Self-Evaluation Practice

Improved outcomes may be evidenced in lots of different ways and the evidence gathered may be in a variety of media such as conversations, observations, photos, drawings, sound recordings, journals, logs to name a few.

Reggio Emillia speaks of the 100 languages of children in recognition that children have a lot of ways of expressing themselves and there are different ways of ‘reading’, ‘seeing’ or ‘hearing’ what they are saying. The Reggio approach captures and displays these expressions (art work, photographs, stories) providing an opportunity for children to build on their learning and for progress to be visible.

The different ways children use to express themselves include dialogue, relating to others, joining in, drawing, modelling or other art medium, story telling, behaviour, body language, movement, gestures, volume, tone, rhythm to mention just a few.

The Mosaic Approach recognises that when listening to children, especially very young children or those whose additional support needs affect their learning or communication, that a range of media will allow a more complete picture to be obtained.

Media for capturing these expressions might include photographs, sound recordings, video recordings, art work, written reflections, logs, records of achievement, star charts, and many more.

Children can also keep their own record of achievements in a journal or scrap book of drawings, photos and comments or through a regular reflective session such as making a poster, story telling, drawing or perhaps the use of the interactive mapping tool in the My Transitions Guide.

It needs to be possible to take note,whatever the media, of those expressions which suggest significant progress towards achieving the desired outcomes. This needs to be proportionate and not time consuming so that it does not interfere with the job of delivering the service.

Evaluation tools, developed by (or adapted from) Evaluation Support Scotland.