CM Club- EYFS - What changes are you making/ What are you doing??

AskABustPerson - With the infrequent twins I would just do the same as with any others of that age.

An email could be full of a celebration of things you have noticed in their development since the last time you cared for them including games you have played with them, books you have read with them etc which reflect their growing knowledge and skills.

An email can also be printed out and popped into folders as proof.

If it's a long time between visits you could also send a prior email asking their mum to let you know of their current favourite activities before they come. (Satisfying both the working with parents criteria and also making it easier to plan for their individual needs).

I do still make some notes during the day but they are literally one or two word memory joggers against each child's name jotted onto a single post-it and stuck to my pc for use later in the evening.

I agree with you in that I don't see EYFS as prescriptive at all, and love the scope it gives us to devise our own systems and ways of working.

I like to work with ideas and create my own practice, and would give up if I was expected to be just like everyone else.

What a fab idea gooseegg re diaries, I found that I was scribbling away writing down things the children were doing, but thinking 'I want to be playing with them, not writing!'

I heard differing things on the course I went on, I think EYFS is not a 'You must do X Y and Z' it's more 'How about trying X Y and Z' and observations (which might be easer to do if I didn't have a diary to write too!) Also, what I found with BirthToThree was that I was doing much of the stuff anyway, and it seemed quite easy to fit what I was doing to a particular part of B23, so I'm hoping for the same with EYFS.

Having said that, I'm not going to have any regular under-5's to do EYFS with, but am wondering what to do about the set of twins who come once a month, sometimes twice, sometimes not at all in a month - Mum is a supply school teacher and I am her reserve childcare if grandparents aren't free....they're 2.5 yo so fall into EYFS age, but with irregular attendance, which is often short notice, how am I going to do it?!!!

I have included introducing jolly phonics songs and actions into our morning snacktime. I can't believe how quickly the children are all recognising letters and sounds. They don't realise they are doing it though as they are having so much fun with the actions, sounds and pictures.

I have also swapped parent's daily diaries (which took up too much caring time)for a verbal handover followed by daily evening emails which include photos and each day's observations on their child e.g. xxx picked up a yellow doll and said "yellow". Or xxx concentrated very hard on clapping to the beat of our morning songs.

It feels satisfying - as if my paperwork is now directed away from pleasing Ofsted and instead towards the people who most benefit from it ie the families.