Record Keeping For Individual Children

[Ciara Smith]

Hi all, hope im asking this in the right section, but it is a queation about the regualtions on programming and keeping information from personal portfolios on children. So I am wondering does it specify in the regulations what record we must keep at the end of every year on each child? do we have to keep a copy of every Learning story and observation or is it enough to keep one from each quarter? also how long must we keep them for?? all our work is written so its not like we can save them on the computer without scanning them. so if it specifies how much we need to keep can you point me in the right direction as to where i can find this in the regulations. what do other centres keep?
thanking you in advance.

[Lorina]

Hi Ciara,

I just had a look through the National Regulations and Law and it says that "Child Assessments" need to be kept until 3 years after the child's last day of attendance.... So within child assessments I presume they refer to observations, developmental check lists, reports etc. Basically anything used to assess learning and development of each individual child.

The best way to do it, is scanning the documents onto the computer than adding it into each child's individual folder on the computer/ and backing this up onto a hard disk for future reference. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of boxes to store somewhere for the next 3 years...

Hope this helps,

,
L.A

[Ciara Smith]

Thank you Lorina for your quick reply. Just another question with regards to documentation on children who come into the centre after school. its not an after school club but in our room from 3-5 we have some children who come in after school at 2.30 till roughly 5pm. what type of documentation are we to keep on these children? some children only attend 1 day or at most 2-3 times a week after school hours so do we have to have a personal portfolio for them or what would you suggest? most of our intentional teaching is completed by this time and so would our daily journal. when they come in we have our afternoon tea and then its mostly outdoor play until pick up. i know its a very vague subject and everyone will have their opinions but any suggestions would be greatful.
Thanking You
C Smith

[grandma]

I have a question for someone. does everyone still do developmental checklists within the EYLF?

[Lorina]

Thank you Lorina for your quick reply. Just another question with regards to documentation on children who come into the centre after school. its not an after school club but in our room from 3-5 we have some children who come in after school at 2.30 till roughly 5pm. what type of documentation are we to keep on these children? some children only attend 1 day or at most 2-3 times a week after school hours so do we have to have a personal portfolio for them or what would you suggest? most of our intentional teaching is completed by this time and so would our daily journal. when they come in we have our afternoon tea and then its mostly outdoor play until pick up. i know its a very vague subject and everyone will have their opinions but any suggestions would be greatful.
Thanking You
C Smith

Even though these children are only spending a limited amount of time in care you are still required to program and plan on each individual child based on their interests, skills, abilities and development. You may continue to have a personal portfolio for these children as well although they may not be as full since they don't come as often as others. You can still add learning stories, observations and work samples to these based upon the intentional teaching you provide. Even though you are doing intentional teaching you still need to include extension of learning and interests for these children even though they are only playing outside. You can add these experiences into the outdoor program itself. Not all experiences you provide needs to be intentional teaching a lot of it has to come from the children as well...

Hope this helps,

,
L.A

[Lorina]

I have a question for someone. does everyone still do developmental checklists within the EYLF?

Yes you can still use developmental checklists as they are a form of assessment and within the EYLF a variety of different assessments can be used to gather an overall understanding of each individual child's learning and development. As long as you are also using other forms of assessments along with the developmental checklists and linking to the EYLF then I think it's fine to use...

,
L.A