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Child Development for England - Observations
Child Development for England - Observations
Julia Rose avatar
Written by Julia Rose
Updated over 6 months ago


To Make an Observation

To make observations, you'll need the Manage observations permission enabled. If staff only have this permission enabled, the observations will be sent to a manager with permission to review and send.

To make an observation:

  • From the child's Journey tab on their profile, select New, then select Observation from the drop-down menu, or from the Newsfeed, click on the Observation tab.

  • The boxes above the text allow you to choose the framework in which you're working.

  • The panel to the left, called Reference material, is where you'll find the curriculum guidance, to support your knowledge of the child's development. When you enter the child's name, relevant bands or stages are offered as a starting point.

    • Currently, to see the reference material on the app, you will need to be on a tablet device (Ipad or similar, not a mobile phone), and it must be in landscape mode.

  • You can view the child's past observations and assessments for reference too, just click on Past observations and assessments.

  • You can choose to add what you'll be doing next to support the child and extend their learning, by clicking on What's next?

  • You can also upload photos or a video (you can only add one video to an observation, but multiple photos)

You can learn more about making great observations on our blog

Once an observation has been posted, you can still edit or delete it by going to Learning → Child development → Overview → then clicking on the three dots then Edit. This can also be done on the child's profile on their Journey tab, but only if you're using the new Child Development. For the older version, you will need to edit via the Child development overview.


Draft Observations

If you click Save as draft on an observation, instead of Send, you can open the observation to finish later. To find a draft observation

  • From the Status dropdown, select Draft

  • All of your draft observations will appear in a list

  • By clicking on the three dots to the right of the observation, you can choose to

    • Edit the observation (if you are uploading new photos to your draft, make sure photo upload is complete before adding any additional text content as this may disrupt the upload)

    • Delete the observation

💡 Draft observations will be deleted 90 days after they were last edited.


Approving Observations

To approve and Observation that's pending review:

  • Click on Learning in your sidebar

  • Select Child development and then Overview

  • On the panel on the left-hand side, open the Status dropdown and select Pending review. You'll now have a list of only the observations for review

  • Click on the observation you'd like to approve to open it, then click on Approve and send

You can also select a date range to filter for if you'd like to approve observations by month, for example, or you can filter for a specific author, child, or key person.

💡 Keep in mind, if you request changes or add updates to an observation, it will no longer show in the month it was created when filtering by date. Instead, they will show in the month they were edited or when changes were requested. The original date the observations was made on will still show in the Observation date column

When approving observations made by practitioners, you may wish to offer feedback before sending the observations to the child's Journey. To do this:

  • Open the observation by clicking on it

  • You can add a comment on the box to the left-hand side

  • You must also then click the paper aeroplane icon to send the message

  • Finally, click Request changes


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


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