Not even started and all in a muddle!

[LauraMidd]

Help please! I am going through the process of registering as a childminder at the moment. And I'm getting myself all confused about observations, planning and learning journeys.
If it's OK I'll go through things as I understand them, and add my questions and queries. Could people please chip in and tell me if I've got things right.

OK - So as I'm going about my activities with the children I'm making observations of things they are doing and making a note of things I notice, maybe in a jotter or on post it notes. I might reference which area of L&D these are contributing to on my notes.

I'm regularly compiling these observations and noting the children's progress against the 7 different areas of L&D. I use the Early Years Outcomes to assess where good progress is being made and where additional support may be needed. Along with photographs, art work etc, these become the Learning Journey file.

I use Development Matters and my observations of the children to formulate my plans.

Questions:
Do I make separate plans for each child? Or one big plan with sub sections for each child?
Do I keep these plans for future reference, or just get rid of them as the weeks progress.
If so, how long for?
What else goes in the Learning Journey file?

Thanks, I hope you don't mind, and please tell me if I'm way off the mark.
Laura

[Rick]

There is lots of useful information in the forum's free resources section

Free Downloads

[mama2three]

Laura sounds like you've got it . We all work slightly differently - and youll find that as you go you will probably change the way you do it to suit the way you work. I know there were about 5 different versions of planning in my file by the time I had my 1st inspection!
I do individual planning separately but have seen it done with a big plan broken down very effectively by other minders - whatever works for you! Keep your planning , as evidence for ofsted , and for your own reflection too.
In my childrens LJs are everything you've described , starting points , plus any development checks ( such as 2 year check) , parent communication ....

As Rick said , the free downloads are great.

HTH

[Kiddleywinks]

Sounds good to me, and as Mama2three said, whatever way you think you're going to do it will probably change as you go along and make things work for you better.

I originally had planning for each month of the year, themed, set out, resources referenced, stories, rhymes, songs, places to go etc, to use once I became registered (had nothing better to do with my time lol)
Within 3 months of getting my first EYFS child, I realised that the way I thought, wasn't really going to work the way I'd imagined it would, so made some subtle changes over the next 6-8 months, as each change occurred it highlighted a different problem, until I decided that prior planning more than a week ahead was a waste of time for me with the children I had (not saying it's a waste of time for everyone btw, just me at that time)
I decided I was going to overhaul the way I looked at planning during my time off at Christmas, using what I had learned along the way to help me formulate the way I now do things.
Soddus lawrus, I got the call for my first graded inspection which took place on my last working day of December lol, inspector put planning as my improvement, which was fine by me as I knew I had struggled with it. She was very helpful in clearing things jumbled in my head, and my planning is a world away from how it started.
I still have my themes in a folder - too much work went into them to throw away, but they're now used for reference when a particular interest is shown rather than 'right kids, this month we're doing x whether you want to or not' lol

I also used the different methods to show how I'd evaluated and changed my practice - inspector loved that ;-)

Good luck, and use any negatives you find along the way to improve and develop

[LauraMidd]

Thank you for your replies everyone, it's good to know I'm on the right lines.
I guess in a way, the fact that there is not one 'correct' way of doing it is making me more anxious that I'll get it wrong. When really I should see that flexibility as a good thing.

I will explore all the free resources, and make full use of the expertise on this forum.

Thanks again