OP&L assessment system

As your child learns and makes amazing progress during their time with us, we will record their achievements in an online learning journal, using an assessment system called OPAL. This stands for Observation of Play and Learning.

Using OP&L, every 6 months, your child will undergo a Spotlight Assessment. This will be carried out by your child’s key person who will assess their development against milestones for their age. The key person will note their strengths, interests and next steps for learning.  

You can find out more about OP&L here.

Learning Journals

The Spotlight observations are recorded through a piece of software called “Learning Journals”. Nursery Staff will use school iPads to record the Spotlight observations by taking photos, video and making written observations of your child’s learning. In addition to the Spotlights, our staff will upload other moments of learning the children are involved in.  We call these Learning Stories.

By logging on using your secure username and password, you will be able to view all of your child’s observations, photographs and even video from their time in our school. Then you can look at the observation together with your child and talk about their learning together. You can add comments so that we as a staff find out about which activities your child has really enjoyed and the learning they get up to at home.

You can even add your own observations, photos and video of what children have been doing with you at home, or if you’ve been somewhere exciting.

Security

Learning Journals is a secure system, which is hosted in the UK on  servers. These servers conform to very high security standards and are proactively managed 24 hours a day. Each account has its own database and the code itself is developed using hack-resistant techniques. Filenames are encoded for uploaded, videos and images, making this a safe and secure on-line Learning Journey tool. You can access Learning Journals with an iPhone or iPad, any Android device, laptop or a desktop computer.

We will use the email address we have for you on our files to set you up with an account. If anyone is not able to access Learning Journals, we will be able to provide time for you to look at your child’s learning journal on one of our school computers; please just ask your child’s Key Person who will set it up ready for when you collect/drop-off your child.

You can find out more here, on the parent guide for Learning Journals.