 An important part of your role as an educator is keeping a record of what children are doing and learning. This helps you reflect on your practice, to see how children are developing and helps you plan what to do next. It also allows you to share with families about children's progress. There's no one right way to document. It depends on what works for educators and the context they're working in. What's most important is not how you document, but what you document. And how you use your records to reflect on your practice and communicate with families and other educators. You can keep a journal of children's experiences and your observations of what they're learning. Try and link these to the learning outcomes in the early years learning framework and the foundations for success guidelines. Your notes can be handwritten or you can use the computer or iPad. You can take photos and videos, keep children's work and write stories about their learning. You can include the children's voices, write down things they've said and record them talking. It's good to keep a portfolio for each child in something like a folder or a scrapbook. You can use it to talk with families about their child's progress, to build partnerships and to learn from each other. It's also a good idea to display your documentation and your service, the families and the community to look at, talk about and be proud of. Remember you don't have to capture every single thing children are doing, just pick the important learning and development moments. Regular review of what you document will help you to extend children's learning and inform your planning and evaluation. When you get to the end of the year it's very satisfying for everyone to look back and see how far they've come together.