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Planning From Children's Interests


Guest Wolfie

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Well Oftsed have been in suggested the children sit down altogether for snack, whereas we have rolling snack, she said it was missed opportunity to develop personal and social skills! ( Cant win can we!)

 

She said the planning in advance shouldnt link to areas of learning as the children should be determining their own learning, link to learning after we have observed children only!

 

From reading all of your posts we are all in the same boat arent we, planning is a flippin nightmare isnt it!

 

The staff are all saying its the uncertaintity and not knowing what they are doing each day that is driving them crazy!

 

Im finding that staff are now starting to get a bit demoralised and im sure they come in and think lets just get through the day, oh boy i wish we could get the right balance

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She said the planning in advance shouldnt link to areas of learning as the children should be determining their own learning, link to learning after we have observed children only!

 

we were talking about something similar this morning in our staff meeting and we wondered as the room is layed out in the learning areas and we have our continuous provision sheets for each area then the planning needs to be more retrospective to record what the children are choosing to get out

 

am I heading any where near the right direction doing that???

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Omg! no wonder ruth pimental resigned! somebody might have asked her about planning! good to know we're all in same boat- thanks Wolfie for starting this great thread

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It has been really useful to hear how others are doing their planning and i have downloaded all the attachments - thank you!

We have been working on our planning system this term but I haven't had much success in changing old habits!

I have been aiming for a for a more child led approach but this has caused problems with the team as they then feel like they don't know what they are doing each day and then end up doing as little as possible or creating work where it's not needed - not quite what I had hoped for! :o

So for next half term we have decided to go back to what they are used to whilst I come up with a plan to keep everyone happy. xD

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Thanks for that raz - very useful! Just one question - how you decide what your adult led activities are going to be, what sort of paperwork do you complete for them and who DOES the paperwork - is one person responsible or do you take it in turns?

 

Hi wolfie

 

Sorry it has taken so long to decide. for the adult led activities we either look at what sort of activities have taken the children's intrest during CI time or we think about activities that the children will respond to and relate to. There are two teachers in the Nursery and we work together to do the paper work.

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So for next half term we have decided to go back to what they are used to whilst I come up with a plan to keep everyone happy. xD

That way madness lies: perhaps it would be a good idea to talk as a team about what you want your planning system to do for you and agree a set of principles. Then you can set about designing a system that ticks all the boxes!

 

Easy when you say it quick! :o

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I hesistate to use the word "curriculum", having discovered yesterday that the term is not used once in the EYFS documentation,

 

But it was mentioned originally, before they sent out the Erratum sheet!!

 

We highlight retrospectively on a monitoring sheet termly, which is checked to ensure even coverage - Pre-school, not babies and Toddlers at the moment :o

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Hi I have just joined the Forum so this is all new to me too. After working with young children for many years I have finally qualified as a teacher and just got my first post in Reception. I can't wait but this whole planning and assessing thing is so confusing! Any suggestions where to start? It seems my school is also very confused about how to go about it and I think they are expecting miracles from me!!!

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Welcome to the forum Kathy the miracle worker! :oxD Congratulations on both your recent qualification and your new post in Reception. As you will find whilst browsing the forum, you are in good company regarding planning and assessment. There are lots of people confused and striving for the perfect answer so take heart that you're not alone. The good news is that there have been lots of people willing to share their own planning so you will be able to have a look at these for ideas. :(

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Hi Kathy,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for making your first post.

I think a great place to start is with Jupiter's continuous provision sheets which she very kindly uploaded to the site. I think they're brilliant :o

You can find the thread here

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Hi Kathy,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for making your first post.

I think a great place to start is with Jupiter's continuous provision sheets which she very kindly uploaded to the site. I think they're brilliant :o

You can find the thread here

 

I've just had a look - thanks helen - they're fantastic, why is it whenever I tick a job to do off my list I find something better and then want to adapt it again. I suppose I'm in what's called the 'continuous cycle of reflection, self evaluation and improvement' xD

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The_EYFS_Audit_of_existing_provision.docI have just been reading all the threads for this topic. Planning is a minefield now I have to agree, the problem is there does not seem to be a right way to do it. Have just been on an EYFS Observation, Planning and Assessment course I have just started rewriting our long term plan which is now more of an audit with space to write in future plans, I have attached the pro forma but please, remember, it is a work in progress.

