Observation, assessment and your child’s learning journey at the Plymouth Nursery Schools Federation

At the Plymouth Nursery School Federation we use the OPAL model of observation and assessment. OPAL stands for ‘Observation of Play and Learning’ and was developed by the Barnet Early Years Alliance.

We strongly believe that children learn best when they have a sensitive adult available to support and develop their play. We will not spend unnecessary amounts of time writing observations or gathering evidence of children’s learning. We believe that if we are capturing the moment, we cannot be part of the moment.

We limit our observations to significant moments in a child’s development and use the observations we make to inform our everyday practice and shape our curriculum. By gaining an insight into children’s thinking, feelings and needs we can plan our environment and actions to provide future possibilities for learning.

Observation of Play and Learning (OPAL)

Your child’s learning will be closely monitored in collaboration with you to ensure they are supported to reach significant milestones for their age.

OPAL works on the basis of having very simple, six-monthly child developmental milestones, which we use to monitor children’s development. These milestones reflect what we believe a ‘typical’ child, should be able to achieve. We know that not all children will have ‘typical’ development. OPAL allows us to tell and celebrate each child’s story and focus on the support they need from us.

The observations and assessments that we make are called ‘spotlights’.

OPAL follows a simple, three step cycle:

What you can expect

There will be many opportunities throughout the year for us to come together to talk about your child and their learning. These include:

New Children/Taster Session: Prior to starting at nursery you will be invited to attend an open play/taster session alongside your child. This is a great opportunity to get to know the nursery and meet some of the staff involved in your child’s care.

Settling in: During your child’s first term at nursery we will meet informally with you to discuss how your child has settled and look together at their initial ‘spotlight’ assessment.

Open Play Sessions: We will hold an open play session for children and parents throughout the year. This will give you the opportunity to come in, have a look around and talk with your child’s key person. Each play session focuses on a different aspect of the Early Years curriculum and aims to give you some good ideas to extend learning at home.

Spotlight: Each child will have two ‘spotlight’ points in the year. We will meet with you to discuss these assessments and talk about what we can do together to further support your child’s learning at nursery and at home.

In addition to these regular meetings you can also arrange a more formal meeting with your child’s Key Person or the setting SENCO if you would like to discuss any aspect of your child’s learning, development or well-being. You can arrange this by talking with your child’s Key Person.

Your child’s learning journey

Every child is allocated a personal portfolio on our class Dojo platform. This is a secure space where staff will upload any photos, videos and observations of significant moments in nursery so that you can see what your child has been learning about. You are able to comment on these and we would encourage you to add your own photos and significant moments in your child’s development. It is great for us to see and hear about what has been happening at home as it enables us to follow up on this learning in the nursery.

You will be given your personal Dojo login and sign up instructions when your child starts with us. You are able to access Dojo via the Dojo website or by downloading the app.

You can view the full list of OPAL milestone by clicking on the link below: