The childcare industry is a regulated activity. It operates under several different laws and regulations, all of which act as boundaries around how provisions are delivered to give a head start to all children, irrespective of their parents’ economic background or personal circumstances. Notable among the legislations that underpin what we do at the nursery include: the Children Act (1989), the Childcare Act (2006), the Equality Act (2010), the Children and Families Act (2014), and the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code of Practice (2015), amongst others. These legal frameworks enable the workings of the Department of Education (DfE), as it relates to the setting up of the curriculum framework for the early years sector, here, the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFSF 2024); and Ofsted – Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, as it relates to the inspection and general regulatory regimes of the sector.
Given that our practices are so heavily circumscribed within the dictates of these laws and regulations, and its requirements are descriptive, rather than prescriptive of what we do with and to the children in our care and education, the interpretation of the regulations and the practical delivery of it would be on the range. Where some settings could be delivering the bare minimum and some others going over and above the requirements set, in their being accountable to both the regulatory agencies and families. There are tensions and dilemmas around this issue of nursery delivery, what the requirements are and what parents want, or what nurseries will do to keep parents happy, whilst ignoring the regulatory requirements. One of such tensions is around the reduction of the key person’s written paperwork, to ensure that the staff stays with the child(ren) to offer the serve and return interaction, which is vital for language acquisition. The available literature suggests that the children’s good grasp or secure base in communication and language promotes future learning in other aspects of the curriculum. This reduction in paperwork that the key person completes is also noted to have the positive effect of reducing stress and anxiety and supporting staff wellbeing.
Below are some important requirements for us as a nursery. I culled this from the EYFS (2024) and the Early Years Inspection Handbook (Ofsted, 2024).
The EYFS (2024): 1.11 provides that when forming a judgment about whether an individual child is at the expected level of development, teachers should draw on their knowledge of the child and their expert professional judgment. This is enough evidence to assess a child’s level of development in relation to each of the ELGs. The ELGs are the level of development children should be expected to have reached by the end of the EYFS. Recorded written or photographic evidence is not required.
And the 2.2, says that ‘’assessment should not involve long breaks from interaction with children or require excessive paperwork. When assessing whether an individual child is at the expected level of development, practitioners should draw on their knowledge of the child and their expert professional judgment. Practitioners are not required to prove this through collection of any physical evidence’’. Further, at 2.3, the EYFS emphasises that, ‘’practitioners should keep parents and/or carers up to date with their child’s progress and development. Practitioners should address any learning and development needs in partnership with parents and/or carers and any relevant professionals’’. And at paragraph 2.6, the EYFS (2024) states that ‘’when a child is aged between two and three, practitioners must review their progress, and provide parents and/or carers with a short-written summary of their child’s development in the prime areas.
On the part of Ofsted, the Inspection Handbook (Ofsted 2024): provides that paragraph 91 that, ‘’Inspectors do not expect to see documentation other than that set out in the relevant EYFS. They will use the evidence gathered from discussions and their observations to help judge the overall quality of the curriculum provided for children’’. Further, paragraph 92 says that ‘’Inspectors must spend most of the inspection time gathering first-hand evidence by observing the quality of the daily routines and activities of children and staff. These observations enable inspectors to judge the contribution practitioners make to children’s learning, progress, safety, and well-being. The observations should also enable them to collect sufficient evidence to support detailed and specific recommendations about improvements needed to the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management’’. More so, the leaders (management) engage with their staff and are aware of the main pressures on them. They are realistic and constructive in the way they manage staff, including their workload, to avoid any unnecessary burdens.
Implications:
The various requirements about de-emphasizing written records, except with the 2-year-old progress check, where it is the requirement that as a nursery, we provide ‘’parents and/or carers with a short-written summary of their child’s development in the prime areas’’. Every other paperwork that the key person writes on the children in the room does not count towards meeting any requirements of the curriculum. Neither does it satisfy inspection requirements, as the inspector would observe the room themselves, to see what the interactions are between the children and adults, the children, and their peers, and between adults, to form their view on what quality of teaching and learning is. Being able to articulate knowledge about the child who is in your care and education is crucially important. To know and have this knowledge about your key child will be to be there spending time with this child. Not to be buried in your handheld tablets or completing some physical paperwork.
Our Current Practice Around Paperwork
Currently, we offer parents the following:
1. Daily Written Observation on how their child’s day has been, in addition to verbal feedback at the entrance, during collection.
2. We provide Written Assessments when a child turns 2 years old.
3. We provide a termly Written Assessment for each child and then have learning conversation meetings with parents to discuss these reports and agree next steps.
4. We provide written paperwork as it relates to Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND).
Moving Forward.
It is our wish to streamline the paperwork that we currently complete, to a manageable level and to free the practitioners some additional time to spend with the children, rather than to be writing. In doing this, we hope that the children will benefit from the additional time being spent with them now, rather than be used for writing observations; that this will reduce the staff’s working load, which will contribute to their wellbeing; and that we will still be operating within the confines of the curriculum and inspection requirements. However, we cannot cut back on daily individual observations that we provide parents, without seeking your views on them. This is why we have laid out the requirements per the regulations, which do not encourage us to write them daily but to spend that time with the children. We would therefore like to ask you, to give us your honest view on some of the written feedback that you would like to receive daily.
We are keen to receive your comments so that we can factor this into our policy change.
