Glen Education St Patrick's

Noticing the Capabilities of Young Children 

Glen St Patrick's Educational Team 

‘Educators’ professional judgements are central to their active role in facilitating children’s learning. …Alongside their professional knowledge, educators draw on their creativity, intuition, and imagination, including engaging in critical reflection to evaluate and adjust their practice to suit the learners, the time, place, and context of learning.’ (P.12, EYLF 2022.)’ 

As years have progressed in our educational journey, it is evident that our observations and documentation of children’s learning is selective and with intent. You take the time to notice how the child is using their critical thinking skills to extend their learning and you gain a snapshot of that moment to capture it in an anecdote and perhaps a photo too.

As a team we chose a particular learning story which represented a child transferring their knowledge from one context/setting to another and demonstrating how they took their learning further independently.

Recently, one of the educators noticed a child singing a song as he was in the outdoor space. He was singing ‘the floor is lava’ as he was stepping on the boulders, pavement stones to imagine that the lava was all around these areas. We had been singing ‘the floor is lava’ in the last few weeks as it has been a popular request at group times with the children. The child was confidently and independently singing. 

In the educators’ observations and documentation, they could have documented on various aspects of this child’s learning i: e motor skills, communication but instead in our experience and taking the time, they were able to reflect and assess the true essence of the learning that was occurring with the child. The educator intentionally wanted to show case what the child had learnt, how they learn in a way that depicts the process and not necessarily the end result.

Our journey as educators becomes validated when we note the moments of the progression of learning and how the child or children can extend their interests and ideas with enthusiasm. More importantly in this instance, the child transferring their knowledge from one setting to another shows how children develop in their learning and take it further.

In our journey as educators, we now can decipher in deciding when observations count and genuinely demonstrate learning or a progression of learning making intentional choices about what we choose to document.