Ok, coming clean: no paperwork done in last 6 months

[likelylady]

I know, I know. My first 6 months have flown by and I've kept any notes for the 2 five year olds I look after. Nothing. No plans, no observations. Not even a post-it note. Now having a panic. What can I do. Should I write up a load of fake notes? What will OFSTED say?

Did you do daily diaries? If so loads of info in those

5yos in Reception or yr 1? if yr1 then you don't need to do Obs/plans

Just start from now. Say you have looked at your practice and procedures and planned how you mean to provide for the children going forwards. You can show what you are doing and how you can develop it further.

if the child does 10 sessions or more at a alterative setting been told you can do EYFS for 4/5 yr olds but dont have to

it would be seen as best pratice

DMO - that information you have been given is wrong.
You DO have to follow the EYFS for children even in their reception year. EYFS is for children up to the age of 5, until the 31st August AFTER their 5th birthday - so basically just before they start year 1.

it is NOT optional, it is the LAW to follow the EYFS.

What you DO do, is produce EYFS related material in accordance with how often you have the child. For instance you only have a reception aged child for 2hrs twice a week - then you may only be getting an obs once a month for example, or do a planned observational.

You will be working very very closely with school and of course they will be doing the bulk of EYFS. EYFS also continues in the holidays.

Back to the OP - I agree - start from now.

Pippin, what do you mean by "you will be working very closely with the school "?

I fetch my nursery/reception aged mindees from school but that's about it. I don't know what you mean by working closely.

Sorry to jump in.

It's partnership working. We are supposed to liaise with other settings our EYFS children attend. (parents need to agree with what we are doing)

Under EYFS all EYFS settings should be working together for the benefit of the child. My interpretation of that (and Ofsted where happy with it) was that a child in school where they spend the bulk of their time - you see what they are doing, working on, specific areas of concentration and build on your planning from there. It can be really simple stuff - ie/child needs to work on letter sounds - then on the walk home you spot car registrations and sound out the letters, count numbers on doors etc.
You might perhaps have a short chat with the teacher once a term, get a copy of their planning and share information etc.

i am spoilt with my local school and nursery and various other settings - they are keen and interested in working closely and value me as a professional (just have to let them know if I have my mum or minder hat on!! lol)

I didnt know this. Im not sure as a parent that I would want my childminder going into school for meetings about my child and their progress.

Now if the childminder asked me what kind of specific areas they could work on with my child I would be more than happy to supply that information.

it wouldn't be meetings about your child as much as the reception teacher passing the CM a copy of that term's class topics so that the CM can incorporate into that term's activities, or saying at pick up, look little johnnie is still doing his B's backwards and the CM doing fun activities to help and support the development of script

Arhh i see that makes more sense. I had visions of CM having private meetings with teacher about my childs progress.

sorry cascade, I should have made it clear that we need parental permission to do so first

everything that a practitioner/s share or talk about should be made known to the parent (unless it is a safeguarding issue and we think it would endanger the child more by informing the parent).

if parental permission is not given, the CM'r can do basic stuff with the other setting such as seeing what the class is working on for that week, sharing their own planning - just nothing personal about the child.

Its all about the long term benefit for the child, however. If all the settings that the child attends are working along the same lines, then that child is getting consistent 'learning'. Just the same as a teacher saying to parent Y that little y could do with practising their letter sounds and parent doing that for the next couple of weeks until the teacher says great they know that, but we are now we are concentrating on blends. It works both ways mind - if the teacher says Y is not doing this xyz at school and the minder says - but they do it at my setting and parents say he can do it at home then surely something must indicate there is something amiss at school. Any good teacher would act upon this. And by the minder having observations they can prove that Y is doing this.

Do your clients have the option of saying "no paperwork or eyfs for my child. I just want you to mind my child and care for her, not operate as some kind of bureaucrat."?

I've heard of cms jacking up their rates because of the work involved in paperwork some parents see no value in.

It's the kind of government interference in private contracts between citizens that one would hope the coalition govt will overturn.

Luckily for me where I live the dds' cm can concentrate on minding children rather than recording observations of them.

