Families love photos from the classroom, and a camera pointed at a concentrating child is one more interruption. This post covers when Montessori guides take photos, how many to share, how to respect each family's wishes, and how to let a photo do double duty as part of the child's record.
Wait for the end of the work
A concentrating child is easy to interrupt, and a camera is one more adult paying attention. Greenspring Montessori cut back on photos during the work cycle after noticing the effect, and now takes more at recess and when children present finished work.
Some rules that keep photos out of the way:
- Photograph a child after they finish a work, or when they pause on their own.
- Photograph the finished work on the table, the child putting it away, or the child presenting it to a friend.
- Ask an older child, "May I take a photo of your work?" and accept a no.
- Keep the camera away during lessons. The child should be watching your hands.
- Take photos in one sweep near the end of the morning, rather than through the whole work cycle.
Share fewer, better photos
A few photos a week, each showing real work, give a family something specific to talk about with their child. In South Korea, kindergarten teachers have described choosing activities that photograph well and posing children to meet parents' demands. Decide your rhythm with your head of school, tell families in the handbook, and keep to it.
Respect each family's choices
Ask for photo permission at enrollment, and name each use separately: the classroom, the school's own families, the website and social media. Let families change their answer at any time. Never name a child in a photo the public can see.
In FutureNerds, a parent can turn on Limit who can see my child's photos on the web, or Hide my child's photos from other families on the phone. Photos tagged with that child are then hidden from other families. Your administrator chooses under Photo Visibility whether families see All Classroom Photos or Only Tagged Photos.
The app doesn't check a family's wider photo permissions when you tag a child, so keep your school's permission list where you can see it, and check it before you publish.
Review before you publish
On the web, choose Upload Photos to add up to 20 photos at a time. They're saved as drafts that only staff can see. Open Review photos to confirm who appears in each one: tag every child in the frame, or mark No children pictured. Then choose Publish photo, or Publish all. On iOS and Android, choosing several photos from the library also saves them as drafts for review.
When you publish a photo, the families of each tagged child get a notification that there are new photos of their child. Untagged photos send no notice.
Let the photo record progress
A photo of a child finishing the moveable alphabet is also evidence of where they are with it. Choose Tag Lesson on a photo, pick the child, the area and the lesson, and set the Mastery Level. The tag records the child's progress at that level, and it only ever moves a stage forward.
Tag a lesson only when the photo shows what you're recording. A child holding the golden beads for the first time is Presented. A child who has built a four-digit number on their own, again, may be Practicing. Over a term, these tagged photos become the work samples you bring to conferences.
Write a caption families can read
Add a caption that describes the work and the child's effort: "Built the hundred board alone today, then checked it against the control chart." Skip praise words such as "amazing". The caption gives the family something specific to ask about at pickup.