On this episode Angelica talks to Di Chilvers, who is an Independent Advisory Consultant in early childhood education having worked in the early years sector for over 45 years as a Nursery Nurse, Teacher, Senior Lecturer, Adviser and National Strategies Regional Adviser.

Di has created an assessment tool called the Development Map, which is a holistic, child centred way of mapping children’s development and progress. She is also the creator of The Observation Toolkit, which she touches on in this episode.

Angelica asks Di - what should we choose to observe? We are constantly observing children, but what should we really focus on? How do we know what children's interests truly are, and which ones should we follow? And amongst all of the workload pressures, what and how do we record and document our observations?

Di talks about observation in action, activity based interests, 'interests in motion', a fluid curriculum, working theories and much more...

Episode breakdown:

02:30 - The starting point is observations 06:27 - Observation, assessment and planning at the centre 07:00 - Child-centred practice through the lens of observations 09:10 - Statutory duty to observe - Observe, assess, plan 10:00 - Observing during continuous provision is vital 11:10 - Should we observe during pre-prepared activities? 13:00 - Observing for outcomes and statements 16:30 - Observation in action - What does it actually look like? 18:20 - The traditional view of how we record observations 20:00 - You don't need to write all observations down 24:20 - Working smarter not harder! 25:20 - Documenting with photos 28:30 - Observations and interests informing the curriculum 29:20 - A fluid curriculum and letting observations spiral 30:50 - Learning in action boards 32:50 - Activity based interests and superficial observations 35:00 - Working theories and 'interests in motion' 40:00 - Floor books and observation, assessment and planning in action 41:40 - Children's Development Maps and The Observation Toolkit 44:45 - Can you talk about your observations to parents, your SLT and Ofsted

47:20 - Observing children is a privilege - Listening to children's voices 47:40 - The pedagogy of listening - The 100 languages

Find out more on The Voice of Early Childhood website: www.thevoiceofearlychildhood.com

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The Voice of Early Childhood

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Observing and documenting children’s interests