How many Obs for a child who only comes for 13hrs a week?

[Ripeberry]

He only comes for two days and on one of those days we go to a Childminder group. He always seems to play with the same things and do the same stuff. Then by the time we get home it's lunchtime then getting ready for collecting my kids and taking him home. I'm running out of things to observe with him, especially over winter when the weather was bad. I introduce new stuff but he does not always want to do it.

So in reality for the short time I have him each week, would 3 or 4 obs a month be enough?

[supermumy]

I would do 1a week one at playgroup than next week maybe at home
You can do obs on the way or eating lunch any wow moments or just spontaneous ones of things he does :)

[supermumy]

As e doesn't like new stuff that is a observation in itself and do a nx step for the following week which will give ou a observation moment for that week also ;)

[Mrsjackson]

He only comes for two days and on one of those days we go to a Childminder group. He always seems to play with the same things and do the same stuff. Then by the time we get home it's lunchtime then getting ready for collecting my kids and taking him home. I'm running out of things to observe with him, especially over winter when the weather was bad. I introduce new stuff but he does not always want to do it.

So in reality for the short time I have him each week, would 3 or 4 obs a month be enough?


Wow! Must say, in my current place of work (day nursery) we do 1 per month! I also have 10 key children to do them for. I'm wondering if its different for cm's? Is there a guideline on how many we do? Or just our own choice?

[hectors house]

I have 2 children who only attend one day a week - 9 hours & 7 hours, as they only come once I try to focus on them more on the days they attend than I do on the others to make sure I spot something new. One of them is new so I will be doing lots of obs as his starting points, the other child may just say something during the day that I can link to a number of headings in Development Matters.

[jo.jo76]

He only comes for two days and on one of those days we go to a Childminder group. He always seems to play with the same things and do the same stuff. Then by the time we get home it's lunchtime then getting ready for collecting my kids and taking him home. I'm running out of things to observe with him, especially over winter when the weather was bad. I introduce new stuff but he does not always want to do it.

So in reality for the short time I have him each week, would 3 or 4 obs a month be enough?

Could you ask mum to let you know if he does things at home? I add these to learning journey to aid planning for my ones that don't attend often. How old is he?

[sarah707]

I try to do 3 or 4 obs a month for my part-timers - 1 x home, 1 x inside, 1 x outside, 1 x outing.

It doesn't always work out like that, but I find it useful to have an aim :D

[The Juggler]

i have a child 1 x day per month (10 hours) I do 1 obs per month :thumbsup:

[phoenix2010]

depends what you mean by an observation

If a child comes to me 2 days a week then Ill do 2 obs per week , this would be a photo of them doing something with a few sentences and maybe a next step

If you mean a long descriptive planned observation then I dont really do those but I do a complete assessment on each child every 4 months

[Ripeberry]

Could you ask mum to let you know if he does things at home? I add these to learning journey to aid planning for my ones that don't attend often. How old is he?

He is coming up to 33 months. I make a note in the planning of the things he does at home. His mum is very good at sharing this and I get updates via Facebook :thumbsup: So really I suppose that I'm doing plenty.
It's all individual and and I think now I'd rather go for 'quality' than 'quantity' and make life a bit easier.