Evaluation with Children and Families
Early Years policy and practice is now more informed than at any other time in its history. Full of the knowledge and experience of the Birth to three frameworks, the Foundation Stage and a host of progressive legislation, we have travelled in the direction of the Early Years Foundation Stage and beyond. We are in a period of radical positive change where practitioners from community, education, health, private, social and voluntary agencies and organisations have the opportunity to work together to improve outcomes for children and families. Legislation may break down walls between professions, but only people have the capacity to build up inter-professional relationships. Effective evaluation depends on good relationships between children, families and professionals.
Evaluation is more exciting than just having a few people tick the right boxes. Evaluation can be neatly wrapped up in a piece of research for example that will involve children and families much more completely in the work that you do. Give a group of families a camera let them record their children’s involvement in your services; (being very careful to comply with procedures in your setting regarding photographing other people’s children). Some suggests for evaluation are:
- Involvement of parents in your services
- Effect on child development of involvement in activities.
- Partnership working
Be creative with your research tools, use photographs, children’s drawing, audio recordings, journals and so on to make your evaluation more reliable and more interesting for children and families. Plus, when you come to publish your work you will already have visuals to make the presentation more appealing.
Rather than making extra work, such a study potentially reduces workload by eliminating monitoring and evaluation duplication. Finally, all those involved in the study can expect to benefit from increased self-understanding - which in turn helps build relationships.
“Photographs, film, video, diagrams, maps, drawing and paintings are powerful shapers of our self-understanding.”
Griffiths, Windle and Simms (2006)
Margaret Simms M. Ed., Cert. Ed.
ProCEEd Early Years Consultant
GRIFFITHS, M., WINDLE, J. and SIMMS, M., 2006. "That's what I am here for": Images of working lives of academic and support staff in Self-Study and Diversity Tidwell, D. and Fitzgerald, L. (Eds). Sense Publishers
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