Guest Posted July 1, 2007 Share Posted July 1, 2007 Hi I've just disovered this site whilst looking for help/support. I teach Reception at a primary school where there are two Reception Classes, 3KS1 classes and 6 KS2 classes. We Early Years folk seem to be constantly seen as a pain at Staff Meetings when we have to tactfully say that we do things differently, or our subject areas are not as clearly defined as KS1 and 2 subject areas seem to be. Do most schools have the Early Years team working alongside the rest of the school using their own systems of assessment and budget or do subject coordinators consider the Reception Classes to be part of their remit? We have an on-site playgroup with whom we plan and liase and we would prefer to move towards working in a more defined team with them. We don't want the rest of the school to think of us as unfriendly and we are fully comitted to the school culture and family ethos we just want to have people understand where we are coming from! Any suggestions welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_79 Posted July 1, 2007 Share Posted July 1, 2007 Hi Hils and welcome. Thank you for making your first post so quickly after joining. I think the problems that you describe are fairly universal. An early years trained head tends to alter the perspectives slightly but not always. Im not sure what the answers are, if any except that everyone needs to be accepting of everyone else and understand the budget and the way it is set. I know that when I was FS coord in a large infant school, I could never quite determine which things my FS budget covered and what things should be claimed out of subject budgets and nor could anyone else! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 1, 2007 Share Posted July 1, 2007 Hi Hils and welcome. Thank you for making your first post so quickly after joining. I think the problems that you describe are fairly universal. An early years trained head tends to alter the perspectives slightly but not always. Im not sure what the answers are, if any except that everyone needs to be accepting of everyone else and understand the budget and the way it is set. I know that when I was FS coord in a large infant school, I could never quite determine which things my FS budget covered and what things should be claimed out of subject budgets and nor could anyone else! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Hi Hils, and a similar welcome from me If you're having problems posting..... you just need to click the reply button, type in your post in the white box, scroll down and click on Add Reply. That's it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnonyMouse_73 Posted July 2, 2007 Share Posted July 2, 2007 Hi Hils and welcome also. It is really difficult working in a school context in early years, especially when there isn't too much understanding about WHAT is different. We have always argued (but never got) for our own INSET because there are things pertinent to us when we have to sit through hour after hour of target setting and assessment data for KS2! We also explain that many things are different for us, but our LG are very keen to make things as cohesive as possible across all areas, from policies to reports to timetables to tracking progress etc. I think it depends very much on what you have as your leadership on what you get. Budget wise its always been one of my big thorns that we don't get any 'subject' money at all but have to have everything out of one FS budget which is the same size as the KS1 budget which they get to spend just on consumables. In short our money has to go so much further. If you want to work more closely with the playgroup, I think its worth fighting your corner on that one but will will probably have to make some compromises to. Perhaps you can tell us about what you do currently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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