Results of the Cohort Tracking Initiative

After some really tough judging and a VERY close fought contest we have the great joy (and immense pride) in announcing the winner of our first Cohort Tracking Initiative.

Over the last two months we have run a new initiative, using Cohort Tracking, to identify any area of learning in a department that could benefit from further development.

We track the progress of the Willow Cottage children in the seven areas of learning defined in the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. You can see evidence of this in the children’s learning journey.

Analysing progress is important to ensure that every child is getting the breadth of support needed. Our staff use this progress to help ensure that the weekly planning for a department is well informed and full of relevant activities.

We also use this information to track and compare various cohorts of children e.g. between key groups or boys vs girls etc. The information that we gain from Cohort Tracking helps us to reflect as a team, on the children’s learning and our provision.

The aim of the new Cohort Tracking Initiative is to strengthen the breadth of learning within a department so that the children will have new and exciting ways of reaching their full potential in all areas. We hope that all the teams will be able to see the rewards of their hard work in the next Cohort Tracking review.

The winner of the 2018 Cohort Tracking Challenge is

Farmoor Kindergarten Department – for their Bug Hotel

Using the Cohort Tracking overview, Farmoor Kindergarten demonstrated good understanding of where their cohort needed further development and could show the progress made. They maintained focus on their area for improvement but recognised a positive impact in other areas of learning. They demonstrated that they overcame the challenge of communicating with the whole team, by creating a group chat forum. There was evidence of the positive environmental impact by efforts to recycle materials. It was clear that they had thought about and researched how they would continue to develop the project further and clearly demonstrated how the project had had a positive developmental impact on the children. Well done.