To form a clear picture of how a child's learning is developing, practitioners need to record the child's progress throughout the Foundation Stage and ensure that the record passes with the child to their next setting.
Building an ongoing profile is an effective way of documenting young children's learning. The document should include information from both the child's home and setting, be updated regularly and be used as a reference for assessment and planning.
Systems for collecting and collating the information, and for compiling the profile, must be manageable and clearly understood by all the adults involved in the process.
Reasons
A child's profile provides a central place for gathering and sharing information about an individual child. This information will take different forms and will, over time, enable practitioners to see patterns in a child's learning and to monitor and plot the child's progress. Profiles should always reflect children's play and learning in positive terms and serve as a celebration of their work and achievements. Throughout the profile, the uniqueness of each child, moving forward with their own interests and set of experiences, should be evident.
As a formal assessment document, the profile will provide evidence of children's learning as they progress towards reaching the stepping stones and early learning goals. Practitioners should use the profile entries to inform planning for the individual child, for groups of children and for the provision. Entries should also inform the writing of summative reports.
The profile should form part of the information that is passed to a child's new setting and can be viewed by practitioners there before being given to the child and parents to keep. Each profile should demonstrate breadth and balance of learning experiences across all areas of the curriculum for that particular child and, collectively, they will provide evidence of the range of activities and experiences offered to all the children within the setting.
Content
Profiles will be accessed by adults with varying experience and knowledge of the Foundation Stage curriculum, including parents. So, it is useful to include an introductory page, outlining the purpose of the profile, and an explanation of the six areas of learning and the early learning goals.
Many settings choose to start the profile with information about the child at home. The way in which this information is gathered, organised and presented will need to be agreed, but an initial home visit is a good time for parents to share useful information about their child's interests and needs with the key worker.
Practitioners may decide to design a format for recording this information and involve the child in the documenting process. However, it is inappropriate to file any sensitive or confidential information in this type of profile.
The children's learning will be documented through observations from various involved adults, including parents and carers, annotated samples of work and photographs.
Each profile should also include a summary of previous learning (for example, transition information as the child leaves the under-threes provision) and summaries of achievements at intervals throughout the child's time in the Foundation Stage.
Many settings cross-reference assessments (against the stepping stones and early learning goals) to observation-based evidence in the profile, and include an overview sheet at the back of the profile.
Practitioners may also include a tick list to help them ensure a balance of observations across the six areas of learning. With such an overview, practitioners would record each entry with a dated tick, so creating a visual pattern and highlighting any gaps.
Format
Staff teams need to decide how to present and develop a profile, but it is important that, before reaching such a decision, they are aware of the implications of choosing a particular format. A return to the principles of the Foundation Stage and a look at how young children learn may be a useful starting point for discussions.
There are two main formats for organising material within a profile, both of which offer particular advantages to practitioners in terms of documenting and analysing learning:
Areas of learning
One option is for practitioners to organise observations, photographs and samples of a child's work under the six areas of learning and sometimes under aspects within the six areas.
Often, the profile is initially set up with a page for each aspect of learning and a divider to mark the beginning of each of the six sections.
Entries focus on, and are filed under, a particular area/aspect of learning but may be cross-referenced to other relevant areas for assessment purposes. Sometimes practitioners produce several observations of a child engaged in one activity, with each observation focusing on a different aspect of learning.
The practice of identifying and recording significant learning in relation to the curriculum framework (as is needed for this type of profile) requires that practitioners have a clear and detailed knowledge of the framework and are able to draw on that knowledge as they observe. This approach can also make assessments against the stepping stones and early learning goals more straightforward.
This type of profile shows clearly children's achievements and progression in specific curricular areas and highlights gaps in learning and provision.
However, practitioners should be careful not to compartmentalise children's learning inappropriately, or to see areas of learning in isolation.
Practitioners should, therefore, include a section for long observations, as tracking observations gives a more holistic picture of learning.
Diary
In profiles with a diary format, entries are made in chronological order and sometimes organised under months or terms. This approach more easily reflects the holistic nature of children's learning as entries are not necessarily focused on one particular curricular area. However, in terms of analysis, practitioners need to have a very sound understanding of the curriculum and children's developmental stages to be able to recognise significant learning from long observations that cover several aspects.
Tracking children's knowledge and understanding in certain areas may be more difficult and it is useful, therefore, to also include overviews of observations linked to areas of learning.
The diary format has a distinct advantage over the 'areas of learning'
format in that patterns and preferences in play, learning styles, personal interests and schemas become more easily apparent over time.
Having agreed a format for children's profiles, practitioners can then make decisions about practical issues. For example, where additional pages may need to be added within areas of learning, a ring binder may be more appropriate, whereas a sugar paper scrapbook would be adequate for a diary format profile.
Some practitioners are beginning to experiment with documenting children's learning electronically. Photographs, video clips and observation notes are saved on a CD or DVD for each child and updated regularly. Practitioners should always be aware of the need to be vigilant in obtaining written permission from parents for use of photographs and video in this way.
Information gathering
If compiling children's profiles is to be smooth-running, then all staff, including the management team, need to be committed to establishing and maintaining effective systems.
Settings should establish and make clear practitioners' responsibilities in producing the profiles. They should also have in place a system for setting up a profile before the child starts to attend. This role is likely to fall to the child's key worker, who will probably be responsible for compiling the child's profile throughout the child's time in the setting. However, while this person may be responsible for maintaining the profile, they will not be solely responsible for producing all the material included. The profile should offer various perspectives from a range of adults involved with the child's learning.
