Why use a cohort tracker?
The words cohort tracker often causes confusion for early years practitioners with many not knowing what a cohort tracker is and assuming it is a tool used by management. However, cohort trackers are simply the tracking tools used by all early years professional to track each child’s development in all seven areas of the EYFS. These are often completed on a termly or four monthly basis. These usually break down the seven areas and allow practitioners to track a child’s development as to emerging, consolidating and secure in each area. Settings often have their own version depending on whether they have created their own or use one recommended by their local authority.
These are an Ofsted requirement. All too often practitioners get caught up in completing large amounts of paperwork and do not make full use of the results found from completing the cohort trackers. Analysing each cohort tracker is vital to ensure every child is getting the support they need and to identify if a child is showing signs of delay or regression in an area of development.
A cohort tracker is critical for highlighting individuals needs and to ensure that the weekly planning is well informed fully of relevant activities that are challenging yet achievable. Ofsted often wants to see how each child is being supported and how individual needs are met. By directing them to the completed cohort tracker is the perfect way to evidence how you have identified children’s individual needs.
Many settings choose to add a next steps box on the end of their cohort trackers to show what steps will be put in place to promote development and learning. These next step boxes mean the data gathered in the cohort tracker will only need to be analysed once as the next step box can be checked instead of having to review all the data. These next steps can then be added to weekly planning along with that child’s initials to provide evidence of how each child is being seen as an individual and individually supported along with group activities.
It is also often useful to inform parents of what is found in the cohort tracker. This is a good way to strengthen parent partnerships and to create a joint expectation with the parent of what the child should be achieving next. Settings may choose to add a parent/carer comment box to allow for parents to detail any developmental concerns they have or anything which the child is displaying at home but hasn’t yet been observed in the setting. This gives a clearer picture of the child’s overall development and means practitioners can look out for specific behaviours in the environment that are seen at home.
If when you complete the tracking, you can see that many children in your key group have a similar weakness for example in mathematics, this may show that you need to complete more activities around this area. You may also use this to look at what resources you have available and whether you need to add or change the room layout to allow the children to develop in this area more efficiently.
Some top tips for completing a cohort tracker –
- Use observations to support your tracking and to ensure you are accurately marking a child’s level of development.
- Add a parent comments box
- Add a next steps box, so the data only needs to be analysed once to inform planning and any areas of concern or weakness
- Use the cohort tracker to identify group weaknesses and use this to review the room layout, resources and activities that are available. Are you offering enough to support the children entirely?
- Add any next steps to weekly planning
- A cohort tracker will provide practitioners and even management with a range of information; they may be used to identify the progress made by disadvantaged children or children with SEND. To create an efficient cohort tracker think about what information you would like to gather from this.