Suggestions to Observing Your Child at School.

Ways to observe your child in school.

There are a few ways to observe your child in school and here are two suggestions.
1) Watching the child from a distance seems to be the common method employed by most professionals. The observer is able to observe the activities and events within the classroom and around the child without distracting the class.

2) Participating in the classroom activity together with the child facilitates understanding of what the child is not coping well with. The child having the immediate opportunity to express difficulty in certain task or to give face to face feedback about a particular problem encountered may be valuable to the observer. It may however be essential that the observer is someone whom the child does not know personally so that the former may be introduced to the child as a teacher aide for the day. The role of the "teacher aide" may be to support only the child being observed, or to support the class in general. The advantage of being a support only to the child is that the observer has immediate and direct information and feedback regarding the child. The advantage of being a support to the class in general is that the observer gets a clearer understanding of how the children work and socialize with the observed child in the classroom settings and within various circumstances and situations.

Who should observe?

Anyone from the professionals to the child's parents or care givers are suitable to observe the child in school. It could even be someone whom the child is not familiar with. This at times actually could be a good choice as it allows the child to be observed from a new perspective, eliminating possibly any observer's bias since the observer has little understanding of the child's progress level. This may then raise the expectations on the observer to be more thorough and alert in his or her observation.

However, whoever it is that is carrying out the observation, it is instrumental to have the goals and objectives of the observations set out and/or written down before the observation period. For some ideas of objectives, refer to previous post - http://triumphant-kids.blogspot.com/2012/01/observing-your-child-in-school.html

Some suggested steps to carrying out an observation.

1: Set the necessary information of the observation. How long is the observation period going to be? What observation technique is going be used?

2: Contact and inform the school personnel, usually the principal and the child's class teacher, to request for days when you could go down to observe the child in school and in class. Provide all the information that you have such as observation period and observation techniques so that they could provide the best possible arrangement to your request.
You should have your goals and objectives for the observation set and written out before you contact the school. This will give them the general idea of what your specific purposes are and this information may help them in facilitating your observation goals.

3: Inform the child's parents of your goals and objectives for the observation. Very often, parents will have their own set of goals for the observer to follow through. Sit down and discuss what are common between both parties and what could be added or made redundant for now.

4: You might want to arrive earlier than arranged, perhaps 15 minutes to get prepared. It will also be helpful if the class teacher or principal could brief you on the class routine and maybe some rules around the school compound that have be to be observed. It will also be a good time to formally introduce yourself and to arrange possible follow up action after the observation.

5: Take notes ( on paper or mentally. Sometimes it is not possible to move around with the children and take notes at the same time if you are participating in class activities).

6: Pay attention to any instructions and feedback from the class teacher while class is in session. This is especially important when the observer is participating in the class activities.

7: The observer and the teacher together with the principal should have arranged for a meeting after the observation period ended. This is when the observer report and feedback on his or her observations. Feedback should be relevant to the goals and objectives set for the purpose of the observation. The class teacher and principal at this moment should also have their own opinions and feedbacks to contribute. Make notes of these as they should be relayed back to the parents or caregivers in the observation report.

8: Report to the parents about the observation. Provide useful feedback and suggestions to deal with issues highlighted in goals and objectives of observation.

9: Further learning programs for the child can then be drawn up.

10: Contact with school with necessary further actions to be taken as requested by the parents, suggested by the observer and agreed upon by all parties.

What are some of the difficulties that may arise during an observation? Be sure to watch out for the next blog post as I will be discussing some problems faced by observers at times in a naturalistic observation setting.


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