Documenting for a large OSHC service

[kmcgowan]

Hi all,

Ok we are facing being outsourced as documenting, programming and planning has proven to be very difficult for the staff at our service. We cater to approx. 70 permanent children and 20-30 casual children. We have been told we have to have an individual file for each child in our care. We run for 3 and a half hrs per day. Some children are only in our service for an hr or so. We don't get extra hrs for documenting or planning.

We are really struggling with figuring out a simple way to do all the documentation that is required of us at an OSHC service.


If anyone has any helpful suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it.

[panga38]

You may want to refer to the principles and practices that underpin program provsions for school age children. The guide to My Time Our place is a good resource.

[Lorina]

Are you currently doing observations? Do you have a written program?

In regards to the program design like you said it is confusing and there are a million ways to go about it! A weekly program is probably more suitable for an OOSH service as well. You can base it upon the different areas, the routine, developmental areas, the my time our place learning outcomes etc. You could also add one column with the experiences happening throughout the week, link these with an outcome, another column to evaluate the experiences and then add a follow up. If an experience is from an observation then it could be coded. Simple and easy. I think you should come up with a few ideas and then discuss it with all the staff to see what their input and suggestions are. You should come up with a program that all staff are comfortable with and understand.

You will also need to do observations for each child which is a requirement, so their skills and interests are documented and extended upon. These observations will go into each child's individual folders. Individual obs are required more than group obs because individual children's interests and needs have to be met and linked to the program in order to meet the requirement that individual children are being programmed for etc. There are a range of methods of observing children and you shouldn't stick with one method throughout the year. Try different observation methods each month. Anecdotal, jottings, photo obs, learning stories these are all various ways of observing and to assess a child's overall development a variety should be used.

You could encourage the children to write their ideas and suggestions onto the white board. You could also encourage staff and families to do the same and at the end of the week you can use these suggestions to form your next week's program. Also don’t expect parents to write it down, staff should keep parent conversations and add any input or ideas through discussions from the parents. For example: if Kate's mum tells you that they are going camping on the weekend. On the whiteboard you could write "Kate camping- set up camping area in dramatic play". Just think if children and parents actually see the suggestions and ideas being made then they will be more inclined to do so. You can take a photo of the suggestion board at the end of the week as evidence of documentation.

All staff should be involved in the documentation process and contribute to writing of the program and the observations!

Hope I gave you some ideas...

,
Lorina

[taliahmahoney]

