What to include in children's Portfolios..
What should we include in children's Portfolios?
Representing Children's Learning Your portfolios/learning journals should show a path of each child’s learning journey, evidencing progress towards the learning outcomes. This helps support planning and ensures every child has their individual needs met. Educators are able to plan for and provide experiences and interactions as individual children show emerging knowledge and skills.
There are a variety of different ways you can represent children’s learning in your portfolios. Below are some ideas on what to include in from each child’s first day until leaving your care.
Consider including the below documentation tools and samples in your Portfolios/Learning Journals….
The Beginning Of Your Portfolio
The very start of your portfolio for a new child starting at your service should include the following...
A cover with the name of the child and a photo
Children can easily find their own book when they would like to sit down and have a look at their work.
Information for families about the purpose of the portfolio and information about the learning outcomes and what we are using them for
Information about the Educators in the Room
Welcome to the room page
My First Day/week in their new setting
An About Me form completed by families
The Next Section of your portfolio
This section should have your documentation on children's participation in your program which includes their meaningful learning experiences and relationships with others.
This includes...
Learning Stories- documenting children's progress towards the learning outcomes, including analysis of learning, future planning, family input, and reflections.
Observations, Anecdotes, all different types whatever works for you and ensures you are documenting children's learning and progress.
Photos- write a note about the photo and its reason for being included.
Notes-it is ok to add notes handwritten if they are purposeful towards the learning journey of the child.
Art Samples with explanations
Input from families
Sample of works
Summative Assessments-Mid and end of the year; Assessments of the child’s progress against the learning outcomes of the educational program
Towards the End of your Learning Journals
Include..
Transition pages to new rooms- who their new educators will be
Goodbye pages- children leaving the service and or heading off to school
Portfolios should stay at your service until the child leaves the service. This allows you to track each child's learning from their first day and helps each new educator get an understanding of each child as they transition into new rooms. Children will love to look back over their portfolios and revisit special moments especially if they have been with you for a long time.
Portfolios should be stored where they can be accessed by parents and families at any time. We have all of the pages to easily help you with this process. Our full set offer includes all of the packs above and all of our learning story pages. These packs save you so much time. Simply insert your own paperwork images and text. Allowing you more time to actually spend with children rather than fussing over paper work.
All of the above packs and more are included in our massive full set offer- have a look
at this offer here- Full Set Learning Story Bundle
