Our curriculum defines assessment for children’s learning as the process of gathering and analysing information as evidence  about what children, know, can do and understand. It is part of an ongoing cycle that includes planning, documenting and evaluating children’s learning. When doing our authentic assessments through imaginary play we link them to our 5 learning outcomes which gives us the opportunity to be able to gather and document information about the child using a range of developmental milestones. Our teachers use their professional knowledge to analyse and interpret the documentation gathered in order to make a true honest assessment which focuses on the whole child as a unique individual. This gives us the opportunity to talk about; what the child learnt, how they learnt and what supported their learning. Through our ongoing assessment processes our teachers capture and validate the different pathways that children take toward achieving their learning outcomes. Such processes do not focus exclusively on the endpoints of children’s learning; they give equal consideration to the ‘distance travelled’ by individual children and recognise and celebrate not only the giant steps that children take in their learning but the small steps as well. We believe it is important for assessments not to be seen as an end point of children’s learning but a tool to plan for further learning and to communicate this learning to schools and families.

At Starfish Lane Kids our observations are done on a monthly basis and our assessments are done in December and June.

Our observations focus on the growth and needs of the whole child and they are linked to the 5 learning outcomes. During our observations our teachers are present and connected with the child as it is easier to describe the process while observing the children in our care. By listening to them and taking note of what we see and hear when we document there learning through play experiences. We assess children's progress then by analysing our observations on deciding what we see and what they tell us.