Assessment and evidence without taking photos???

[mumnosbest]

Do any of you have any great ideas for collecting evidence and assessing, when parents don't allow photos? My mindees parents are happy for me to take photos so long as I don't share them with anyone (including ofsted)

Parent/child questionaires? As long as you have a letter from parents then OFSTED can't complain i would think.

Thanks.
Mindees making good progress and I just seem to be doing so much writing to show it. It's true how they say 'a picture says 1000 words' as That's what I seem to be writing!

I think I would take photos & make a folder for them - then just explain to OFSTED that they can't see that particular folder. Then when the child leaves you can give them the folder & they can decide whether or not they want to give it to the school/nursery or not.

It's ofsted I'm thinking of. I have been taking photos as a reminder to myself of what we've done and for the parents but I don't mind any other children so Ofsted only have my records for these 2 (siblings)to go on.

would the parents mind if you blanked out faces?

might be a bit crude but would enable ofsted to see what the children are doing?

you could try taking photos of things they have done, such as craft projects, or the playground that you went to, or animals on the farm, ect. Not quite so good, but you can use the photos to add interest to written records.

Can i ask why the parents don't want you to take pics of their dc's? I haven't ever had an objection in 14+ years of minding.

Not sure exactly why but they just said they didn't want anyone unknown looking at their children, strange as they've given consent for me to display photos in the playroom and use them in children's work. I've explained that ofsted might see these and they were fine with that. Maybe I'll just have lots of photos on the wall.

I thought about blanking faces out, maybe I could do that. I also thought about photos of things they've made and done. I've got some of their hands in feely trays etc and they're ok with them. I feel a bit of a fraud taking pics of places we've visited but it's no different to writing about it, just looks nicer and is less work.

What about taking pictures without their faces in them, like if they are painting just snap hands and picture or from behind, I do this sometimes if taking a group picture which I want to put in a particular childs day book, just focus on that particular mindee and have the backs of the others in the pic DH says its easy for me cos I'm rubbish with a camera lol but it does work well and they come out pretty well, I'm sure if parents see a few picks like this that do not contain any obvious likenesses to their children they will ok them. But if not just make sure parents have signed a consent witheld form and put this into the file for ofsted, you could also lay out the activity that you are doing take a pic of that and then a pic of the end product this will prove that the activity was done.

Just thought trip / bus / travel tickets and any hand outs you got on an outing, children are often given pictures and worksheets to do from these type of places so could put these in.

good ideas, thanks atwork