No, even if a parent doesn't give permission we still have to follow EYFS - even doing it in broad terms.

A child shouldn't know that you are doing an obs on them - the way in which an obs is done should not interfere with the care of the child. Practitioners - even before the advent of EYFS would have been observing their charges, just not in the manner of EYFS where you need to actually record. I mind and care for children all day long, I am not continually observing them and writing stuff up, nor do I constantly take photos. EYFS is nothing different to what I done before.

I do think that because of the bad press of EYFS it is very misunderstood. I think in the main EYFS is a good thing (there are some bits and bobs i disagree with). A childcarer should know at what stage their charges are at and how to help them move forwards, they should be able to see if a concern is a potential problem. All EYFS has done is bring together the three frameworks that went before it under one piece of legislation, making it easier for practitioners. I understand why some minders have objected to it, as it was not thought that we were 'edu-carers' but times are changing and moving forwards and childminders are being recognised for the hardworking professional carers that we are.

Throughout a childs career at school, they are continually observed, assessed and expected to reach targets- but that is not what EYFS is about. EYFS is about helping children to reach their full potential, ensuring that EVERY child is being given the same start in life, its about taking it back to the 'learn with mother' at home type of stuff - the learning that was common many years ago. Well thats my interpretation of it anyway and thats how I go about it. They help me peg out washing and then they help me pair up the sock for instance. They help me write a shopping list and then search for the items in at the shop - all this encompassing social graces, road safety on the way there etc. putting the shopping away helps them learn about where things need to go and why. Like i say, my interpretation. I am not a formal learning environment by any means, i strive for a 'family' atmosphere.

sorry waffling on

I just gave a parent their EYFS folder as they were leaving

She was so pleased and touched by the details, observations and photos of her child - she said it was like giving her the child's baby days again, more precious because she thought she had missed it all by being at work

I think Obs are worth the work

yy I agree

I also feel a bit sad that I didn't do a file for my own children; the ones that I have handed on to parents have been wonderful records of the child

of course my children are much older and I wasn't minding when they were wee, I was a SAHP

ramble ramble, sorry

(tis I, BALDy)

It's nothing like learning with mother if you have to record everything and there are targets.

What are parents to do who do not want their children treated like this?

If they ever bring this crap in where I live I will have to employ a nanny who can just do nice things with my children without an ulterior motive.

It's so insulting of CMs' intelligence to subject them to this shit.

Anyone who thinks this even comes close to giving every child the same start in life is deluded. Parents who can afford it will remove their children from childcare where this ideological, prescribed nonsense is enforced.

Don't be silly, skidoodly! We don't record every little thing - that would be counterproductive.

Katymac and PedlarsSpanner are right - they are records of the child's time with us and mine are so well received by the parents that I'm making sure I do one for my own little girl. The kids love looking back at what they've done.

You are insulting our intelligence, and patronising us, by aggressively dismissing what we do as "shit" without knowing what you're talking about ("if they ever bring this crap in where I live" indicates strongly that you have no personal experience of how we're working). I don't know what targets you're talking about - please enlighten me on these mythical development targets that we, as childminders, are supposed to use.

And I'm sorry to disillusion you, but not one of my parents has removed their child from my care because of the EYFS. On the contrary, they're delighted with what I'm doing. Nor have I ever heard of a child with any other childminder being removed for this reason.

Skidoodly, my setting and many others that I know are exactly like learn with mother type settings. The children in my care have the same opportunities as my own children (who are well adjusted, well balanced, intelligent and lovely kids) and they are welcomed into my family with open arms. Every child that passes through my care is treated like the individual they are, I adapt what I do so that it suits them and their needs, each family is unique and as far as I can I will tailor my service to what they need.

If you read my post properly, I did state that I am not constantly observing children or taking photos (the children I care for do not want a camera stuck in their face all the time), neither does my paperwork interfere with the care of the children - they never know that I am doign an obs. Also, the only 'targets' that children are encouraged (note the word encouraged - helped to meet) are the early learning goals - these are ideal goals that children should be near when they reach the end of reception , helping them on their way towards what they need to know/able to do going into year 1 - so reception meaning that these 'targets' are driven by school - not other early years provisions.

