Evidencing through photography
 

Are photographs of Children at play and the outcomes of that a fundamental part of 'todays planning and what importance does your group place on their use ?

Do you allow opt out options on your permission forms and take account of parental privacy opinions when drafting & revising policies ?

Our children love having their photo taken, especially if they've made something that can't be kept i.e lego model, drawing on the whiteboard. They very often come up and ask if we can photograph them with their 'project'. When printed out they either take the photo home or it goes in our scrap book or from September in their learning journey folder. The old saying a picture paints a thousand words is so true you could write a whole paragraph when a photo says it all.
We have a permission parents sign on our registeration form which parents don't sign if they don't want their child photographed, have only had this happen once in 4 years.

Permission for phots or not is included in our registration forms.. along with that for outings, observations, etc..

If a parent declines we do not take pictures of the child.. it has happened more than once.. all staff know which ones to avoid and delete the picture immediately if noticed in the background.. (we have children from local refuge so parents need to remain and feel safe)
Any who do give permission we do photos for files, photos of work, and sell a photo CD at end of year to raise funds. (Made £70.00 this year.)

Also take phots of wall displays, childrens work, etc and put on CD to go with our planning as evidence... otherwise you can always write anything but how do you prove it was done?

Just out of curiosity how much do you charge for the CD, as we had thought of doing it this year, or possibly next

we charge £5.00 per copy.. about 50p covers cost of CD and a cover.. I donate my time and PC to do them.. They pre-order them so we only make them for those who want one. Works so well, had 2 requests for last years CD this year!! Had to dig deep to find the file!

I use a programme which was given to me by a parent and does not allow anyone to open or use the files without it.. have had one complain about it, but we felt it better so they cannot print or use the files on Internet etc. it is only a basic photoshare software but not a microsoft one.. The programme we use is no longer available! That was a committee decision for child protection... I know others who do it dont worry about it..

we had 160 photos this yeas and bought some copyright free music over internet to go with them We just do a search and loads of sites pop up with different music.

Even our planning sheets have a section for photo now - and if the worst come to worst and the evalution doesn't get wrttten up at least there's a photo.

We also use them to put in a digital frame which goes out at the end of each session showing the mronings activities etc.. we don't necessarily print these of as we have loads each day.

We do have persmission - we also do an extra slip which goes directly into their children scrapbooks - reminding they have agreed not to put s'hared images' ( parents agree or not to these) on internet sites- facebook etc. xx

I think I would find it very hard to observe a child if I did not have photos to look back on... I take them for wow moments and when a child has made something that will go home or needs to be dismantled.

Photos can oly be taken with parental consent. where i work on the registratio forms parents are asked to tick yes or no if they are or are not willing to allow their childs picture to be taken at nursery, for newspapers, and also for the web page. some parents dont mind childrens pics being taken at nursery but are less willing to let them be taken for the local paper or website.

Taking pictures of displays is always a wonderful idea. i do it all the time. For me its a reminder of what the kids enjoyed making and i can see how i did things. is a reminder of some wonderful displays for me.