Japanese Kindergarten Management Experience Sharing: “Developmental Assessment System” Enhances Guidance and Evaluation Based on Early Childhood Understanding

To preschool teachers in Vietnam and other members of VANPPE

Based on the results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) up to 2025, there is a growing recognition worldwide that countries praised for innovative educational approaches-such as learning through play, emphasizing problem-solving over knowledge acquisition, and reducing tests-have seen noticeable declines in “scientific literacy,” “mathematical literacy,” and “reading literacy.” This highlights the renewed importance of a “reciprocal cycle where experiences and learning gained through play and daily life are conceptualized into knowledge to deepen understanding.”

From this perspective, we can see the importance of drawing a better future for every child, starting with assessments that capture where each child stands today. In the face of ongoing conflicts across the globe, economic instability, natural disasters caused by extreme weather, and the threat of AI, the cultivation of non-cognitive abilities and future-oriented skills is widely advocated as a way to prepare children to survive in an unpredictable future. Various educational approaches are being developed and introduced worldwide. This series of 3 posts was created to share experience of kindergartens in Japan using the Developmental Assessment System offered by ChildCareWeb as a foundation to maximize the effectiveness of any educational approach, and to deliver its educational impact within Japan to the members of the Vietnam Association of Private Preschool Education (VANPPE).

Observations from Ms. Satomi Fujiwara, Supervisor of ChildCareWeb

Ms. Satomi Fujiwara is a renowned expert who supervised and organized the developmental assessment items and explanations for ChildCareWeb. She is a special specialist in Japan, who combines experience as a Clinical Developmental Psychologist and a practicing childcare worker. She leads Childhood Labo, providing developmental support for diverse children, authoring numerous books, and training developmental support professionals. Her extensive knowledge and experience lend immense authority to ChildCareWeb.

Challenges and Awareness in Japan

Japan’s national guidelines for early childhood education and care are currently being prepared for their once-in-a-decade revision (as of October 2026).

Returning to the fundamental origin that crucial learning takes place within children’s spontaneous play, the guidelines aim to enhance and improve evaluation based on early childhood understanding, considering the continuity of learning from ages 0 to 18.

While focusing on the deepening of play that supports children’s deep learning, teachers will be prompted to record and accumulate concrete daily observations of children, reflect on their guidance from the perspective of recognizing learning within play, and reconstruct the learning environment accordingly.

ChildCareWeb Developmental Assessment System

For instance, how many early childhood educators can immediately explain the developmental mechanism through which a child fully understands the concept of “sharing/lending and borrowing objects” and comes to spontaneously use it as a tool for interacting with others?

If an educator proposes the rule of “sharing” as an intervention for peer conflict without knowing this underlying mechanism and while ignoring the child’s developmental stage, it could lead to quite alarming consequences. Specifically, without understanding the true essence of asking someone “Can I borrow this?”, the child might perceive it merely as a magic phrase that grants permission to use the other person’s belongings.

What is the child in front of us interested in right now? What are they thinking, and to what extent do they understand things as they act? Without the sensitivity and expertise on the educators’ side to discern a child’s “present state” from subtle actions and behaviors, it is difficult to maximize the effectiveness of any educational approach.

Objectives of the Developmental Assessment System

• Functions as a developmental perspective to understand where the child stands right now (“present state”).
• Serves as a guide to grasp children’s current conditions, prospects, and stumbling blocks, helping educators find key points for individual support, interaction, and parent assistance.
• Corrects individual developmental assessments that were previously based on personal experience, subjectivity, or comparisons with other children.
• Assessment items are not scales measuring “can or cannot” (i.e., not a scale meant to classify children by developmental stages). Instead, they function as angles for understanding the continuity, meaning, readiness, and mechanisms of change in development.

Functionality and Features

To confirm children’s current status, future prospects, and developmental tasks through the processes of mental, cognitive, and functional development, the system integrates the following assessment methods into a battery to capture various aspects of development. It has been organized and supervised by Ms. Satomi Fujiwara, an active Clinical Developmental Psychologist and childcare worker.

From all 500 assessment items based on the above sources, the system automatically determines and displays items recommended for observation based on the child’s date of birth and past records.

All assessment items are accompanied by “Mechanisms” (developmental explanations). Written directly by experts including Clinical Developmental Psychologist and childcare worker Ms. Satomi Fujiwara-who has extensive clinical experience and numerous publications in Japan-these explanations allow educators to verify the developmental meaning, readiness, and mechanisms of change.

All assessment items feature real-time developmental pass-rate data, providing scientific evidence to correct subjectivity and empirical rules regarding developmental timing (This developmental pass-rate data is a rare and highly valuable set of big data, continuously accumulated in Japan for over 20 years since 2005, covering more than 150,000 infants to date).

For children with developmental delays or those needing special care, the extracted assessment items can be adjusted to match their actual development. In such cases, perspectives are presented to prompt checking for daily living difficulties or unique behaviors triggered by developmental delays. All developmental assessment results are calculated statistically and fed back as clues for understanding each individual child’s development.

Assessment items can be customized. The system can also offer features that suggest guidance plans based on assessment results.

Are you interested to know more about ChildCareWeb?

ChildCareWeb is likely the world’s only developmental assessment system based on real-time statistical data of infant developmental pass rates. We propose it as a fundamental tool to maximize the effectiveness of any educational approach, serving as a cornerstone for educators worldwide in their observation of children.

For details regarding our initiatives, products, and services, please contact our representative in Vietnam, HIMAWARI YOUCHIEN:

E-mail: info@himawari-kinder.com

Tel (within Vietnam): 02436463239 Tel (outside Vietnam): +8424-3646-3239