Your child’s Learning Journey celebrates his or her experiences throughout their early education. Over time, it will tell a story about your child – their learning, their friends, the experiences they enjoy and the activities they complete.
Staff watch and notice each child at play because it helps us to understand and support their individual wellbeing and development. We really get to know the children as unique people with special skills, interests, and ideas. The more we understand about your child, the better we can support them in the way that is right for them. Your child’s key person will work together with you to build this Learning Journey as a record of your child’s early years.
Throughout the year, there will be opportunities when you will be invited to look through, and contribute to, your child’s Learning Journey. However, we encourage you to contribute with activities at home that your key person has provided for you at the coffee morning. The team will update Facebook daily with what the children will have access to that day. This will give you all a starting point to talk about your child’s day with them.
At this age, so much happens so quickly, and we would love to hear about events, activities or achievements which can be put into your child’s Learning Journey. Feel free to write us a note, have a chat with a member of staff or bring in a photo, drawing or souvenir to share with us. When you tell us about your child, a clearer picture unfolds and together, we can plan more effectively to help your child’s learning and development. When children are ready, they can also choose to put things that are important to them in their Learning Journey and together we can create a wonderful record of your child’s early years. At the start of every half term, you will be given an ‘All about me – At home’ sheet. You complete this and return it to your key person. This keeps us up to date with any milestones, achievements and special events that happen when at home.
We will have a coffee morning twice a year, in November and May. These are a lovely opportunity to speak to your child’s key person and meet other parents. You can look through your child’s Learning Journey and see what topics we have covered, and what festivals and celebrations we have observed. Together with your key person, look to see where to move your child on to in the coming term. In between, we have an open-door policy that you can access at any time if there is anything you wish to discuss with your child’s key person.
These capture moments and sequences of your child’s experiences, their interests, and explorations. You can add some of your own from home. Sometimes, we will write down exactly what your child says about the photographs, so we know your child’s point of view. This is also an accurate record of language development. Pictures of important people and things from home will help your child to feel secure when making the transition between home and their early years setting. Please feel free to add any photos to the Learning Journey. You could also write down the names of family members or friends pictured in the photos, and we will then be able to talk with your child about things that are important to them.
These could be photos of models your child has built, photos of their role-play activities, marks they have made or artwork they have created. Sometimes we will add some additional notes to explain what your child did or said.
As your child completes tasks and activities, staff will observe what your child says and does. We will sometimes make notes of our observations to record information about significant moments in your child’s learning and development. These will be called WOW moments. We record important milestones in your child’s learning and use these to think about what and how your child is learning, their development and how best to support them further. These can be looked at and discussed at the coffee morning.
When children move on to another setting, we will have completed a transition form for them. This will go to the new setting and will contain information that is useful to the new setting. The child’s Learning Journey will go home for you to keep as keepsake.