Child Development in Famly
Child Development in Famly includes a number of features, such as:
Assessments and Observations
Learning Journeys
Progress Tracking, Tallies and Exports
To access Child Development:
Navigate to your sidebar and select the Learning icon
From here, click on Child Development at the top
Here, you'll be directed to the Overview, where you can see all Observations and Assessments (you can filter for each of these separately in the Type dropdown)
You can also filter for the date range an entry appears in, or the status of an observation (whether it's been Sent, is Pending review, or if any Changes were requested) as well as the Author, Key person, or Child
Creating an Observation
An observation is a general snapshot of a child's current development. To create an observation:
Head to Learning → Child Development
Click on New Observation
Your observation builder will open as shown below:
In the To: section, you can add one or multiple children's names if you'd like to write a group observation. Keep in mind, group observations are not a feature on our Free package
You can write what you have observed in the text box and can add photos or other supporting documents with the Upload button.
💡 Keep in mind, you can only add one video to an observation, but you can add multiple photos
You can upload all major video file types to Famly, including .mov, .mp4, .avi etc. Please note, audio files such as .wav or .mp3 are not supported and the maximum video file size is 1024mb.
Choose the relevant learning areas from the dropdown list
When you have finished, click Send
The observations will now appear on the staff member and child's Newsfeed, in the child's Journey tab on their profile, and in Child Development.
Observations can be edited/deleted from the Child Development Overview, the Newsfeed of the staff member that initially created the observation and the Child's Learning Journey.
Observations can also be sent from the Newsfeed or from a child's profile in their Journey tab. If your setting is part of an organisation, staff members with roles at multiple settings may find that the option to create Observations on the Newsfeed is missing. This is likely due to some settings using the older version of Child development and others using the newer version, as the older version does not support Obervations sent from the Newsfeed. Staff members experiencing this can still create Observations from the Child development tab or from the child's profile.
💡 Draft observations will be deleted 90 days after they were last edited.
Observation Notifications
Staff members will receive notifications in Famly based on the following rules:
A notification is sent to the staff member who wrote an observation when another staff member requests changes (after having sent the observation for review)
A notification is sent to the staff member when another staff member updates any of their observations in review
A notification is sent to the staff member when an observation is sent (approved) by another staff member
A notification is sent to the staff member who created the observation when the child's parents comment on it
💡 Make sure that staff members have been assigned to their key children to make sure they receive all notifications about observations in review
Creating an Assessment
Making assessments of children's learning or experiences helps you understand their overall development and plan their provision better. To make an assessment:
Navigate to a child's profile
Click on the Journey tab and click New
Click Assessment from the drop-down menu
Your assessment builder will open as below:
You can choose your configuration options from the dropdown menu at the bottom
Child Development Settings
Your Child Development settings are entirely customisable, so you can choose just how you want to observe and assess children's learning. To access your settings:
Head to the Settings icon in your sidebar
Navigate to Child development
Here, you manage your settings for:
Parent observations
Assessments
Reference material
Learning material
In Assessment settings, you can set up how you want your assessments to work. Famly gives you the option to set up your own assessment configurations or choose the preset recommended for Development Matters or Birth to 5 Matters. Your selection will be reflected in the assessment builder.
Reference material allows you to choose documents you’d like to browse through when creating observations and assessments. Creating your own curriculum will let you add your own reference material.
Finally, you can choose frameworks to add to your observations from Learning material.
In your Child development settings, you can also choose to enable the new and improved version of Child development, or toggle it off to remain on the old version.
💡 Refinements are only an option on the old version of Child development. If you don't see the option to add refinements, head to your Child development settings and toggle off the new version of Child development
Reporting
Progress report
The Progress report allows you to see an overview of all assessments. Depending on the assessment configuration you have selected, the progress report will show whether children:
Birth to 5
Need some focus
Development Matters
Are progressing well
Need a little bit of support
Need special support
You can choose the configuration from the View dropdown at the top
You can also filter for different focus points within a certain Cohort, including:
Key person
Tags
Room
Gender, and
Age
Tally
The Tally report shows an overview of how many observations have been made per learning area, for each child.
For example, in the screenshot below, Ben Phillips has 2 observations linked to Physical Development, indicated by the '2' in the PD section.
The Tally report is a great tool to help you keep track of which areas of development have been observed a lot and which may need a little more attention.
💡 Keep in mind that Parent observations will not appear in the tally, even if you've linked learning areas before approving and sending the observation