Recordings are designed to provide evidence of your learning and experiences on your placement. They are set to show the marker that you can display a link between what you have learnt during lectures and whether you can put it in to practice or not. They are also a first step towards showing that you can reflect and analyse your practice – a key concept of the training that you have received. When you come to work full time, you will be expected to make recordings about your work to support your learning. Now, in a safe environment where you can make mistakes, is a useful time to starting trying it out...

Below is a suggested model of how a recording could look. Other methods may be suitable, this is just an idea for people to explore. However, remember that recordings are not like a quick note of what happened in a session. They need to be detailed, linked to theory and display a considerable amount of learning and analysis.

The key points are....

1. SESSION INFORMATION

It is useful to make notes of how many young people attended, how many staff were working AND if you are able to, a gender/cultural make-up of the group that you are working with.  Remember to put the date and time also.

2. AIMS OF SESSION (IN LINE WITH PLANNING)

Make it brief – try to summarise what you aimed to do for the session in a couple of points. This is NOT necessarily what happened – rather it is what you hoped would happen and what you planned for. Remember, your work is mostly planned so you should refer to any notes you made on preparing an activity. (For further guidance on planning please see NAOMIE or APIE sections)

3. FACTUAL RECORD

This should serve only as a record of what happened and not be too long. It is factual only, stating events and in what order they happened etc.

4. OBSERVATIONS

This is a good chance to add a few feelings to what was happening. Analyse one issue from the factual record/events and make some commentary to it. This is also a good spot to note how people interact, how group dynamics and roles are significant. Can you relate what your learnt about groups to what is actually happening? Are there any outside factors to consider?

5. REFLECTION AND ANALYSIS OF FEELINGS IN RELATION TO THE SESSION

This is probably the most important record – a chance to summarise your learning and talk about the events in relation to professional values. Was there any conflict between your personal and professional values? Remember that everything we do is easily underpinned by theory and it is almost natural to link an issue to a theoretical point of view. For example, you may have a conversation with someone that was on the spur of the moment. If you look at Jeffs and Smith on directing conversation, you will find this is called “Catching the moment” and is immediately a symbol of your understanding. It is better not to seek out theory to stick to, rather search for theory to back up your information. The more that you practice, the easier it will be. Also, try to relate back to your college learning – have you brought anything to your work that you can discuss? Did you experience any ethical conflicts/personal conflicts?

6. LEARNING OUTCOMES (ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON WITH AIMS)

Summarise your learning  outcomes and cross them against your aims. Did you get what you wanted to achieve? What else have you learnt as a result of what you did? What would you do differently? This is a good opportunity to note your evaluation of the exercise or piece of work that you carried out.

7. FOLLOW UP/FUTURE ACTION/FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Any future work/ideas/follow up should be added here or state whether you think you need to seek further guidance/supervision.

8. REFERENCES

Try and reference AT LEAST one piece of theory for each recording.

Well, that’s it. It is quite easy when you get used to doing them. Try to be as objective as possible and write as much as you can in the feelings area. Some recordings will be more educative than others and don’t think you fail if you do not always have an long document. 

EXAMPLE 1

EXAMPLE 2

EXAMPLE 3