Writing EYLF-aligned observations: a worked example from a 3-year-old room

Ask any experienced Early Childhood Teacher what the hardest part of their job is and you'll get one of two answers: unpacking the regulations, or writing observations. The regulations you can learn once; observations you have to do every single week for every single child.

This post is a worked example — deliberately a small, undramatic moment, because that's where most educators actually lose time. We'll take fifteen seconds of play, show the thinking that turns it into a high-quality EYLF v2.0 observation, and map it to both the framework and the National Quality Standard.

The documentation problem no one admits to

Most educators do not struggle to see learning happen. The struggle is the translation — from "Leila built a tower" (descriptive but hollow) to a sentence that captures the learning, links it to the framework, and suggests something you'll do next. When that translation is slow, Sunday evenings vanish.

The EYLF V2.0 itself acknowledges this: it is explicit that the framework "is not a curriculum to be followed", but "a set of principles, practices and outcomes to inform the development of each child's learning program".¹ The framework gives you language. It is your job to use that language to narrate what's already in front of you.

Anatomy of a high-quality EYLF observation

A good EYLF v2.0 observation has five components, and authorised officers under Quality Area 1 of the NQS are trained to look for each one.⁵

1. Context. When, where, who was there, what preceded it. Not an essay — two lines.
2. Observation. What the educator actually saw and heard, using the child's own words where possible. Present tense. Non-interpretive.
3. Analysis. What learning is happening. This is where EYLF Learning Outcomes enter the sentence.
4. Next steps / intentional teaching. What the educator plans to do next to extend the learning. Specific, actionable, not "continue to observe".
5. Family voice / community connection. A line that brings the family in — and aligns with QA6 of the NQS.

A quick refresher on the five Learning Outcomes

The EYLF V2.0 retains the same five Learning Outcomes that have anchored the framework since 2009, while updating the practices beneath them. In plain language:

• Outcome 1 — Identity. Children have a strong sense of identity, feel safe, secure and supported, and build confidence and self-awareness.
• Outcome 2 — Community. Children are connected with and contribute to their world — developing a sense of belonging, responding respectfully to diversity, and growing as environmentally responsible people.
• Outcome 3 — Wellbeing. Children have a strong sense of wellbeing — emotional regulation, resilience, social and physical health.
• Outcome 4 — Learning. Children are confident and involved learners — curiosity, persistence, problem-solving, dispositions for learning.
• Outcome 5 — Communication. Children are effective communicators — verbal and non-verbal language, literacy, numeracy, and information communication technologies.

Good observations almost never touch only one outcome. Rich play typically demonstrates two or three at once — and your job is to notice which are actually being demonstrated, not sprinkle them all in to tick boxes.

Worked example: Leila and the blue block

Here is the actual moment, as an educator might jot it in their phone during morning indoor play:

"10.15am, 3yo room, block corner. Leila (3.4) building tall tower. Adds cylinder on top — falls. Frowns. Sits back. Picks biggest block, puts it at bottom, smaller on top, nods. Says 'now it won't fall down.' Aisha (3.2) watching. Leila slides a block to her, says 'your turn.'"

Fifteen seconds, no photo, no drama. Most educators see this a dozen times a day and never write it up. But it's exactly the kind of moment the EYLF is designed to capture. Let's work through the five components.

1. Context

Tuesday 10.15am, 3-year-old room, free indoor play, block corner. Leila and Aisha. No educator intervention.

2. Observation

Leila is building a tower of wooden blocks. She places a cylindrical block on top and the tower collapses. She pauses, looks at the blocks for a moment, then selects the largest rectangular block and places it at the base, with progressively smaller blocks on top. She pats the top block and says clearly: "Now it won't fall down." Aisha, who has been watching from the mat, moves closer. Leila slides a small block across the floor to her and says "your turn."

3. Analysis — what learning is happening

This is where many observations go flabby. A weak version says "Leila is learning about blocks." A strong version uses the specific language of the framework:

Leila is demonstrating persistence and problem-solving (Outcome 4.2 — children develop a range of skills and processes such as problem solving, inquiry, experimentation, hypothesising, researching and investigating). When her initial structure collapses, she does not abandon the activity but pauses, hypothesises about stability, and tests a new configuration with a heavier base. Her verbalisation — "now it won't fall down" — shows she is using language to think aloud, an emerging form of self-regulation (Outcome 5.1). In inviting Aisha to participate, she is also demonstrating Outcome 2.1 — developing a sense of belonging to groups and communities and an understanding of the reciprocal rights and responsibilities necessary for active community participation.

4. Next steps / intentional teaching

This is where most observations fail an NQS assessment — "continue to observe" is not a next step. Specific options here:

• Introduce a selection of blocks with a subtly greater weight range tomorrow morning to extend her hypothesis-testing.
• During group time, share photographs of real-world buildings and bridges to link her emerging interest in stability to the wider world (Outcome 2.4).
• Scaffold Aisha's entry with an open-ended prompt — "I wonder what would happen if you two built one together?"

5. Family voice

Message home: "Leila did some really thoughtful problem-solving in the block corner today — when her tower fell she paused, worked out what to do, and invited Aisha to join her. Has she been building or stacking anything at home? We'd love to know what's catching her eye." (This is where QA6 — collaborative partnerships with families — becomes evidence.)

Mapping it to Learning Outcomes and NQS elements

When this observation lands in your service's documentation system, it should be tagged explicitly. For this observation that looks like:

• EYLF Learning Outcomes: 2.1, 4.2, 5.1 (primary); 3.1 (emotional regulation when the tower falls) — secondary.
• NQS Quality Area 1: Element 1.1.1 (approved learning framework), 1.2.1 (intentional teaching), 1.3.1 (assessment and planning cycle).
• NQS Quality Area 5: Element 5.1.1 (positive educator-to-child interactions).

What an authorised officer actually looks for

Assessment and rating under the NQS is a process of triangulation, not tick-boxing. For Quality Area 1, an authorised officer will usually look for three things in your documentation:²

1. Can I see the cycle? Observation → analysis → planning → implementation → reflection. If your docs are all description and no planning, you will not rate "Meeting".
2. Is it connected to the child over time? One brilliant one-off story doesn't build a picture. Linked observations that reference earlier ones do.
3. Does the educator's voice come through? Assessors can tell the difference between a genuine observation and something assembled from templated phrases. Your voice, the child's words, specifics — those matter.

Copy-paste template

A skeleton you can paste into any documentation tool — including ours — and fill in:

[Context]      When, where, who, what activity, what preceded it.

[Observation]  What I saw and heard. Child's own words where possible.
               Present tense. No interpretation yet.

[Analysis]     What learning is this? Name the EYLF Learning Outcomes.
               Quote the specific indicator where possible.

[Next steps]   One to three SPECIFIC things I will do to extend this.
               "Continue to observe" is not a next step.

[Family]       A warm, specific one-sentence note that invites a family
               response. This is your QA6 evidence.

If writing five of these every evening sounds like the slow death of a teaching career — that's the problem Little Narratives is built to solve. We don't write observations for educators; we turn a jotted moment like the Leila one above into a fully-mapped, five-component draft in seconds, so the educator's job is to review, refine and publish — not type from scratch at 8pm.