iConnect and ParentZone at Busy Bees
Busy Bees Day Nurseries have introduced an online observation and assessment system that allows staff and parents to work even more closely together in supporting the individual learning and development needs of all children within the settings that make use of this system.
Observations are recorded at the touch of a button and feature photographs or videos of the learning opportunities that are taking place. Staff can easily link their observations to the curriculum framework and create exciting next steps to further challenge and extend the children’s learning and development.
The system is designed to reduce the amount of time staff spend completing paperwork within nursery settings and also the amount of documents they complete on a day to day basis. The streamlined approach to observation and assessment provides staff with the opportunity to focus their time on the delivery of care and education to children within the setting.
Partnerships with parents are greatly enhanced; daily feedback at the end of the day is based around the learning and development and activities of the day as parents already have direct access to the information around nappies, meals and sleeps from the ParentZone App; the App allows parents to see observations of their children as they are completed and published, they are able to provide comments on this that staff can use to further enhance the use of the next steps they have planned; this is even further extended with the use of ‘parent observation’ feature of the ParentZone App, where parents can upload their own photos and information of activities and skills demonstrated at home. Staff can then use this to make links to the curriculum framework and inform the planning systems to provide the best possible opportunities based on the most current information on children’s skills and interests.
The completion of a child’s ‘on entry’ assessment continues to be completed alongside the parents, but through the use of iConnect, presents itself in more professional manner where parent and the key person can sit with the tablet device to discuss the outcomes and where they feel their child sits within these.
Having all of the Early Years Outcomes, Characteristics of Effective Learning and the Leuven Scales featured within all aspects of the iConnect system, better supports staff use and understanding of these as they are not having to spend time looking through the guidance documents to find the areas they require.
Written by Danny Lydon, Childcare and Curriculum Advisor for Busy Bees Childcare.