Material for the profile should be collected methodically, and it is a good idea to have clearly marked gathering points. Plastic pockets labelled with key workers' names and displayed on a wall are easy to organise and should be accompanied by a list of key worker groups. Practitioners can then put observations and samples of work straight into the appropriate pockets at the end of the day, ready for the key worker to use.
Managers will need to release staff from their childcare duties and allocate them regular and sufficient time in which to compile the profiles.
Practitioners should use this time productively, maximising the opportunity by ensuring they are organised and have everything they need ready for their allotted time slot.
Contributions
From the child
Each child should feel ownership of, and a sense of pride in, their profile, and practitioners must find time to spend with the children in building their profiles. A child who is consulted over what is included, and is involved in adding photographs and pieces of work, will soon feel confident enough to suggest, 'Can I put this picture in my profile?' or 'Can we take a photograph of my model to put in my profile?'
A key worker should make time to sit with a child, support them in sticking a picture into their profile and scribe their comments about their work, saying, for example, 'That's really interesting, and I am going to write it down so that other people can know more about your work.' The children may also begin to bring contributions to their profile from home.
From parents and carers
Contributions from parents and carers are important if settings are to build up a whole picture of the child's experiences and learning. It does not matter how this information is recorded, what matters is that it is shared.
Written contributions, photographs or samples of work that are brought into the setting from home could be added by the parent with their child. Some parents may prefer to share their observations and knowledge of their child verbally and, in these cases, practitioners could scribe their comments and include them in the child's profile with the parent and child if appropriate. Cameras loaned to parents can offer a useful means of documenting learning in the home. Photographs can then be added to the profile with the child.
Accessibility
Profiles should, ideally, be kept in a permanent, accessible place in the setting and be easily identifiable to the parent and child - for example, practitioners could put a photograph of the child, and the child's name, on the cover.
It should be made clear to the children that only their own profile is available to them and practitioners may need to plan time to support children taking care of the profile. Teams should also provide a comfortable area where parents and children can relax while looking through the profile together.
FURTHER READING
* Vicky Hutchin, Observing and Assessing for the Foundation Stage Profile (Hodder Education)
* Vicky Hutchin, Tracking Significant Achievement in the Early Years (Hodder Education)
CASESTUDY Chapeltown Children's Centre, Leeds
Changing the format of children's profiles has benefited practitioners, children and parents at Chapeltown Children's Centre in Leeds.
Previously, children's profiles were built around the early learning goals and stepping stones, with each goal or stepping stone allocated a separate blank page within a child's record.
Now the profiles for the Centre's 48 Foundation Stage children are built up in diary form, with a grid at the back for cross-referencing observations with relevant stepping stones and goals.
'There are a lot of benefits with the new system,' says nursery officer Lucy Hindle, who was involved in the move to the new-style profiles. She explains:
* The diary format makes it easier to identify children's interests and schemas which, in turn, is helpful in planning future provision.
* The at-a-glance grid makes it easier to monitor a child's progress, see the overall picture of a child's development and identify any gaps in a child's learning. It also simplifies moderation and provides the child's next setting with an easy-to-understand record.
* Practitioners relied mainly on written observations, but now use photographs with almost every observation, so providing more evidence of learning for staff and a more attractive record for children and parents.
There are also plans to introduce video.
* The children can make more sense of the chronological format. They now look at their records more and enjoy sharing them with friends and parents.
* Parents were daunted by the areas of learning, concerned their child may have failed to reach the 'right' stepping stone and unsure how to contribute to their child's record. Now the element of grading is removed, parents can enjoy their children's achievements more and are happier to contribute comments, photographs and examples of their child's work from home.
* Records are proving easier to keep up to date and are looking attractive, largely due to using more photographs.
* The new profiles provide a snapshot of a child's day and a more attractive, and continuous, keepsake of a child's time at the setting.
Series guide
* This 12-part series aims to support practitioners in achieving and maintaining high-quality provision in the Foundation Stage.
* The series is underpinned by the principles for early years education as identified in Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage and takes into account the national daycare standards and the outcomes for children as set out in Every Child Matters and laid down in the Children Act 2004.
* Each part of the series will focus on a different aspect of practice, highlight key elements of good practice and offer a benchmark for self-evaluation.
* The series encourages practitioners to be reflective in their practice and to see the quest for quality as a developmental process.
* The elements of quality in early years practice are often interdependent and there will be points of cross-referencing between parts of the series.
COMPILING A CHILD'S PROFILE
10 steps to quality
1 Does your setting have effective systems in place to ensure that profiles are manageable and updated regularly?
2 Are all your members of staff clear about their roles and responsibilities in compiling the profiles?
3 As a team, have you discussed the advantages and disadvantages of different formats for profiles and agreed on a choice of format?
4 Where cross-referencing is used, are the systems clear and understood by all involved parties?
5 How do you use your children's profiles in the planning process?
6 What strategies do you have in place to encourage and support parents in contributing to their child's profile?
7 How do involve the child in the development of their own profile?
8 Are your profiles stored in a place that parents, children and practitioners can access easily?
9 Do you plan sufficient time to reflect on a child's learning with the child and their parents, using the profile as a focus?
10 How do you use the profiles to support the children during their transition from one setting to the next?