Aussie Childcare Network Forum

Posted: **Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:25 am**

Hi everyone,

My name's Shane and I'm new to the early childcare world. I've been a primary school teacher the last 17 years. Term 4 last year I moved into our schools preschool and am there for the remainder of this year at least. I've also just started studying my GradCert in EC through Murdoch Uni.
I have to say it has been my best career move yet, I absolutely love preschool....BUT I am completely lost with the paperwork side of things!! I have no idea what I am supposed to be documenting, how it is meant to look and how much there is meant to be! I think I need like a EC for Dummies book!! If anyone could dumb it down just a little and explain it for a complete newbie that would be GREAT!

Thanks

Shane

Posted: **Thu Mar 12, 2015 4:41 am**

Hi Shane,

Welcome to Aussie Childcare Network and welcome to this industry!

It seems like you found your passion for teaching the little ones! LOL!

Alright so the documentation side of things gets a little confusing, especially for a beginner. The main types of documentation that is required are the following:

1) Curriculum Plan - this can either be a daily or weekly plan of the experiences that the children will engage in throughout the week.The experiences put onto the curriculum plan (program) should also have a learning outcome (EYLF) that the children achieve while completing the activity.

2) Daily Diary - this is an evaluation of the children's day. Using the daily dairy you can evaluate the experiences the children engaged in and how they achieved the learning outcome for that specific experience. You could also add any interests and spontaneous experiences that have occurred as well.

3) Observations - Child Observations needs to be done in order to develop each child's skills, abilities etc. There is no set number of observations to do but typically you do 1 observation per child.

4) Learning Stories - this is a different way of documenting an experience the children engaged in. It's not an observation its a very detailed narrative of a special event, experience, interest that a child or the group of children were involved in. There is no requirement for how many to do but I always do one when something special happens - 1 or 2 a month...

5) Child Portfolios - these are individual folders that contain the learning and development for each child. Here you can add work sample, observations, learning stories and more.

I'm also providing you with the following information:

EYLF Programming and Planning In Childcare
EYLF Curriculum Plan How To Write A Learning Story
Portfolios In Childcare
Reflective Practices In Childcare

Hopefully these articles give you a bit of an idea on how to get started,

You can also check out our Templates which will help give you an idea on the different types of documents required and you can also find completed samples...

Let me know if you need further help,

,
Lorina

Aussie Childcare Network Forum

New Preschool Educator - Where Do I start With Documenting

New Preschool Educator - Where Do I start With Documenting

Re: New Preschool Educator - Where Do I start With Documenting