Highscope

[AnonyMouse_2846]

Please could you tell me are there any pre-schools out there that implement the highscope approach and if you dont why not?

i am interested to know your views to be honest more for if you dont do it, for what reasons!!!

Thank you

andrea

[AnonyMouse_2846]

ok can i extend it to other settings too please

[AnonyMouse_79]

Its very specified and I dont know enough about it!!

[Guest]

I have been in charge of an LEA nursery for 3 years. I started out doing highscope and had great success with it. The team enjoyed it and the children gained a lot of independence. Now we have had to alter some of the ideas due to pressure from LEA and management. they want children to at least attain 2 levels within a year and so the reception class teacher has basically been told to do more literacy and numeracy and so it filters down to the nursery.

[Guest]

Hi, we run a Highscope Approach during our afternoon sessions in YR/1. The children make great progress in terms of their independence and time organisational skills. We have also seen a great improvement in speaking and listening skills as a result to the recall time. We tried to impliment it in during the morning, but our LEA also pushed for a more formal session due to literacy and numeracy. Hope this helps, JO.

[AnonyMouse_2846]

Thank you please keep them coming

[AnonyMouse_8466]

Am really interested in HighScope, but don't know enough about it really. Funnily enough I have just bought a book about bringing the High Scope approach to your early years setting.

 

Now all I need is some time to read it!

 

Maz

[AnonyMouse_64]

I thought that you needed to attend training to implement it properly into your group. It would certainly not be feasible for me in this case.

[Guest]

It works best when you've done the High/Scope Implementation Course or HIC, which you do usually about 1 day a month over the best part of an academic year. Probably the most enjoyable course I ever did because you put it into practice as you learn, and you often get a 'child's eye view' e.g. having your digits taped together [with your consent!!] to discover what it's like for a small child with underdeveloped fine motor skills to be given a task such as gluing collage pieces on to a template using a glue stick. That sort of activity changed my approach forever!

 

It doesn't work so well if there are colleagues who are really reistant to using it. It needs a dedicated team who understand the philosophy and constantly reflect on their practice in some depth.

 

Try the High/Scope UK site for more details.

[Guest]

I've just been looking for the same thing - we used to run high scope throughout YR/1 and then Y2/3 in a previous school in Rochdale many years ago. The YR/1 class taught their whole morning through a plan-do-review approach, initially with the aim of supporting children with EAL. In Y2/3, we used to have PDR time on a Thursday and Friday morning - using the extended "do" time to grab groups for guided reading, recorders, and focus activities. Not sure that was totally by the book, but it worked wonders for the children's independence and time management skills. Then along came the literacy and numeracy hours so things changed for a while. I used PDR on a Friday afternoon session with a straight Y2 class - much more focussed than "choosing" activities, but gave them access to structured play, which had been neglected for a while. It was a great opportunity to give the children time to work on literacy targets too - the older children developed written plans with different sentence starters gave them a good sense of future tense - extending them to longer, more complex sentences etc as the year went on. We also did written reviews which secured past tense/ed spellings etc depending on our focus.

I left that school 7 years ago, but many of the existing staff are still there, so I'm going to visit them next week (hoping to see if it's still up and running there and pick up some current tips). I'll let you know how they run with it now (if at all) if you like.

Tracylu

[Guest]

I believe there's a school in the Doncaster area that runs to High/Scope, but I'm not sure what age range. If Mary's out there she may pick this up 'cos she knows!!