Aussie Childcare Network Forum

Hi everyone,

I have been reading through the forums and I would love to hear anyones input on this

Bascially the EYLF paper work we are using at work is a bit of a trial and error. A new room leader has started to the centre and she has good experience in the EYLF program and now we have changed some things around.

We are doing learning stories which are bascially the child's observation. The learning stories are based on the children's interests. If a child is discussed in the learning story then that page of the learning story is then photocopied and then filed into the child's portfolio. I understand how the learning story works but I just find it confusing that other children may be discussed in the learning story as well eg, the learning story might start off with Oscar exploring with the sea creatures.. blah blah and then the learning story will continue and start talking about other children doing fish and dolphin paintings. I don't think its okay to copy and file the entire learning story into Oscar's file when it may be talking about other children. But this is what we have been doing. We aren't using observation codes but we are using learning outcome codes. SO for example, an activity may be on group time and the children may be learning about sea creatures. Educator Megan reads a story called "Under the Sea". Oscar helps Megan name the creatures "fish", "turtle", etc. Ryker points to the pictures in the story with enthusiam and Emily babbles as she looks at the pictures in the story. The outcome I have made for this would be Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators, I. Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes. This is evident as the children engage in enjoyable interactions using verbal and non-verbal language. My code for this would be L05.1.1
Learning stories are to be evaluated as well once we have completed one.

We also have a daily diary which is the program and we have a daily plan that we have to fill in each day with photos. an activity has to go into each learning outcome with a code. We then evaluate the the program for the week basing it on the educators practices eg, intentional teaching, responsiveness to children, etc.

I am still yet to figure out where the Principles fit in all this???


If anyone can tell me what they think about this set up then I would love your input.

Also ONE more thing. I find it hard doing learning stories for 1 year olds. It seems to be quite teacher directed by setting activties and seeing what activities children are drawn to. I've tried to give children more choices and ideas but some times it can be hard with limited of resources and it feels that the children need encouragement to play or direction.

Hi

This topic help me a lot in developing my project. I will contribute more when I finished it.

You will find that many learning experiences don't just happen for one child at a time and that learning is actually enhanced by the interactions between children and how they work things out together. I find with my pre-schoolers that I have a mixture of individual learning stories and group learning stories. I see no problems with having different children's names in the learning stories. I'm sure you have names displayed around your room and that many parents would know the other children's names anyway. Hopefully you wouldn't be saying anything negative about a child in a learning story or if you did you would phrase it in a positive way eg: Harry is still learning to reach for toys with gentle hands. As a parent myself I think it would be interesting to know who my child was interacting/learning with and it would make for great memories in the years to come.