Long day care and student portfolios

Does anyone know if long day care centres have to create portfolios (photos, craft etc) for each student? Was a little sad not to get one this year - was given them in the past at a different service.

Don't know if they have to but I have certainly received one every year DD1 was at daycare. DD2 even received one this year and she only started on 15 October so was only there a couple of months.

I would be very disappointed if I didn't receive one.

I would get art work as she went, and then also a folio-type bound book of her adventures during the year, highlights and some artwork and photos they took.
DD1s LDCC never did it at all.

We got one last year, and a DVD with maybe 100 photos, but this year we got a display folder with several 2-page long "learning outcomes" and a piece of artwork here and there. Maybe 40 pages all up. No scrapbook or DVD of photos.

We didn't really expect anything last year or this year, and so weren't disappointed.

My kids each have a portfolio that follows them as they change rooms at CC. DS1's came home before Christmas as he starts school in 2014. It has many art pieces, stories about things CC have done topics wise plus reports and photos of each child. We get a disk everyyear of pics.

We got a scrapbook this year, love it. At our last centre we got photos and all the art work in a plastic pocket type thing. Much prefer the scrapbook as they have written out hat he has been doing.

We get a book which is part art, part learning outcomes talking about what he's been up to and pics.

It's a bit poor of your centre not to give you something as I'm sure they are required to keep some documentation anyway.

We got absolutely nothing, apparently there was something made for christmas but one of the carers took it home?!?

I am hoping that's because he was in the babies room, I would expect a lot more artwork this year

I was just glad to get some photos - at a friend's daycare, the only photos they do are like primary school ones - and they charge through the roof, and then they had photoshop things (the kids were in eggs, or over a brick wall, etc - not just normal photos ... lots of really peeved parents this year.

Im sorry you were sad not to get one this year Surprised. Did you have a chat with your child's educators? I know I'm curious about my daughters learning journey while at FDC.

Here's the behind the scenes story/ realty of the situation...

It's not a requirement for teachers/ educators to do portfolios, in fact there is a move away from them. Yes, families love them and thats been one of the main reasons we do them. BUT and it's a big but, they take up a massive amount of our non contact time which is ever dwindling and with new government requirements that we must follow, it leaves teachers/ educators doing loads of unpaid overtime and doing portfolios on their evenings and weekends.

However, We are required to document children's learning and to show that their learning is moving forward and to link it either with the Early Years Learning Framework or one of the other relevant frameworks ( such as the Victorian EYLF). It has been the practice for many years to use the format of a portfolio to do this ever since it became popular in New Zealand with their national framework.
Many teachers are moving away from portfolios to be able to spend more time teaching and interacting with the children, supporting their learning instead of writing all the time.

My work hours used to be 50% teaching with children and 50% non contact time to do all the admin and documentation tasks. Now I get 62% contact and 38% non contact so sadly portfolios may become a thing of the past because of lack of time. What the new format/ method will look like I'm yet to discover through experimentation and reflection. Here lies one of my challenges for 2014!

Perhaps for those of you who have children in Kindergarten or childcare, it might be worth asking about how the educators document children's learning so you have a heads up about this early in the year. Remember, you are entitled to see this documentation at any time, regardless of the format.

Artwork was taken home during the year and the portfolio was really just a lot of photocopied pages that every other child got in that room, there was some personalisation added just before it was bound for us.
I got a lot of photos due to DD2 being the child a student was focusing on, it was lovely, she took some great photos.

At a previous centre it was just the artwork, nothing at the end of the year. I was a bit miffed at the time, but only after I found out what a friends childcare centre did. At the end of the day the child being cared for is more important and I found out what was happening via the odd chat with the carers.