Why your Early Years Setting Should Embrace Online Learning Journals

by Teachwire

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A beautifully prepared learning journal, with its thoughtful observations on a child’s development, photographs of their achievements and examples of how you’re supporting them to learn, is a wonderful thing.

It’s a precious record of their time at your setting, and a labour of love for you and your team. But, from time to time, you have to let it go, and sometimes it stays at home with the parents far too long – and sometimes it doesn’t come back at all!

Then, for the rest of the time, how much do you look at it, and is it really used for planning a child’s development, or is it more for evidencing what you are doing?

There’s no doubt that a paper learning journal is a special document, but the drawbacks in using a hard copy format mean that many nurseries are joining the digital age and turning to online alternatives.

Recording observations

Having the ability to instantly record written observations, photos and videos, then have them immediately update a child’s learning journal is one of the most attractive features of online systems.

Writing up observations, printing out photos, then cutting and sticking them in a book is a time-consuming task that has never been high up on a practitioner’s list of ‘fun things to do’.

And why would it be? They got into childcare because they love working with children. They don’t want to be stuck messing around with a printer, and you don’t want to be paying them to do it. From this perspective, online journals are far more efficient than the traditional method.

Using online journals also means that updating them doesn’t get put off. “The reality of a paper learning journal is that it doesn’t get updated often enough or immediately. The observations might be stuck in or printed out a couple of weeks after the event,” comments Laura Cook, headteacher at Wyndham Park Nursery School in Grantham.

“You need to ask yourself, ‘What are we doing this for?’ If the point of a learning journal is really about planning and improving provision then the information needs to be immediate.”

We all know the purpose of observations is to determine where a child’s development is at and what you can do to support them and extend their learning. Having all of your observations available on screen, in a searchable format and mapped against development levels allows you to do this confidently and effectively across the nursery.

Unexpected benefits

You may find that sharing an online system across your setting has the unexpected but welcome benefit of improving the quality of staff observations. Regularly seeing what other practitioners write and comparing observations is an effective development method.

Some settings allow staff to publish their own observations immediately on the journal; others set up their system so that managers check each comment prior to publishing. Whilst the latter creates more work, it does provide a valuable, ongoing opportunity to feed back to individuals to develop their observations and planning.

Parent interaction

Every nursery wants to develop good parent partnerships. Online learning journals can help you do this by giving you a shared tool to celebrate and monitor children’s development. When you publish an observation, photo or video, parents can view it through their log in, then download it or add a comment.

Dani Dew, nursery group manager for Red Balloon Nurseries in Surrey, comments, “Our parents love it. We have lots of parents who are constantly commenting and even adding their own observations from home.”

Having this type of input from parents opens up opportunities for discussion in the setting and helps you to gain a rounded view of a child’s interests and stage of development – a vital part of the planning process.

A steady feed of information and imagery from nursery can also allay any concerns parents have when their child is settling in. They can see the child is happy and engaged, rather than having to take your word for it.

The visual and written element of an online journal is also helpful for parents with English as an additional language, as Laura Cook points out: “They can take their time to read through comments, use an online translator and have time to digest the information,” she says.

“It is also good for extended families, services families and overseas families – they too can log in and feel involved in their child’s learning and development.”

Planning & reporting

Most online learning journals have planning and reporting functionality, plus access to different frameworks and curricula, but their features do vary.

Generally, you will be able to sort observations by types and age bands, giving you the big picture of what is happening in each room and helping you to home in on your provision, be analytical and inform your planning.

“We do our tracking at the end of each term,” says Dani Dew.

“The managers and heads of each room get together to review progress using the online journal data. We look at groups such as SEN, funded children, boys versus girls, and then map how they are making progress. You can also map the key groups of each member of staff. Our journal generates ‘next steps’, which are suggestions for development – these can be helpful, but they will never replace the trained eye of a practitioner.”

1. They save money! Despite subscriptions and hardware costs, online journals work out cheaper than the cost of printing and admin time.


2. It’s easier to keep an online journal up-to-date, and doing so has benefits for your provision.


3. Online journals let team members see each other’s observations, driving up standards, and let you monitor quality.


4. Connecting with parents, and encouraging their input, is far easier with an online system.


5. Monitoring children’s progress and identifying areas for improvement is supported by the ability to track different groups at the click of a mouse.