Observing Well: what counts, and what doesn’t

“We went to the farm and he loved it” is the commonest observation in any nursery, and it says nothing about anybody. It is a record of the trip. Every child who went could have the same sentence.

The evidence is always one thing this child did about one thing they noticed. The near-misses all share a shape — the activity is written down instead of the learning:

• I write one thing the child did about one thing they noticed, not the activity
• I know outdoors, planting and tidying are settings, not evidence

If an adult did the deciding, the record is evidence about the adult. That is not a criticism of adult-led activities — they are good — it is about what you can credit the child with.

• A handprint made by an adult holding the hand is evidence about the adult.
• Making something from a template, or to an adult’s plan, is not free exploring. A session that ends with nothing made can be the best evidence of exploring there is.
• Mixing because an adult set out two colours and asked them to is not exploring colour mixing. Wanting orange, and finding there is none, is.
• Using the materials that were put out is not choosing. The evidence is the choosing — rejecting one thing for another, and ideally saying why.
• An adult pointing out a difference between people is not the child noticing it. The evidence is the child noticing it first, and asking.
• A performance an adult arranged and rehearsed is not children performing. Children choosing to show something to each other is — no audience of grown-ups needed.

💡 Say what you set up. “After I put out the jugs” is part of the evidence, not something to hide. It lets the next reader judge what the child did.

• I only credit a child with what they chose, decided or worked out
• I say plainly when I set something up

Many statements have a near-miss that looks exactly like them. This is what the “Doesn’t count” line on every statement in the matrix is for.

• I read “Doesn’t count” before I credit a statement
• I can name three look-alikes that are not the skill

Two habits make observations feel professional and make them less true.

Reading in. Reading a mood into a dark painting is guesswork and has no place in a record. A painting that looks like a house is not representing anything until the child says it is. The evidence is what the child showed or said, not what an adult interpreted from the colours.

Labelling. “Showed excellent independence”, “was very confident”, “displayed good fine motor skills” are conclusions. They tell the reader what to think without showing why. Write what happened; the label is what the reader concludes from it.

Silence is not evidence. For “positive attitudes about the differences between people”, a child who simply never says anything unkind is not showing anything. The evidence is interest, including someone, or a question asked out loud. And when a child notices a difference — skin, hair, a wheelchair — that is curiosity and exactly what the statement asks for. What is worth recording is what the adult said back: going quiet teaches more than any answer.

• I write what the child showed or said, not what I read into it
• I leave labels out and let the facts make the point

The best moments count in more than one place. Seeing it twice means you write once and credit both — and if an area has no evidence, it is often because nobody noticed the other half of a moment they already saw.

• “All gone” at the end of snack is a child’s first idea of zero. Understanding the phrase and reacting to the amount changing are the same moment.
• “Give it to nanny” is understanding words and letting go on purpose — which is harder than taking.
• One foot per step going upstairs is one-to-one correspondence done with the legs. Children often count the stairs as they climb, for free.
• The water tray produces comparing capacity and investigating a material at once. One write-up can carry both, and usually should.
• Reading a word by sight is the same move as seeing three at a glance — recognising the whole without working it out part by part.
• Breaking a word into sounds and breaking a number into parts are the same idea. A child stuck on one is often stuck on the idea.
• Children tell far longer stories on the floor with animals than when asked to tell you a story. Small-world play is where narrative shows.

• I look for the second area in a moment before I write it up

A child struggling with something in a specific area is very often stuck in a prime area underneath it. Drilling the thing they cannot do rarely works, because the cause is somewhere else. The matrix shows these as “If they are stuck, look here first”:

• Letter formation collapses when the trunk cannot hold the body still. Look at how they are sitting before you look at the pencil — the commonest missed cause of messy writing.
• A child who cannot blend sounds is often not failing at reading, but at holding three sounds in order while somebody else is talking. That is listening and memory.
• If a child cannot produce a sound, asking them to say it for a letter tests their mouth, not their phonics.
• “Fewer” is a vocabulary problem before it is a number problem. Most children have simply never been given the word.
• A life cycle only makes sense as an answer to a why question. Without “why”, egg-caterpillar-butterfly is a list of words.
• Playing an instrument quietly on purpose is impulse control. A child who can only play loudly is usually not being defiant — they cannot yet hold back.
• Bringing two objects together needs both hands free. A baby not yet sitting steadily cannot show you that maths statement, however well they understand it.

• I check the prime areas before planning more of the thing a child cannot do

The room decides what you can see. “Return to and build on their previous learning” cannot happen if the work is tidied away every evening — leave some out. “Singing in a group” cannot be judged in a group of thirty, where one child’s pitch cannot be heard: listen in small groups. If a statement can never be seen in your room, change the room before you mark the child down.

Early signs: do not “wait and see”. Raising something is not deciding what it means. These go to the SENCo the same week:

• Hearing first. A child who does not turn to sounds they cannot see, or only sometimes, or has had repeated ear infections: ask the family whether hearing has been checked. Glue ear is very common, it comes and goes, and it is the commonest reversible reason a child looks like they are not listening.
• Babble that stops is more significant than babble that starts late.
• A child who never repeats an action to make something happen again. Cause and effect underpins nearly all later play, so its absence matters more than a delay in any single skill.
• A child who reliably will not touch anything wet, cold or messy, and is distressed if pressed. That is usually about how touch is processed, not the activity.
• A child who never shows any feeling — easy to miss because it looks like coping.

🌍 A child learning more than one language is not delayed. Ask what they do in their home language before raising anything about talking or understanding.

🛡️ Anything that worries you about a child’s safety is not an observation. Tell the DSL, in person, today — then the cause for concern form.

• I change the room before deciding a child cannot do something we never let them show
• I raise early signs with the SENCo the same week, hearing first

Each of these is the kind of thing that gets written every day. For each one, choose the trap it falls into — or ✔ It counts if it is a good observation. You get feedback straight away. Nothing is saved; this is practice.

• I have worked through all nine (ticks itself when you finish)