Developing High Quality Observation, Assessment and Planning in the Early Years

Made to measure

Lisa Sancisi, Margaret Edgington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781138808041
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317613121
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

What is meant by high quality observation in the early years? How do you devise effective next steps for young children that build on their interests? How do you ensure that you meet the needs of all the children in your care?

Offering a fresh approach, this practical toolkit offers a complete guide to observation, planning and assessment in the early years. It clearly explains the principles of good practice in this area and provides training tools to help practitioners develop their knowledge and skills and embed these principles into their setting. The focus throughout is on helping practitioners to create their own systems for observation, planning and assessment that are appropriate for the children they work with.

All the material in the book has been fully tried, tested and proven to work and the methods described can be tailored to meet the needs of individual practitioners. Featuring a wide range of case studies to illustrate how the principles work in practice, the book includes:

• Making effective observations and assessments
• Recognising the characteristics of effective learning
• Ways to engage parents in their children's learning
• How to identify next steps and learning priorities
• Dealing with barriers and maintaining quality over time

With fully photocopiable resources throughout and including downloadable training sessions to accompany the book, this is an essential toolkit for all early years managers, leaders and those involved in setting support.

1	Background and rationale

As a local advisory team in Hart and Rushmoor, we regularly review our work with Early Years’ settings, to look at how effective the work has been and how we can improve. Throughout our support work, we noted that many settings were requesting support around planning. As a result we were replicating the same type of support in lots of different settings. We knew that high quality training had been delivered locally too. However, practitioners found it hard to take messages back from one training session to make a real difference to practice and provision. We had also assessed that although settings had asked for support in developing planning systems, the foundations for this needed to be embedded in the first instance; through developing robust practice in observational assessment.

A new approach

So the team decided a new approach to training was needed. We knew that we wanted every setting to have its own ‘OAP’ expert (Observation, Assessment and Planning) who would be well trained and well equipped. This ‘OAP champion’ (yes, we did chuckle at the term initially, and no, they didn’t need a bus pass!) would need to lead others, share the training and development of skills in order to improve practice. They would need to lead ongoing, long term developments within their setting to ensure robust practice in OAP would be effectively embedded.

In order to support the creation of our ‘OAP champions’ we needed a carefully structured development programme. We wanted to deliver portions of high quality training interwoven with a variety of support opportunities. These include setting visits and support surgeries, planned to sit in between each training session. This would be the model for our project approach – a training session, then a support surgery, followed by our support visits, then the next training session.

We hoped to keep the number of delegates in each session quite low. This was planned to raise practitioner confidence, which would be key to enable them to lead change. Each practitioner needed to feel confident to discuss barriers or areas they found difficult in order for real developments to be made. The small group size would promote discussion, enable the group to get to know each other, support each other, share ideas and develop an effective working relationship with the trainer. Each setting would be asked to send a lead practitioner to the training, someone who would be in a position to effect and manage development and change.

The right trainer

Our next action was to approach a trainer. We knew that Margaret Edgington was an expert in the area who had already worked successfully to deliver training to Hampshire EarlyYears’ settings and schools; we hoped she would be able to lead the training element of our project. We needed a confident, inspirational and experienced trainer who would be able to work flexibly to directly meet the needs of the participants. She would need to help our delegates find practical solutions to their challenges. She would also need to embrace exploring issues that may arise spontaneously during the sessions. To our delight Margaret was enthusiastic and able to do this for us; and in our discussions with her, the project approach further emerged and strengthened. Margaret was able to bring her experience of training and working with schools and settings to inform our plans for the project. We decided that communication between the team and Margaret would be vital in order to shape the training to fully meet the needs of the delegates. Our session plans would be based on our assessment of the practitioners’ needs and the training programme would be flexible to accommodate this.

The project was planned as follows; four half-day sessions of training delivered by Margaret, planned over two terms. Between each session the delegates attended support surgeries where they could further discuss issues raised in the training. We ensured that during the support visits we carried out to settings, we always reflected on their OAP project developments. The information from surgeries and visits was shared with Margaret who then adapted her training to explore issues further as necessary. To keep the group size small, we offered two parallel sessions – one morning cohort and one afternoon cohort.

To fully support the implementation of the training within the settings, we decided that all members of our team should attend the training, to support their settings during the sessions. This would enable us to work with the delegates during the practical parts of the sessions but also served another purpose. We were later able to clarify, reiterate and consolidate training messages through the surgeries we delivered between sessions or one to one during support visits. We had heard the same messages at first hand and this was invaluable for our work.

The project begins

As the project began Margaret agreed that electronic versions of her training slides could be shared with the project delegates so they could use these in their work to support colleagues through training. Delegates used the slides for staff meetings and therefore shared the methods Margaret had used to explore understanding. The sessions were powerful in that they were delivered with a high level of practitioner involvement and discussions; the practical activities offered were then taken back and used in settings. For example, Margaret offered a session exploring ‘good observation/bad observation?’ The practitioners looked at examples of short observations and worked together to decide which were useful, which were not. This activity was powerful and repeated in many settings after the training.

The project first ran for the PVI (Private, Voluntary and Independent) sector only. The success of the project then enabled the team to follow this with a project for schools, which would mirror themes and the systematic approaches explored in the first project. Schools and settings would then be able to share evidence of children’s learning and achievements with a joint understanding.

