advice on next steps please

[toddlers896]

I will try not to make this too long winded.
Ive changed the way I do my observations from obs that include the areas of L&D and next steps to just a small pogo picture with a description of what the child has done. I changed it because i was doing about 3-4 obs a week on every childk and it was getting redicilous and a lot of what i was writing down was not necessary. I will only do a full observation when its a wow moment which does make more sense but ime confused about next steps now. When i did it the other way every ob had a next steps but doing it the picture way and a simple explanation ime not seeing next steps now. Ime worried there isnt going to be enough next steps now as i will only do it on the wow ob. I know i could put it next to each picture but if ime going to do this then i may as well revert back to the way i was doing it initially.

Hope ive made sense in what ime trying to explain to you.

Whats your advice on this please.

Thanks

[VeggieSausage]

The pogo picture and the wow moments are good - and from wow moments next steps can come such as Great Johnny took a step!....next steps give opportunities for Johnny to practise walking in environments inside and out. You may also make the odd observation about them being interested in something or trying hard to do something....then your next steps can flow from there too. Such as if Johnny tried to use the scissors today, you could put a photo in of him using the scissors and the next step could be to practise using them. What I am trying to day is that there may be the learning process in between the wow moments that you need to record but don't need to do too much.

Each week for each of my lo's I do:

1. An observation of what they have enjoyed playing with that week or were interested in
2. One observation - this could be a photo/ written obs/ or a piece of artwork that I put in the folder with a little observation to go with it.
3. Then I put one next step that we will work on next week

So if Little Johnny has been playing with cars this week and we are working on his gross motor skills, we may go for a walk to spot different cars, or runaround the park and pretend to be cars or play on some trikes/coupe cars at toddler group.....

[peppa Pig]

the way I've read it is that you are basically cutting back on observations that you feel don't tell you anything new, but are going to include pictures of general play in the lj for parents and child?

You wont get so many next steps this way because you are cutting back on unnecessary obs and therefore unnecessary next steps too surely?

i keep a track of what areas i have observed over a term(12 weeks) so when i come to do the summative assessment at the end of each term i have covered all areas and are firm about child's abilities.

A lot of my planning comes from what I've seen the child do or shown interest in and i mentally make a note to expand on that, some of it comes from next steps too.

[hectors house]

You will still need to do some observations without a photo - you don't always have a camera in your hand to capture a wow moment and sometimes it is a wow first word anyway. Sometimes I feel we are too soon to push them onto the next steps - if a child is happy finger painting why do we need to be pushing them towards repainting the sistine chapel - when they want to move onto using brushes as they see other children do, they will let us know!

[toddlers896]

the way I've read it is that you are basically cutting back on observations that you feel don't tell you anything new, but are going to include pictures of general play in the lj for parents and child?

You wont get so many next steps this way because you are cutting back on unnecessary obs and therefore unnecessary next steps too surely?

i keep a track of what areas i have observed over a term(12 weeks) so when i come to do the summative assessment at the end of each term i have covered all areas and are firm about child's abilities.

A lot of my planning comes from what I've seen the child do or shown interest in and i mentally make a note to expand on that, some of it comes from next steps too.

yea you have explained it great, thats what ime doing.ime doing lots of pictures so that they tell a story about the child but ime stuck on where my evidence will be for next steps apart from the occasional wow observation which will be more indepth.

[toddlers896]

You will still need to do some observations without a photo - you don't always have a camera in your hand to capture a wow moment and sometimes it is a wow first word anyway. Sometimes I feel we are too soon to push them onto the next steps - if a child is happy finger painting why do we need to be pushing them towards repainting the sistine chapel - when they want to move onto using brushes as they see other children do, they will let us know!

Hi Hector, yea i will be doing the wow obs with and without photos and will follow on from these next steps but i do feel it would be too much next steps with every small photo. I agree with you about next steps.