I know this reply is a little late and also might not be much help... But I thought I'd let you know what we've been doing at our service. At our service we usually have ~50 children in the morning and ~35 children in the afternoon. This year we've been trying to change the way we document because most of us weren't really documenting efficiently (if at all!). I think it all comes down to finding what works for your educators, families and children. I thought the best option was electronic documenting, but there were two problems with that - the templates weren't being noticed by the parents, and an educator had to leave the floor to do documenting at night... This meant that the other person on that shift was usually stuck with the extra cleaning jobs.
After trying a handwritten book, electronic documenting (which was then printed off and displayed at the front desk) and handwritten templates... I decided to try a big scrapbook. This was not the way I personally wanted to document, because I think it can sometimes look messy, confusing and be time consuming. Surprise - it's what works best at the moment for our team.
Our whole process at the moment is:
1. Every fortnight with the roster I delegate one educator each day who is responsible for the "learning story". The learning story is the handwritten text that goes in our big scrapbook (it's actually paper for an easel and is massive). As we used the ACN template previously, everyone knows the learning outcomes and how to link the story to the outcomes. We use first names and a detailed account of how the activity was received and who initiated it (educator or child). We also include the learning outcome in brackets. Anything that a child specifically displayed that can be extended on the following day (or week) is highlighted with yellow highlighter and we then list all the learning outcomes displayed at the bottom of the story. It is stressed to every educator that just because they aren't on the learning story roster for that day, it does not mean they cannot contribute. Everyone isn't really on board with this concept yet, but I think we need the roster for now because it motivates that person to initiate and plan an activity that they are responsible for.
We also include heaps of pictures and collage them together. The book is displayed next to the sign in/out roll on the front desk and parents have often commented on it lately. We use bright coloured headings and creative photo placement. This takes about 15 minutes to complete at the end of the session and another 5 to print and stick in pictures. This is completed after the vacuuming is done by the delegated learning story person (but while the children are still at the centre, the children often help with sticking things in) and while the other educator either mops or tidies up the area around the children.
2. We also have a "learning web" that is divided into two pages. The first page has separate sections for 1. Creative Corner, 2. Evaluation/Follow Up, 3. Interests/Movies/Games. It also includes the learning outcomes listed. The second page includes 4. Physical Activities, 5. What is happening? (this is an area for anything that doesn't fit into the other categories), 6. Parent Contribution and 6. Evaluation/Follow Up. We also have codes - TI (teacher initiated), WSR (weekly self-reflection), QA (quality area) and ER (educator reflection). These sheets last for a full week and we just quickly list the activities/interests that the children participated in each day and these also hang up near the sign-in desk. We keep four sheets on the board so we can self-reflect and see how the interests are changing week-to-week. I also like to jot down initials of the children interested and highlight these too, so they match up with the highlighting in our scrapbook. This is where we plan for the following week, in the evaluation/follow up. We don't like to have a set program, we like the children to be flexible. But we plan a list of activities for the following week and make sure that we put out an educator-initiated activity every session. Sometimes the activities carry on over the next few days, and sometimes they take an interesting turn as the children decide they want to do something different with the activity. We plan, but definitely go with the flow
3. From there, we also write individual learning stories for every child as often as we can. We aren't so great at keeping up with this at the moment and are still trying to find a way to make it work properly. The materials are all there - the highlighting and general learning stories - but it just comes down to having the time to be diligent about it. We probably get to about 20 children a month at the moment. We have a big filing cabinet with a scrapbook in there for every child which they also contribute to. They stick their artwork in there (which we also reflect on), often with help from us when we take artwork down from the walls.
4. The children also have a whiteboard, like you suggested Lorina, which they love using! A few months ago they ran out of inspiration so we started asking them questions relating to their current interests - if you could travel anywhere in the universe, where would you go? If you could take 5 things to a deserted island, what would you take? If you could be a bug, what bug would you choose? What's your favourite thing about your mum/dad? It worked really well and sparked their interest again.

I'm not sure how long this form of documenting will last or whether it will be efficient over Vacation Care, but trying different methods is what works best for us at the moment. I'm not worried about not having it 100% perfect 100% of the time, because it was just a few years ago that I joined this service and we had no documentation at all!!!
Sorry this is so long! If anyone has any constructive criticism I'm definitely open to it, but I just thought I'd explain what we're currently doing if it's any help to anyone else.

[taliahmahoney]

Oops... I'd also just like to add that HEAPS of parents have commented on our documenting and how bright and fun it looks. I told them it looks a lot different to where we used to display the documenting and every single time they looked at me blankly. They had no idea we were even documenting
I just wanted to also thank you for the amazing templates you have on this website, Lorina. They've been a lifesaver. We wouldn't be able to document the way we do now unless we were so used to your template.

[Lorina]

Hi Taliah,

Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us how you document at your OOSH service. It will give other educators a chance to read how documenting is being done at your centre and how there are so many variations to documenting... it's not a one size fits all approach! It's really interesting to read how you have worked an approach which suits the needs of your centre. The scrapbook is a really good idea and I love that parents and children are contributing, getting involved and becoming aware of your planning.

I'm so happy to hear that my templates has helped you at your centre!

I really really appreciate the time you spent adding all this information for others to read!!!

Thank you so much!

,
Lorina

[Lorina]

BTW - Would photos be possible??

,
Lorina

[panga38]

Awesome!