The ABC of Child Care series of posts aims to illustrate for parents what quality child care looks like in practice and aims to be both a tool for parents looking for child care for the first time and as a resource for all parents with children in care. I believe we all share a responsibility to ask questions and expect results when it comes to the environment and people caring for and educating our youngest and most impressionable citizens.
D is for Daily Record
A quality centre will maintain daily records for families which record both practical, care-related information and information about the educational focus of the day.
On the practical side, a centre may chart routine information regarding each child’s appetite and foods eaten at mealtimes, times and durations of sleep/rest periods and, for younger children, nappy change and/or toileting information.
There should also be a record of the types of 
activities the children were engaged in during the day, possibly presented as a story about the day’s events (a daily dairy or daybook), a slideshow of photos, or a written program on display. However the information is presented, parents should feel like they have an overall picture of how the day progressed for the children and they types of learning experiences they were engaged in. Although this information cannot possibly record absolutely everything that happened in the day, it should provide parents with enough information to talk to their child about their day and what they did whilst at the centre. This information is especially helpful during busy pick up times when individual staff may not be able to talk to parents at length as they are still supervising children.
If your are unaware of your child care centre providing this type of information, ask. If you are looking at new centres for your child, don’t forget to ask what information is available to parents on a daily basis as part of your screening process.
Related Posts
- The ABC of Child Care: A is for Ambiance
- The ABC of Child Care: B is for Behaviour
- The ABC of Child Care: C is for Communication
Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.
One of my favourite things to do {as we are such a technological driven society} is to type up a daily newsletter {one page} especially for children within the 3-5 room and either present it in a book or send home to parents. But due to amount of paper is used etc, transfering this into a monthly newletter is great and you have all your information saved on the computer!
I'm forever making sure that parents have all the knowledge of their child's day. From how often they went to the toilet to how long they slept for to what and how much they ate. It is so important that parents have this information for not only knowing this information to know how they will be the coming night – but we as educators need to know how their night went too!
Great post!
What's your thought on web cams in child care centres ?
Great to hear about your daily newsletter, Carly. I am sure the parents love being kept up to date in this manner.
Rizoleey, I can't say that I am a fan of web cams. I worry that they are open to being hacked by outside sources. I would rather see the money spent on more qualified staff employed at the centre. I think if there is good visibility throughout the centre, correct staff:child ratios and an open door policy which promotes transparency, web cams shouldn't actually be necessary.
Love to hear the thoughts of others.
This is the one and only complaint I have about my son's child care center…no daily record. They gave out a parent questionnaire not too long ago and I requested it. I am hoping that they start that next school year.
A daily record is a great thing. I always try, especially with the younger ones, to let the parents in on the details of our days.
I'm curious about parents' (and other people's) thoughts about pictures. With a few exceptions, such as projects where I take pictures of all the kids projects and send them to the parents (especially things like painted eggs, which were eaten before pick-up time) or particularly cute moments where I send a parent a photo, I don't really take pictures of day care kids. I just worry about parents' concerns about having their kids' pictures available to other people.
But I wonder if I'm being overly worried. Having a daily photo, for example, that was a snapshot of something special we did that day might be a great thing to do, something that parents and children could look back on and remember.