 

For the Medium Terms plans they suggested a form that had areas of learning across the top, then week 1, 2 ,3 etc down the side and that you wrote on it as you go. I have also written a tracking document based on the outcomes for the children if anyone would like to see it let me know. Have also re written short term plans, but we are a pack away sessional pre-school so may not be relevant to most settings.

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lalaloulou, please will you share your ideas for medium term planning etc that you just posted.

Thanks

 

 

Will do as soon as I have this essay for FD out of the way!!

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by the way our long term plans or rather our continuous provision plans state how each area of provision meets the principles of the EYFS and under Areas of learning and development we state that " all areas of learning are connected therefore this area of provision will help children to develop in all areas of learning"

 

Any chance of seeing an example of this planning northern bird? I'd like to see how you link in the EYFS principles as well as the areas of learning, that sounds really good! :o

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Have also re written short term plans, but we are a pack away sessional pre-school so may not be relevant to most settings.

 

I'd love to see this too please lalaloulou! :o

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don't know why that plan says october, it was the end of November (only that it includes christmassy books which I'm sure is a little early in October lol)

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WOW, thanks for those Carla, your plans seem like a lot of work but very informative, they enable one to get a real feel for the balance of child initiated and adult focused activities / experiences being accessed within a week.

What I particularly noticed (on the weekly plans, I think) was that your sheets show clearly the vast amount of possible learning objectives the children can get 'from play'. I do wonder though, aren't these objectives covered by your continuous provision sheets, maybe in future you would only need to write the code of the focused objectives, rather than (I presume) copy and paste the full objectives sentence, once the staff are familiar with them all of course. :o

Just a quick question, in the blank middle column, do the staff write the learning objectives that the children have chosen to follow within their play interests? ie: Tracy wrote (mark making-writing for a purpose) prescriptions, used 'familiar' letters in her vets role play.

 

Peggy

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hi every one just when i thought we had a workable system in place i am now confused !!!! i am working with pro formas from my local authority advisory teacher who says there is no need for medium term pans as how can you plan inadvance when it is mainly child led-we do holistic obs on each child, link obs into areas of learning and aspects, evaluate and pick out mainfinding to discover wnat each child needs to develop next-using development matters statement from eyfs. then write implications for planning.the room leader collates all information and plans for continuous provision on focus in motivational spaces planning sheet-adding resouces linked to childs interests or development needs (just a posh term for what we have out anyway!!!) also completes 5 focus activity sheets which are adult led or can be linked into individual development if required. can download if any one interested but need to get from work computer ! long term is continuous provision and routines-started to do this but takes forever-when you look a t snacktime for example its amazing how many areas and aspects you can cover-plan to do all but not a necessity!!! also staff are complaining about paperwork and room leader moaning some keyworkers are clueless and writing inappropriate comments for next steps and silly ideas for planning!!!ARRRRRG!!!!

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Hi jaycook, A warm welcome to the forum from me too.

Just athought, maybe the room leaders can involve the other staff in pulling the info together and reflecting and deciding how it feeds into futre planning, maybe at first theleader writes the next steps but asks the staff to define what resources will be required, then move on to enable the staff to define next steps, part of a room leadrs role is to 'train' staff, who all come to settings with various levels of ability/understanding. :o

 

It is always very much appreciatted when members share resources / formats that they find useful but could you please check with your LEA whether they are happy for you to share their proformas on the forum before uploading them, Thanks.

 

Peggy

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  • 2 weeks later...
I'd love to see this too please lalaloulou! :o

 

 

Attached is the short term planning we are going to try out next term, they are written using ILP's created from observations carried out by staff. ILP's are shared with parents to get their input aswell. We have a tracking document for each child based on the EYFS to make sure we are covering and meeting individual needs

Short_Term_Plan_EYFS.doc

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