself and show yourself compassion and kindness?

We currently are half way through our second lockdown (we hope) and this has been a challenging time for all of us on so many different levels. And although we know that we are doing all of these things to protect those we love and everyone, it can be incredibly hard on our well-being and mental health.

Together as a company we were very lucky to get an allotment just a few days before this lockdown, the growing together allotment for Susan and myself. Today as I pottered around the allotment on my own digging and pulling out weeds and raspberry bushes which we have in abundance. I thought how blessed I am to have this space outdoors, but also how important it is to me; this is one of the things I do to refuel and fill my own bucket up. I love being outdoors and just taking it all in, going outdoors and most importantly having that relationship and connection with nature (which most of us have lost in recent years – Richard Louv calls this a nature deficit disorder).

So, my challenge to all early year’s practitioners, teachers, professionals and parents is to fill up your bucket in the coming weeks so that you can support and give the children in your care and your colleagues all that they need from you, without causing yourself to run out and run low.

Research from Harding et al (2019) concluded that there was a strong association between student’s mental well-being and psychological distress and their teacher’s well-being and psychological distress. It is estimated that in the UK 1 in 6 people in the past week have experienced a common mental health problem (Mental Health Foundation, 2020).

If you are interested in learning more about well-being in relation to the children in your care, we offer a range of webinars that begin to explore some of this, such as:

·         Nature Connection and Well-Being in the Early Years (book on by clicking here)

·         Emotional Resilience in Early Childhood (book on by clicking here)

·         Supporting Pre-School Children’s Emotional Intelligence (book on by clicking here)

By Pauline Milsted

Director of Growing Together

(Photo credit: Jeff Kingma)

Our Top Tips for Teaching Phonics

We have been asked to write a blog on our top tips for teaching phonics, so we have thought very hard about what we would suggest as our top tips for phonics. Below are our top tips for delivering successful phonics in the early years and key stage 1.

1.       Make teaching phonics playful: Vygotsky famously said “In play children are a foot taller than themselves!”. As a company we wholeheartedly believe that is true, we see the capacity (or Zone of Proximal Development) of what children can achieve extended in play and interactions with others. Although, we cannot make phonics play in it is truest form, as play is uninterrupted, child-led and without objectives or outcomes; however, we can make it playful.  Use props, toys, games, arts and crafts get creative!

2.       Make teaching phonics hands on and interactive: Young children are physical and were not designed to sit still and listen, so make teaching hands on, physical and interactive. Children need to move their bodies when they are learning and to be active participants in the process. Do activities that encourage children to cross the midlines in their bodies, we know that this has been proven to help brain development – so let’s get moving in teaching phonics.

3.       Make sure you know how to pronounce the sounds properly: Although this one might sound really obvious the way that children are taught phonics now to the way we learnt as children is probably different and it is important, we learn the sounds right. Otherwise we are going to add confusion or sounds to their writing, for example, common mistakes are things such as ‘s’ is said as ‘sa’ adding the ‘a’ sound to the end, or ‘u’ becomes ‘ur’ or ‘n’ as ‘na’. Which then becomes a problem if children are spelling out word as sun become saurna. There are plenty of youtube videos showing how to correctly pronounce sounds and it is well worth looking and using them as well as sharing these links with parents.

4.       Work with parents as partners in learning: Parents are such a valuable asset they are who spend the most time with the children and are there primary educators. So, make sure that you work well with parents, sharing with them what you are doing and learning and how you teach. Things such as doing a parent workshop, inviting them into a phonics session to join in activities, leaflets, home learning phonics bags or sharing videos/activities at home ideas.

5.       Use your children’s interests: If you follow you children’s interests and motivations you are far likely to see a higher level of engagement and learning within the activity. For example, if you have a child who is really interested in the fire service then incorporate this into your phonics activities. You could do things such as using a hose to wash of the letters in flames on the fence, or setting up a fire tuff tray and rescuing the magnetic letters from the fire with a magnet.

6.       Using rhymes and songs: rhymes and songs are so important when we are teaching phonics, they help children develop those all-important communication and language skills, extending children’s vocabulary, listening skills, awareness of rhyme and rhythm and alliteration.

7.       Teach phonics outside not just inside: Phonics does not have to be just inside sat at a table; it doesn’t have to be in the ‘traditional’ box of teaching. There are plenty of opportunities for phonics outside as well as inside. For example, going on letter hunts, mark-making in mud, weaving phonics activities into the mud kitchen and so on; the possibilities are endless.  

8.       Weave phonics activities throughout your continuous provision: Phonics activities can easily be weaved throughout your continuous provision like all areas of learning children do not learn in isolation all areas are intertwined and interlinked to one another. For example, within your small world area you can set up phonics activities such as cross the river or intertwine that into children’s play. Practice using the sounds you are learning in the mud kitchen to make menus and take orders.

