Checklist of Children’s Progress
In a register, you should maintain a monthly checklist for each child, using the knowledge of the child's developmental domains and curricular goals. You can record any special comments you may want to remember about a child, in this register. In the last week of each month, as you carry out your daily routine, keep your register handy to observe the children in your class. If you record your observations of five to six children a day, you will easily cover the entire class each month. It may seem difficult at first, but with a little practice you will see the value of the information you have at hand and it will not seem difficult anymore.

Portfolio of Children’s Work
At the beginning of the academic year get a file or folder for each child. Write the child's full name, parents’ name, address, date of birth, date of admission and any other relevant information on the cover.

In this portfolio you should maintain each child's art work and other worksheets. Each sheet should have the child's name and complete date on which the work was done, written clearly on it. The portfolio will help you assess the progress children have made in their art work, writing and understanding of maths related concepts. At the end of the academic year, before they take their portfolios home, let the children decorate their folders by colouring or pasting pictures on it.

Progress Report for Parents
At the end of each term invite the parents to a meeting to your classroom, to discuss their child's progress. You can show them what their child has learnt and share his/her portfolio with them. Twice a year you should complete and share with parents a progress report of their child. This report will be based on his/her developmental domains and curricular goals. To make judgements about the progress of the child and to support your evaluations, use your observations, monthly checklists and the work in the portfolio.

This was half the pie of Child Friendly Assessments. Now let’s look at the other equally important half. How can you make your assessments child friendly? Inherently when you employ assessment techniques in their traditional form they are child friendly, as they assess children’s individual abilities, behaviour patterns and skills. They provide you with real-time data about the child's development and academic progress. This helps modify your teaching practices and lesson plans so as to match the needs of the child. In reality though, knowledge of assessment and its techniques alone is not enough to make its application child friendly. To achieve this we need to try and practice the principles of Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP), sensitivity and confidentiality while conducting assessments. These principles act as guiding ethical standards that help protect and safeguard the child’s rights.

DAP lends itself to the process of assessment by providing teachers with guidelines that help them understand each child's uniqueness and individuality through age appropriateness.

This means that while assessing you remember that every two year old can’t do things a three year old child can do, although there are always some exceptions. But keeping this concept in mind will let you assess the age appropriateness of the task or activity the child is engaged in, as it would not be a just assessment if a three year old is observed while s/he was given a task which is age appropriate for a four year old child.

DAP helps youz develop a fair expectation in the abilities of each individual child in group-care by relating assessments to Developmental Appropriateness. For instance, Aslam and Hadia, are both three years old, born in the same month, joined school at the same time and have had more or less the same experiences at school. Does this mean that both of them will develop at the same developmental pace? No, and this is what developmental appropriateness encourages you to think about. In doing so, it prevents you not only from having unfair expectations but also stops you from comparing the children and their abilities against each other, thereby making them equals and not ‘one better than the other’.

DAP also allows you to take account of each child's distinctive family and community backgrounds while passing inferences about their development, thus making their assessment process culturally appropriate.

DAP makes you receptive to the child's developmental needs. However while assessing you also have to look after the child's right to feel safe and protected while being observed. Sensitivity in assessment refers to guidelines by way of which you prevent yourself from:

Forcing the child to continue with an activity if they don’t want to, even if it is an activity for which you want to assess that child's ability.

Conducting an assessment which does not benefit the child and is being done just for the sake of assessment