Targets are set by schools so perhaps you should be directing your derision towards the more formal establishments rather than minders.

As for your comments about children being removed, in fact the reverse is true - I have two returning children in September (they left due to one parent being made redundant and anothers business not doing so well) due to the excellent care I have provided. One other parent was delighted with their childs EYFS folder and it also served to be extremely productive and instrumental in getting the child the help that they so desparately needed. Another child I cared for via social services, the file was very helpful to social services in assessing the child. School and other settings seem to value the contribution I make as well in joined up care.

Insulting to intelligence - poppycock.

Thanks everyone for words of reassurance re paper work. I will get my act together and knuckle down and do what I'm OFSTED wants and play the game. However I have to say Skidoodly, I agree with you. I hate all this eyfs stuff. For me it's an instinctive thing. I find it hard to explain. I like minding the kids I have. We do fun stuff but it just feels so false to plan activities just because they are in line with eyfs goals. Why does everything have to be measured and targetted? It's like they're not even in school and we're already trying to encourage them towards some target. Why can't we just let children be children. At least for the first 5 years of their lives. If they want to sit in mud all day, so what? If they want to sit and play dens all day, great! Leave them to it.

I've never seen any paperwork from my childminder, apart from having to sign the odd permission thing.

I don't really want any either. Not why I went down the childminder route.

I'm a childminder who thinks we should have 2 names, 1 for those who do all the EYFS and 1 for those who probably do it all anyway but without writing it so therefore are not doing formal observations etc.

I'm not totally against EYFS but for me it's been very stressful trying to find the right way to go about recording it all. I do everything that everyone else does but I'm just not great at putting it all together in writing. I started back after maternity leave when ds2 was 10 weeks old, the very same day as EYFS went live. I really really did have good intentions of getting to grips with how to record things etc. before I started back, then I promised to catch up, 2 years on and the stress is still there, I feel like I'm a rubbish childminder now as my folders aren't as fab as I want them to be. Oh, and I don't have loads of filing space for all this extra stuff, it's caused endless problems with my marriage as I need more and more in my 'home'. I did have these files hidden behind my sofa for ages which was a nightmare but I honestly didn't have anywhere else to put them. Now dh has added shelves and my lounge looks like an office but hey, Ofsted will be that bit happier so it's worth it

As I said, I'm not against it. I just think we should have a choice and parents can decide who they want to go to - surely that's fair?

Anyway, I've said my bit now!

OP - don't worry, I'm more than 6 months behind and still am not happy I know what I'm doing on paper. I've usually observed, planned and taken the next steps before I have time to write it down - so the only reason for writing it down is as an audit trail for Ofsted. Well, also it's nice for parents but the parents of children I look after say they would much prefer I wasn't stressed about it, it's nice for them to see but they'd prefer I was a happier childminder than that!

I'm pretty sure when my own children are older, I'll be much better at all this but I've had enough of pushing my own children away at weekends so I've changed recently and decided sod it, I'll do what I can and TRY and not get too upset about what I haven't done.

Looneytune, sounds like you're doing more than enough to keep OFSTED off your back. It does piss me off that to be outstanding you need to have the paperwork all in order. I do like the idea of asking parents if they want to go with EYFS.

I don't plan activities in line with EYFS - I just do lots of different things and they naturally fit into EYFS. I do take pictures of the children at play, but usually when they have asked me to, so their parents can see what they have done.

I agree with Looney that we should be able to offer parents the choice of records to chart their child's progress, or just lots of stimulating opportunities (and I think most parents would choose the latter).

Also agree with Katy that when a child left recently, her parents were thrilled with her file of paperwork showing her progress.

But that is what we do, Likelylady. Honestly! We're supposed to follow the interests of the child and be child-centred: that means letting children be children as you say. There's no way I'm forcing children to follow any prescriptive goal-driven agenda. I don't believe that's what the EYFS is about at all.