It has been a conscious decision not to include video for children’s learning documentation for the following reasons:-

• It is difficult to take video of one child in a group situation.
• There are GDPR issues of showing other peoples children in learning journey documentation; although permission may have been granted for images to be shared, in later years the children themselves may object and the parent may withdraw consent. This will present issues for the setting to find all the videos and will then potentially leave holes across the documentation for other children.
• There is technology to smudge children’s faces out. However, this becomes an extra job for the educator to perform, when in our view, their attention should be with the children.
• Taking a video means the tablet is held between the educator and the child for a prolonged period of time, breaking the cycle of interaction between the adult and the child and possibly prevents the learning to progress to the next stage because the adult is engrossed with the video presentation rather than what is important for the child.
• Video observations require additional staff time after they are taken; possibly edited, evaluated against the curriculum and cross-referenced. Unless these actions are done immediately the footage will need to be revisited which is time-consuming. Stand-alone videos will not feed into compiling instant tracking information without this extra work by the educator.
• Video takes more data space, potentially pushing up the price you pay.

Video does have a place in an early years setting to:-

• Make virtual tours for marketing purposes; layout, activities, introducing team members
• Recording an event where the whole groups participate; visitors, outings, parties etc
• Evaluate standards of the enabling environment or the teaching strategies of educators
• Record a child’s behaviour in relation to their environment to be shared and discussed by the team to help provide appropriate support

IT Learning Journey software that provides video includes
– eyLOG, connectchildcare with iCONNECT, Famly, Tapestry …