Does every Observation Need a Next Step?

[mandymoo71]

Hello All,

I am an new childminder and have been looking after a lovely little man for about 2 months. I have started his learning journal, but struggling a little with next steps for him for some of his obervations. In fact i am not sure if some of the things i have down as observations should be obs at all!! For example, I took him to the park the other day and gave him a swing. He really enjoyed it and we played a few games while i was pushing him...like saying 'hello' as he swung towards me and 'goodbye' as he swang away. I took a very cute pic of him on the swing that i would like to include in his learning journal - but is there really a next step for a trip to the park and a push on a swing? Or should i just include the picture and not include a next step? Any thoughts welcome.

Thanks very much.

Mandy

[Rick]

Hi

No not every picture you take needs to be an observation (although of course we are always observing and keeping a mental note) and not every observation needs a specific next step. This one could be to continue to encourage polite behaviour etc

[MessybutHappy]

Just as MTK said, a lot of the time were building the foundations for the next steps... If he's hearing hello and goodbye each time you use the swings, he'll probably start using the words sooner!!!
I always have many more pictures then are attached to observations!

[hectors house]

Sometimes next step could be "do it again" - as he gets older you could count the number of pushes you give him and the number of swings he does until he slows down again, every observation you do at the moment is important as you are still assessing his "starting points" and his likes and dislikes - well he seems to like going on the swing, so repeat it.

[bulldog]

I took a similar pic last week as the 14mnth old I had started to repeat "swing, swing" as I pushed her.
Obv the pic just shows her in the swing, but I added a note and link to EYFS also.

[muffins]

I do the more formal types of obs which have links to dev, what it tells me about the child, next steps & parents comments, I also do observations of play which just have links to dev and nothing else.