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Child Development for Wales - Assessments

Josie avatar
Written by Josie
Updated over 3 months ago

Where to Make an Assessment

Assessment is ongoing through your observations of the children in your care, however, you can also record summative assessments to create a general snapshot of a child's current development.

To make an assessment, follow these steps:

  • From the Journey tab of the child's profile, select New

  • Select Assessment from the drop-down menu
    Your assessment template will open for you to fill in

  • Your reference material will appear to the right.

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


Please note: you will not have the option to select specific curriculum statements.

  • You can add a photo, by clicking Add photos

  • Click Send or Save as draft

Please click here if using Development Matters or Birth to Five Matters to learn more about using these two frameworks.


Custom Assessment Options

This gives you the option to create your own custom assessment configurations for your setting.

What the EYFS says about assessing children:

• Assessment plays an important part in helping parents, carers and practitioners to recognise children’s progress, understand their needs, and to plan activities and support. Ongoing assessment (also known as formative assessment) is an integral part of the learning and development process.
• Assessment should not entail prolonged breaks from interaction with children, nor require excessive paperwork. When assessing whether an individual child is at the expected level of development, practitioners should draw on their knowledge of the child and their own expert professional judgement and should not be required to prove this through collection of physical evidence.
• Parents and/or carers should be kept up-to-date with their child’s progress and development. Practitioners should address any learning and development needs in partnership with parents and/or carers, and any relevant professionals.

When in Settings click on Child Development → Assessment Settings. You'll see a button called 'Create your own configuration'. Once clicked, a new menu will open for you to enter your choices (as below). You can choose:

  • What to call your assessment

  • Which framework to assess within

  • Whether to include age bands,

    • what those bands are

    • how many you'd like

  • Whether you would like to include specific 'assessment options' (shown below),

    • how many assessment options you would like,

    • what you'd like to call them

    • which colours represent them

  • Whether you'd like to include 'reflections' (a free text box)

Please note that if you choose not to add any 'assessment options' or age bands/ranges, your 'progress report' will be blank.

When creating your own assessment configurations, keep in mind:

  • What information you really need - and what you can leave out

    • Assessing should not take practitioners' time away from children for too long, so assessments shouldn't be too labour-intensive or complex

    • Does the information presented tell you what the child can do?

    • Does the information presented tell you where a child might need extra support?

  • The language you use to define where a child may need additional support

    • Is it clear to practitioners?

    • Is it sensitive to the child and their parents?

*Note that assessment configurations cannot be deleted after an assessment has been made using it. These can be left as disabled so they will not show up for staff members when going to create an assessment.


The Two-Year Progress Check

You can complete the progress check for 2-year-olds in Famly (this can only be done once per child). To do this:

  • From the Journey tab of the child's profile, select New

  • Select Two-year check from the drop-down menu

  • Enter your assessment in the text fields.
    Drafts are saved automatically should you be called away

Two-year checks are structurally very similar to Assessments. Unlike Assessments, 2-year checks are not included in the progress report. Once a 2-year check has been created it will appear as a fixed box in the child's learning journey and can also be found in the 'Overview' of the 'Child Development' app. If a 2-year check has been sent for review, another 2-year check cannot be started.

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