Improving the use of ICT in Foundation Stage case study: Oxfordshire

Case study evidence 4: From a large nursery, with mixed experience amongst the practitioners in using ICT

• Date: Feb 2007
• Focus: Using ICT to capture children’s learning in order to plan the next steps for children, and to record the learning in a format that can be shared with practitioners, parents and other professionals.
• Number in series: 14
• Phase: Early Years
• Key stage: Foundation Stage
• Local authority: Oxfordshire

The practitioner leading the project in this setting was already quite confident in her own use of ICT and could really see the benefits of using digital video to support assessment practices. However other practitioners working at the setting were generally much less confident in their use of ICT. Similar to the practitioner in the other nursery (see case study 3), the practitioner leading the project was very clear about how she hoped to use the video clips that had been taken.

The practitioner was using Philosophy for Children materials during circle time and wanted to explore how this impacted on children’s learning. Two practitioners at the setting took video clips of the circle time sessions. Through reviewing and discussing the clips the practitioners directly involved in the circle time sessions felt that they were able to develop their own practice in leading the circle time sessions to scaffold children’s learning further and involve disengaged children.

The practitioner planned to use the video clips of circle time during INSET sessions with other practitioners, to demonstrate to all practitioners how these sessions should be managed and through sharing good practice raise their expectations of children’s learning.

Observations of videoing circle time sessions enabled me to see how the video clips provided opportunities for making observations of all children, which is not possible during live observations.

Children in this setting and a Reception/Year 1 (see case study 2) class took part in two video conferences with each other, to share songs and nursery rhymes and to talk about what they had been doing in their respective settings. The two settings contrasted in their environments – one a large city nursery, the other a small village school. The practitioners in the two settings are very keen to continue this relationship and develop their video conferences with each other, particularly to share different environmental and cultural experiences.

Despite sound problems during the first session, practitioners in both settings felt very positive about the experience and said that having an audience for the pupils of children was particularly powerful in developing children’s speaking and listening skills.