Childminding UK: Intent, Implementation and Impact Explained

Many early years practitioners tell us they don’t fully understand ‘Intent, Implementation and Impact’ and so are worried they are not doing what is needed to help children learn and develop fully and that they won’t be able to articulate this effectively during Ofsted inspection. In this blog, we will explain what you need to know so that you are fully confident in your day-to-day work with children.

Intent simply means ‘What do you intend the child(ren) to learn through the activities and experiences you plan for them on a day-to-day basis?’ What are the next steps, outcomes, or goals you want for the child? You will have overall goals for the child in line with the 7 areas of learning in the EYFS, and ultimately you want them to be ready for school, but you will also have an idea of what you want each individual child to learn from a particular activity or experience you provide, or over a particular time frame. Your Intent is what guides the overall direction of your teaching and learning and helps you provide the framework for all the appropriate and meaningful experiences you will provide to help that child learn and develop the skills you have identified they need.

Having clear goals that are adapted for individual children creates a positive learning environment that supports exploration, curiosity, and a sense of belonging. Children feel valued and respected and develop a love for learning.

Recognising Individual Differences

We know that all children are unique, possessing distinct strengths, interests, and developmental stages and the pace of the development is individual to them too. You identify each child’s next steps by observing them and assessing their learning in line with the EYFS. Regular observations help you to adjust and adapt your intent for the children as needed, either repeating or adapting what you do to help them learn or move on to new next steps. When you provide an activity, there may be 2 or more children engaged in the same activity. In childminding settings these could be aged from baby to school aged children. Every child should be able to get something out of the activity, and your intended learning for each child will be very different. Even with a group of children of a similar age, they are all likely to have different next steps as their abilities will be different, particularly if any have additional needs. All children should be able to join in any activity or experience you provide but on the level they need and with the intended outcomes you decide for them as an individual.

For example, if you are providing a baking activity, one child may be practicing holding and using utensils, another practicing taking turns with cutters, rolling pins etc. another may be practicing number skills by weighing up ingredients, and another practicing communicating their ideas to others. They may all be learning new vocabulary, but this is where you also differentiate throughout the activity by including and modelling words that suit the development levels of each of the children. Focusing on your intent for each child will enable them all to get the most out of each activity or experience you provide and keep them fully engaged.

Communicating the intent behind activities with parents supports the parent/setting partnership and enables continuity between home and the early learning setting.

Implementation refers to how you actually carry out the activities and experiences that will help the children develop the skills and knowledge you have identified. You will plan a variety of different opportunities based on the children’s current interests and development levels. Think about how you decide to do this - you may need to source different resources or use resources you have in a slightly different way. You may choose to go on outings to give better opportunity for the learning you want to enhance. So, implementation is purely putting into action what is needed for the actual teaching and learning experiences that will enable them to meet the intentions you have for them. Don’t forget to think about the adult role in delivering high quality interactions, providing scaffolding where needed and fostering positive relationships with the children. Knowing when to join in play, when to advise, when to leave children to work something out for themselves or think about the words they want to use is all part of this implementation.

Impact is the measure of whether your implementation of the learning opportunities you have provided have resulted in the children learning what you intended. From your observations and interactions with them, you will know whether children have learned what you intended, learned something different, or learned even more than you intended. There should be lasting impact for the child enabling them to use the essential skills, resilience and the confidence gained throughout the rest of their lives.

Ongoing assessment

Your ongoing observations and interactions will help you assess what goals you intend next for that child. It may be that you repeat some of the experiences because the children really enjoyed them, and they need more practice for skills and knowledge to be embedded. It may be there are other skills and knowledge they can learn from an activity they really enjoy and are engage with.

If an activity doesn’t result in the children learning anything you have intended, this doesn’t necessarily mean the activity choice was incorrect, but it is important to assess why that is. Was the child feeling off colour that day? Was the activity not challenging enough? Did it just not incite their interest? Experiences should nurture emotional intelligence, social skills, creativity, and physical well-being - can you identify what was lacking for the child on this occasion?

In conclusion, although Intent, Implementation and Impact is new terminology regarding early years practice, it really is just another way of describing the planning cycle of ‘plan, do, review’ or ‘plan, observe, assess’, then repeat. Most early years practitioners are doing this all the time for children and making this connection may help you to explain to parents and Ofsted how you lead the learning for your little ones. In a nutshell, you will need to explain what you want the children to learn (intent), how you are going to do this and why are you planning the experiences you have chosen (implementation) and how do you know what the children have actually learned, as this may be different from what you intended (impact).

About Childminding UK

Childminding UK has been supporting childminders for over 30 years. Formed in 1991 by and for local working childminders in Northamptonshire, we now support childminders across the country. A registered charity, we are the only national organisation that solely supports childminders and we have recently achieved the Princess Royal Training Award for ‘Ensuring high quality childcare through training and support’. All staff are experienced childcare professionals, and have been childminders themselves and our trustees are working childminders or have knowledge of childminding, so we have a good understanding of the sector.

To find out more about Childminding UK or to get in touch - childmindinguk.com-

The information in this article is provided by Childminding UK and does not represent Morton Michel.