9.       Observe your children and monitor engagement: It is really important that we take the time to stand back and observe children and monitor levels of engagement in phonics activities that we have set up. For example, while fishing for letter shells in the water tray, are they children focused and engaged, do they use the activity, how long are they staying at it, are they being extended to say the sounds they find, does an adult need to support the learning intention, is it okay they have taken the activity in their own direction, what learning skills and peer collaboration can we see?

10.   Reflect on your environment: I cannot recommend doing this enough it is so important and insightful to practise. I highly recommend doing a tracking observation where you look and see what areas of your environment (I tend to draw a map) children and adults are in at different intervals throughout a session. This will give you insights such as ‘the writing area is never used’ – why is that? Is it inviting? Do you need a writing area? Could it be incorporated into all areas of the environment? Is it what is to offer in that area? Or another example is, ‘tuff tray with mark-making opportunities in coloured sand and letters, used for first five minutes and not used for the rest of session’ – why is that? Was it an engaging activity, did children need an adult to model, did it appeal to the groups interests – would another group of children have of stayed longer? It is really worth doing and will give you lots of valuable insights!

Written by Pauline Milsted

Director at Growing Together

Trauma in Early Childhood and Social Development.

We know trauma in Early Childhood (before the age of six) can have huge effects on children’s development and learning. Research has shown the detrimental effect that trauma in Early Childhood can have on brain development. This blog explores the impact that trauma in Early Childhood has on social development in young children and the potential long-term effects of this.

Trauma can be hard to easily define and to think about when it comes to our children, Goldsmith and Turow (2017, p.37) state that, “A common definition of trauma is an overwhelming event or situation that we experience as potentially harmful, that exceeds our coping capacities at the time, and has lasting negative effects.” Examples, of traumatic events are things such as, parental job loss, low income, neglect, physical, emotional and sexual abuse, a horrible one of event such as a car accident, illness, bereavement, rape, poverty, legal difficulties, bullying and so on (Goldsmith and Turow 2017).

Understandably, all of these types of trauma or traumatic events in Early Childhood, are going to have a huge impact on social development. Social development is the development of social skills with others and how we form relationships and friendships with people around us. The ability to form healthy relationships can be affected by our early childhood, past and experiences.

For example, a child who has continuously experienced domestic violence in the home, may be more likely to have outbursts of anger and violence and struggle to know how to play appropriately with other children. This is partly due to the fact that the child has for the majority of their time experienced an unhealthy relationship and doesn’t know what a healthy relationship looks like.

Additionally, due to the traumatic experience of experiencing domestic violence in their early childhood they are in a continuous state of fight or flight. Fight or flight is the physiological feeling/response that we have when we feel anxious or at threat of danger – do we stay and fight it or do we run! Also, other things happen to our bodies when we are in flight or fight, for example, our brain tells our body to release adrenaline and our pulse becomes quicker, there is an increase in respiratory rate and our blood pressure increases, which all sends more oxygen to the brain which increases alertness. Our brain is really clever and when we are feeling at threat of danger, we are actually only using a tiny part of our brain called the Amaygdala. (Nina Venho).

If children are in a continuous state of fight or flight due to a traumatic event, this is going to affect their brain development as well as all areas of development such as social development in early childhood. And research has told us that by the age of only 4 years old children have developed 90% of their adult brain (The National Childhood Traumatic Stress Network). Which is why it is crucial that in early childhood we identify children who have experienced trauma and support them to help reduce the long-lasting effects. As they will not be making healthy connections and building upon the connections between different parts of the brain; while they are experiencing trauma. As well as the effect of the physiological experiences of fight or flight.

Some children and adults as a result of trauma will experience something that is called complex PTSD and attachment trauma. Complex trauma is when someone experiences ongoing traumatic events, such as child abuse or extreme poverty (Schwartz 2019, Goldsmith and Turow 2017). Attachment trauma is often related to child abuse or neglect, Schwartz (2019) states the following:

“Most often there is a combined wound, in which you experience deficient nurturance from loving caregivers coupled with inadequate protection from dangerous situations or people. Growing up within an environment of fear, chaos, or rejection, and abandonment has significant and long-lasting repercussions on physical and emotional health. As a result of attachment trauma, you might carry beliefs that you are damaged, not lovable, or that you cannot trust anyone. You might have feelings of shame, unworthiness, or helplessness. Perhaps, you feel plagued by anxiety or believe that you don’t belong in this world.”

Experiencing Complex PTSD and childhood trauma or attachment trauma, it is going to not only affect children’s current social development in early childhood; but also, may have a long-lasting impact on their social development. It can easily get carried into adulthood and impact their relationships and how they trust and respond to other people; additionally, they may struggle to keep friendships and have a variety of physical and emotional health problems as a result.

As early years professionals we know the importance of developing healthy attachments in early childhood. Children need to have developed a secure attachment by 3 years old (Schwartz 2019) and we will explore in more depth attachment, attachment styles and trauma in another blog post.

To explore childhood trauma more in relation to Covid-19 – click here to join our interactive webinar on 3rd September 2020 at 7:30pm.