A challenge to our ‘project approach’ was delegate illness, where one session was missed over the course of the training. Any delegates were signposted to attend the catch-up surgery session that was delivered by the team. In the case of a new teacher who only attended the last session (in place of her colleague on sick leave), we carried out a support visit before the session to go through the themes using the training slides, notes and suggested forms Margaret had given to delegates to support their practice.

As the PVI project was mirrored in the schools project, slightly different themes emerged and were covered: the revised EYFS (EarlyYears Foundation Stage), the revised EYFS Profile and engaging parents. The teachers welcomed a session delivered by Margaret for head teachers. This reflected the themes of the training as well as how to support their EYFS teacher, an introduction to the value of play as a vehicle for learning and the importance of child initiated play.

A summary of key points:

• we reflected on our offer in order to develop a new approach;

• an expert in each setting – someone in a lead role;

• development of practitioner confidence;

• good quality trainer, clear training messages;

• a flexible approach – matched to the needs and pace of the learners;

• reflection, revisiting and sharing;

• support and training interwoven;

• peer support;

• practitioner voice to shape the training;

• an interactive and practical approach;

• tools to share practice back at the setting;

• empowering practitioners to lead and innovate.

This publication

This publication has grown out of our project and the vision for it is to support the development of new ‘OAP champions’. It partly celebrates the achievements and the commitment of the participants through the case studies, but it also serves to support the continued development of practice in this area.

The publication has, at its heart, the content of each of the four training sessions delivered by Margaret during the project.

The first training session begins in Chapter Two; it is the exploration of observational assessment. What do we mean by ‘observation’? Why should we observe? There is a consideration of the types of observation and tasks that enable us to think ‘Is this an effective observation?’ ‘What does this tell us?’

Chapter Three explores ‘Next Steps’ in learning and development and thoughts on engaging parents. How do we find appropriate and effective next steps in learning for children? What do we need to consider?

Chapter Four considers the stages of planning and moving from observational assessment to planning for learning. The section contains aspects to consider when reflecting on your planning system – ‘Is the planning flexible?’ ‘Do we capture the spontaneous planning that takes place?’ ‘Are the learning intentions clear?’

Chapter Five is the content of a session focused on ‘The Characteristics of Effective Learning’. The three characteristics are included in the training as they are essential for practitioners to consider in their observations, assessments and planning. Practitioners, who may feel accustomed to observing, assessing and planning for areas of learning and development, will be supported to consider the characteristics alongside these. They will be supported to consider how children learn, not just what they are learning, as they observe, assess and plan for children.

Chapter Six is based on a session for head teachers. It is almost a ‘brief tour of’ the four training sessions that precede it. It is useful as a ‘light touch’ guide for other stakeholders such as management teams or committees, to share information on the underlying themes.

Chapter Seven is a compilation of case studies from delegates on the project from a variety of settings, with a range of starting points, all of whom made developments as a result of their project involvement. We are very grateful to them and all the delegates for their participation.

Chapter Eight is simply a rough guide to tracking children’s progress, followed by a ‘health warning’ from Margaret on the dangers of over-reliance on numerical data.

At the end of the publication we have offered some useful sheets for consideration and a Frequently Asked Questions sheet from Margaret.

Another useful addition to this publication is the inclusion of an online resource, courtesy of Margaret. During the project, Margaret very kindly and generously agreed to share this set of PowerPoint slides with the delegates. The delegates worked with these training materials in our sessions with Margaret and then were able to take them back to share practice back in the setting. Many used the PowerPoint slides as presentations in staff meetings to share the training with their peers and to support discussions. The PowerPoint slides that Margaret wrote and then used to deliver the training for us are available for you to download at www.routledge.com/9781138808041

We hope a setting manager or lead practitioner could pick up this publication and follow Margaret’s training sessions. They would act as a step-by-step guide to implementing a robust system over a period of time. Once systems are established in a setting, it could be used to ‘dip into’ to review and reflect on practices to maintain the quality of observations and assessments. New members of staff could use this booklet as a toolkit to support their developing practice in a team where the principles are firmly embedded.

This publication can also serve to develop practice in the field of quality improvement, through the exploration of new models of support and training. The case studies are a testament to the impact of this type of project approach, which is flexible and adapts to the need of the participants. The flexibility of the approach allows the delegates to fully participate in their development of practice, to determine the focus and pace of the training; revisiting challenging areas and problem solving as issues emerge. The training develops to meet the needs of the learners as individuals and as a cohort. Through this model we wanted to offer practitioners what we offer our most important partners – the children; that is, learning that meets their needs, is meaningful and is ‘Made to Measure’.

Happy reading – and good luck for when you run your own mini ‘project’!

The content of the training

The aim of the training was to give the practitioners attending the confidence, knowledge and skills to enable them to take a lead in the development of observation, assessment and planning practice in their setting. The rest of this section includes the main content of each of the four sessions (which was adapted and developed according to the ne...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Background and rationale
• 2 Session 1: Making effective observations and assessments
• 3 Session 2: Engaging parents and identifying next steps/learning priorities
• 4 Session 3: From observation and assessment to planning
• 5 Session 4: Recognising the Characteristics of Effective Learning
• 6 Twilight session for head teachers
• 7 Case studies
• 8 Tracking progress – a rough guide
• Appendices: some useful sheets
• Index