How it works
From a scruffy note to a finished observation
Three things worth understanding before you try it: how the writing works, what happens to your children’s data, and what it does when a note needs a person rather than software.
Part 1 · The process
How the writing works
You already do the observing. This is everything that happens between jotting a few words and pasting a written-up observation into whatever you already use — about a minute and a half of your time, spread across a day.
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01 · Jot it down
A few words against a child, typed or dictated with your phone's own keyboard. Seconds, while it's fresh.
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02 · Pick the notes
Choose one, or several from across the session. The observation is built from all of them, not one moment.
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03 · Check what's about to be sent
You see a preview of exactly what will be sent — with children's names removed — and can tidy or remove anything. Nothing leaves until you press Create.
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04 · It writes it up
A few seconds later: the observation, its framework links, next steps and a parent-friendly summary.
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05 · Sign it off
Edit anything, then approve it. Your name, nobody else's — there's no countersigning queue.
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06 · Copy it out
Full observation, parent summary or next steps — pasted into whatever system you already use.
A worked example
Three notes across a morning
building a bridge, counted to twenty while doing it, it fell over and he built it again and asked Maya to help
back to the blocks on his own, made it taller, used the long planks
showed Kwame how to balance the long block, said 'you have to put it flat'
What comes back
Oliver spent approximately fifteen minutes constructing a bridge using the wooden blocks. As he built, he counted aloud to twenty. When it collapsed he rebuilt it, inviting another child to join him …
“recite numbers past 5”
“counted to twenty while doing it”
“choose the right resources to carry out their own plan, for example, choosing a spade to enlarge a small hole they dug with a trowel”
“used the long planks”
Every link quotes the words from your own note, and the framework wording is Development Matters as published — it can only choose from the 300 statements that exist, so it can’t invent one. Strong matches are applied; weaker ones sit greyed out as suggestions you accept first. How the framework links work →
Part 2 · Privacy & protection
No child is named to the AI — not even the one you're writing about
It's the first thing every manager asks: what actually reaches the AI? The honest answer is a reassuring one — no child's name does. Here is exactly what is protected, and how.
- The child goes as “Subject”
- The child you're writing about is never sent by name — they go to the AI as “Subject”, and their real name is put back only once the writing is done.
- Your roll is never sent
- The AI is never given your list of children. That list stays on our side, used after the writing to check that no child ended up named in the finished record.
- You see what's about to go
- Nothing is sent until you press Create. You review a preview of exactly what will be sent first — the note with children's names removed — and can change or remove anything.
- Only when you press Create
- Your notes are sent to the AI once, at the moment you press Create to write the observation — never automatically, and never in the background.
Even two children who share a first name are handled: the child is identified by their record, not their name, so the writing is never sent to the wrong file.
Part 3 · Safeguarding
When a note needs a person, not software
Some things a practitioner writes down are not learning moments, and the tool is built to recognise that and get out of the way — pointing a person to your procedure rather than trying to write anything up.
- It stops, it doesn't process
- A note mentioning injury, distress, a disclosure or anything suggesting harm is saved, but never turned into a learning observation. It does not diagnose or decide what happened.
- Your manager is alerted
- The concern appears in Recent activity with a red shield and opens the child's notes, so it reaches a person straight away.
- Manager notes, attributed
- A manager can record relevant detail, action taken or how it was resolved. Every update keeps its author and time rather than overwriting what came before.
- Kept confidential
- Safeguarding notes sit in a separate, confidential section of the child's PDF record — part of the record, kept apart from it.
Ready when you are
No card, no trial countdown, no call with anyone. Free for one practitioner and up to 5 children.
Manager, and not ready to commit? Don’t. Try it in one room for a month and see whether anyone asks to keep it.