Early learning and childcare quality indicators: Playing, learning and developing

'Very good' children’s engagement

We have a strong understanding of how children develop, learn and progress. Our staff skilfully use relevant theory and practice to support their delivery of high-quality play experiences that excite and engage children as they learn. Children are successful, responsible and confident in their play as a result of the high-quality experiences we offer. They are highly motivated and fully engaged by the range of rich, challenging, planned and responsive experiences both indoors and outdoors.

Well-considered innovations and creative approaches successfully engage children’s imagination and enrich their play and learning. A broad range of skills, including language, literacy, and numeracy, are enhanced through a balance of child and adult-led interactions, and playful experiences. Additionally, consideration is given to how children can deepen their learning with and through digital technology.

We work effectively with families to support their understanding of the benefits to children of play-based learning experiences which challenge and delight them. This collaborative approach fosters the development of trust and cooperation, which supports children’s wellbeing and development and gives them opportunities to flourish.

Children make informed choices about their play and learning within a creative, challenging and enabling environment. We give them the time, space and support they need to make decisions and use their voice. We are skilled at using high-quality interactions, spaces and experiences to extend and sustain children’s interests.

'Weak' children’s engagement

Children have limited opportunities to lead their play. This restricts their learning and development. There is little to challenge or ignite children’s imagination and curiosity, or to encourage them to explore their ideas.

Our understanding of child-led play is underdeveloped. Children’s individual development needs and their interests are not reflected within interactions, experiences and spaces. As a result, children are not engaged. They miss opportunities to learn, build confidence and make choices. Children therefore lack interest and motivation and may experience boredom, upset or frustration.

Children have few opportunities to access and engage with their own or wider communities. This limits access to a wide range of resources and experiences to enhance their play and development opportunities.

'Very good' quality of interactions

Careful observation allows us to interpret children’s interests and provide opportunities to extend their thinking without directing their play. We use a variety of approaches to respond to children’s cues to support development of self-regulation, empathy, confidence, creativity and curiosity.

Responsive and caring interactions support the development of communication, language, movement and social development through effective modelling of these skills. We support children through approaches such as sustained shared thinking, wondering aloud and balancing comments with developmentally appropriate questions to extend and expand their thinking. We understand that interacting and exploring with children is a valuable way to build vocabulary and foster understanding, and a sense of wonder and excitement about the world. We enable next steps and give praise for trying things out.

Our children have frequent, appropriate opportunities to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills through imaginative play and storytelling. This helps children to extend their own thinking, practise new skills and consolidate their learning in ways which are meaningful to them.

We enable children to play and learn at their own pace, having fun as they explore the world around them. We take time to understand children’s verbal and nonverbal communication which helps us to judge when to interact and when to wait and observe. We encourage children’s interactions with each other, recognising the important role other children have in enriching play. This enables children to make the most of their interactions and experiences.

'Weak' quality of interactions

Our staff do not demonstrate an understanding of how children learn and develop, or the support strategies which best enable children to learn as they play. Interactions and conversations with children lack warmth or are directive, and do not build on their emotional security or interests.

We do not identify children’s early communication and language cues or do not support their preferred ways of communicating. This results in missed opportunities for children to make progress at their own pace and can mean children become passive, upset or frustrated.

We are not child-focused during interactions and fail to recognise and value children’s thoughts and processes during play. We narrowly focus on only one or two elements of children’s learning, failing to reflect a true, holistic picture of each child’s development and their achievements. Children are not fully supported to extend their play and learning, and their need for support, reassurance or intervention is often missed.

'Very good' child-centred planning and assessment

Children are at the centre of all planning. We are skilled in recognising the different stages in children’s play and learning and these are thoroughly considered when planning new experiences and opportunities. We use observations of individual children’s patterns of play to plan, support, challenge and extend their learning. This enables children to make progress at their own pace.

Children are highly motivated and fully engaged by the range of rich, challenging play and learning opportunities, offered through a balance of intentional and responsive planning. Experiences reflect children’s ideas, aspirations, curiosities and meaningful next steps in their learning.

Careful observations and effective assessments recognise and promote children’s progress and achievements. Any additional supports are identified, planned for and implemented. Our highly responsive approach ensures children are developing a broad range of knowledge, understanding and skills for life and learning.

We work together with children, families and partners, inviting them to share their knowledge. This deepens our understanding and planning for each child’s learning journey. We share updates on children’s progress and celebrate their successes and achievements.

'Weak' child-centred planning and assessment

We miss important opportunities to observe and assess children during their play. This leads to gaps in our understanding of what they can do, their interests and how they are developing. We also fail to use the information that families and partners share with us. This makes it difficult to plan effectively to meet each child's unique needs and interests, including any additional support required. As a result, some children are not getting the right learning opportunities through play and are not being challenged at the right level.

There are limited or inconsistent approaches in place to evaluate children’s progress and achievements, or to use this information to plan for next steps in learning. Information gathered is not individualised or used effectively to plan the spaces, experiences and interactions each child needs to thrive.

Observations are irregular and do not link to individual children’s interests or their stages of play and learning. This results in a lack of understanding of progress over time. Families are not involved or given high-quality information on their children’s learning, which results in a lack of consistency and continuity.

The following challenge questions can support your self-evaluation:

• How well do we support and encourage children’s natural curiosity, creativity and problem solving?

• What approaches are we using to promote children’s developing skills over a broad range of areas, such as emotional and social development, emergent language skills, literacy and numeracy?

• How can children be supported to have confidence in leading their own learning?

• How do we ensure we keep up to date with relevant theory and demonstrate how our understanding of child development supports high-quality play and learning experiences?

• How do we ensure our approach to children’s needs recognises the independent thoughts and feelings of children as individuals?

• How do we approach support for children to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills?

• How well do we support staff in undertaking their role in planning for and evaluating children’s progress?

• How effective are our processes to evaluate children’s development, progress and achievements? How well does this information gathered about children’s progress inform our planning and reporting to parents/carers and others?

• How do we maximise opportunities for children to be challenged, creative and engaged in their play and learning?