Identifying children’s next steps

A huge part of the ensuring children are making significant progress in their learning and development is by identifying and planning their next steps. The EYFS places strong emphasis on children’s development and ensuring practitioners are meeting children’s individual needs in the setting. Practitioners need to be fully aware of how children are developing, this can be achieved by carrying out a variety of regular observations. Observations can be spontaneous or planned and it is important that notes are taken from these observations to help identify children’s next steps. The next steps should be linked into the weekly or daily planning, some settings may have their own system of how to incorporate them into the planning for example the key person may have their own planning that identifies the next steps where as other settings may cover the next steps throughout their whole group planning.

Identifying and planning for children’s next steps is something Ofsted will make reference to and ask how the setting is implementing  this. It is best practice to follow a simple but effective system that gives you clear and precise information on children’s next steps and most importantly ensuring practitioners are planning those next steps. In order for children to make significant progress through the EYFS the next steps will help them meet those goals and achievements.

Sharing children’s next steps with parents is very important, this will give parents information on how their child is progressing and knowledge of how nursery is meeting their child’s individual needs.

Establishing a clear system is key to ensuring practitioners are identifying and planning all children’s next steps. One nursery has created a next steps tree, the practitioner who created this wanted a visual system for her team that ensured all children’s next steps were identified and planned for. The next steps tree is a great tool for both the key person and for parents as they are able to see at a quick glance what their child’s next steps are.

How does your nursery identify and plan children’s next steps?