Improving the use of ICT in Foundation Stage: Case studies

Introduction to the ‘Using ICT in EYs Project’. The main thrust of the project was to support the raising of children’s achievements in ICT capability within the Early Years. The enquiry-based project focused upon the embedding of observational assessment practices across the Early Years and sought to involve children and their parents or carers in that process.

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Date of issue: Mar. 2007
Theme: Improving the use of ICT in Foundation Stage

As part of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) primary schools ICT programme, ‘Using ICT in EYs Project’ was launched in January 2006. The main thrust of the project was to support the raising of children’s achievements in ICT capability within the early years. To achieve this, the enquiry-based project focused upon the  embedding of observational assessment practices across the early years, and sought to involve children and their parents/carers in that process.

There were three aims of the project:

• Aim 1: For 20 LAs to co-ordinate the involvement of Foundation Stage settings within their LAs and enable good practice to be shared through web-based case studies;
• Aim 2: For practitioners within the chosen Foundation Stage settings to have gained a greater understanding and knowledge of how ICT can support their developing early years pedagogy;
• Aim 3: For children’s outcomes within the chosen Foundation Stage settings as measured by the Foundation Stage Profile (FSP) to have improved across all areas of learning, but particularly in personal, social and emotional development (PSED) and Communication, Language and Literacy (CLL).

A list of criteria was compiled to support LAs in writing their bids. Each bid was assessed against:

• commitment to training and development by identification of a named person to support the work
• commitment and willingness to share good practice via web-based case studies
• demonstration of how they will use the ICT initiative to support and enhance the development of Early Years pedagogy within their LA
• how ICT would be used to develop observational assessment practices
• how ICT would be used to support the documentation of learning
• how ICT would be used to support the Foundation Stage Profile
• strategy to evaluate the impact of the project on developing Early Years pedagogy and children’s learning
• evidence of innovative practice within the Foundation Stage.

The LAs who were successful addressed the criteria above, and in many cases provided additional supportive detail, and clearly demonstrated that Early Years and ICT teams were collaborating in the presentation of the LA bids. How LAs would use ICT to embed Foundation Stage practice (which includes nursery and reception years) across all sectors in relation to the following three points was of particular interest:

• How would ICT be used to develop observational assessment practices?
• How would ICT be used to support the documentation of learning?
• How would ICT be used to support the Foundation Stage Profile?

The final criteria asked LAs to consider what they thought would be an innovative element of their proposed project. In many ways this was very open-ended and least precise, but the intention was to allow LAs to come forward with a range of ideas. In many proposals that were received the LAs provided a detailed range of ideas that they wanted to explore. For example, some LAs wanted to explore the use of palm-held equipment to support observational practices; some wanted to explore the use of web-cam technology to capture the process of learning; and some wanted to explore and improve on e-profile technology. Fifteen thousand pounds was provided for each participating LA to cover attendance at the January launch event, administration of the funding, purchase of ICT hardware, direct support and work with settings, and time for documentation.

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