An important part of your role as an educator, is keeping a record of what children are doing and learning. This helps you reflect on your practice, to see how children are developing, and it helps you plan what to do next.
It also allows you to share with families about children's progress.
There’s no one right way to document. It depends what works for educators and the context they're working in. What’s most important is not HOW you document but WHAT you document and how you use your records to reflect on your practice and communicate with families and other educators.
You can keep a journal of children's activities and your observations of what they're learning. Try and link these to the learning outcomes in the Early Years Learning Framework and Foundations for Success. Your notes can be handwritten or you can use the computer or ipad.
You can take photos and videos, keep children’s work, write stories about their learning. Try and include the children's voice. Write down things they've said and record them talking.
It's good to keep a portfolio for each child. This can be in a folder or a scrapbook. This can help you talk with parents about children's progress.
It's also a good idea to display your documentation in your service, for families to see.
Remember, you don't have to capture every single thing children are doing. Just pick a few activities where you saw some important learning and development. Regularly review what you document, to help you extend children's learning.
While documenting can seem like another job to fit into an already busy day, it's a really important part of planning and evaluating. It's also very satisfying to look back at the end of the year, and see how far the children have come.