Year 2 With A Fs Ethos

[Guest]

Hi

 

I am moving to year 2 in September and have found this forum great for my foundation practise, sharing ideas and practise. There must be more people out there like me who now find themselves in KS 1. I thought perhaps I could give this forum a bit of a boost. I am setting up a year 2 class with a FS ethos in September. I am planning on having a theme curriculum centred around challenges that can be completed in different areas with the classroom depending on the child's interests and skills. Anyone interested in a similiar idea please do get in touch.

 

Thanks

 

Jay

[Guest]

Sounds great - i look forward to reading this thread.

[Guest]

Hi, I'm a new member and have joined in the hope of getting some support from people who have successfully moved away from formal lessons in Year 2.

 

I found a link to some planning a few weeks ago but don't seem to be able to access/find it now. Can anyone help me?

 

x

[AnonyMouse_79]

Hi Catherine and welcome

 

There are quite a few of us trying to move yr1 and yr2 into a less formal teaching style. YOu may mean this thread?

[AnonyMouse_25084]

My school is gearing up for making year 1 and 2 less structured and more FS! I'm the reception teacher so am really really pleased as my current children would really struggle to cope with a structured environment after a lovely year of free flow and lots of CI time. What the teachers are KS1 are worried about is ensuring they teach enough hours of literacy and numeracy a week - do they need to be doing lit and numeracy every day? The way I structure my day which I think works well in reception is to have a literacy morning or numeracy morning, so on a literacy morning, they are aren't doing numeracy. Would this be ok in year 1 or would you need to ensure you do both every day? Has any one got a time table they would be able to post to have a peak at how everything is fitted in! I have really pushed for this so want to support the KS1 teachers as much as possible.

[AnonyMouse_79]

My HT has said that children must have a literacy and numeracy input everyday. We are currently working in yr1 to provide a carousel of activities across the day and across the week. The activities provided include the teaching focus of literacy or numeracy with an independent activity supporting the same LOs and a topic based activity. I also have reading and handwriting practise available all day.

 

Our model is not perfect yet and I think I need to devise some sort of recording /monitoring or prescribed rota to ensure children take part in all activities. We are also going to have fair less LSA support in September so that will be fun!!

 

Will add my timetable later!

[AnonyMouse_25084]

Thanks Susan. So how many adult led literacy and numeracy group tasks do you deliver each week? When children do independent tasks have you modelled them first? Are children told when to do the independent activities or do they choose to do them during CI time? Looking forward to seeing your timetable. KST x

[Guest]

We have moved to a more EYFS style approach in year one this year. I too have literacy and numeracy mornings, however at the end of the morning I do a short adult led session on whichever of the two I haven't covered, so if it's a literacy morning I do a short mental maths session. Actually if it's a maths morning I tend to read a story or do nothing at all for literacy since the advisor said that our daily phonics counts as their literacy input on those days. (She was the one who said there had to be an adult led bit everyday for both subjects for year ones, even if there was no independent activity for both).

 

I try to have myself or my TA working with each group every morning, but sometimes I don't get to do this if the activity is a longer one to extend the children. Usually groups also have an independent task to complete if it's a maths morning which the rotate around to. Those who aren't working on tasks have CI time during which they can choose what to do, however they have challenges which they know they must complete during this time by the end of the week. Took a bit of getting them into that one but now they usually head straight for the challenges rather than going to play with other stuff!

 

Also I gave them all news books and said I wanted one piece of news a week as part of the challenges. I can't decide if it's fortunate or unfortunate that they are all so obsessed with this that they all tend to write at least two, if not three a week!

Edited April 25, 2010 by Guest

[AnonyMouse_25084]

Thanks Kariana, that sounds great and really sounds like it would build on from what we do in reception. I have started doing 1 independent challenge a week in reception which children have to complete so maybe I can build up to do a couple more by the end of the summer term to ease the transition into year 1. How many challenges do you in year 1? Do you model them all to the children at the beginning of the week? How are they displayed to the children so they remember what they are? Sorry for all the questions! really excited about this! x

[AnonyMouse_7227]

i work in a mixed 1/2 class and we have a maths focused week one week then a lit focused week the next, we do a big book everyday. I do a continous provision medium plan and we add enhancements each week depending on what they are doing.

There are certain things in CP time that we expect them to do but I like the idea of the challenges- what a great way of doing AFL!

[Guest]

Thanks Kariana, that sounds great and really sounds like it would build on from what we do in reception. I have started doing 1 independent challenge a week in reception which children have to complete so maybe I can build up to do a couple more by the end of the summer term to ease the transition into year 1. How many challenges do you in year 1? Do you model them all to the children at the beginning of the week? How are they displayed to the children so they remember what they are? Sorry for all the questions! really excited about this! x

 

 

Sorry I never saw your reply which is why I haven't answered before.

 

I tend to do 4 challenges each week, plus the children have to write a piece of news and complete a mental maths sheet which is basically colums of additions or subtractions or missing numbers which they fill in. I obviously started off at the beginning of year one with less than this, there was no maths sheet and I tended to stick to three challenges, although it depended on the length of time they would take.

 

I do model the challenges to the chidlren. Monday first session is 'challenge time' where I discuss the week's challlenges with the children, although I don't tell them how to do them, that's the challenge part! The rest of that lesson is them making a start on their challenges and then at the end we discuss how they have tackled them and show any work in progress.

 

To help them remember the challenges they have a challenge folder. In it is their news book, maths sheet and challenge book. In the challenge book I stick the evidence of their challenges such as photographs or any writing or drawing they completed. I also stick a piece of paper with that week's challenges on a new page of the book at the beginning of each week so they can refer to it (although obviously they can't all read it). They are actually pretty good at remembering their challenges now so they don't really need to refer to them written down. Something else which supports them remembering is putting templates in the book to help them record their challenges, I show them these at the beginning of the week and they can associate each challenge with it's template or piece of paper. This week for example I asked them to draw a map of toytown (linked to our topic) so there was a piece of paper in everyone's folder with "My Map of Toytown" and a large box on it for them to draw their map in. It just gives a better reminder than saying "go get a piece of plain paper off the pile to draw it on".

[AnonyMouse_25084]

Thanks Kariana - this sounds great! Really useful to hear how it works!

[Guest]

I'm currently in year one and run it very much like foundation stage - moving to year two next year and planning to do it exactly the same! I have all of the areas that I did when I was a reception teacher, all of which are in relation to the topic. For example when we did Africa last term I had an African village role-play where they had to act out the daily life of an African village, a safari role-play where they went on the safari jeep and used wow words to describe what they could see, an explorers corner with a boat were they spotted the different countries thay could see and plotted them on a map and an African market with a shop where they used lots of money. I also had a creative area where they could make whatever they wanted (but I encouraged them to make things for the African market using clay), a challenge area, water and sand with different phonics and number activities and a writing table (sometimes in relation to the topic and sometimes different.)

 

Our school is doing the thematic approach (as you can probably tell!) so I like everything in the classroom and all of the activities to reflect the topic. If you are coming out of reception you will find this very easy, everything just needs to challenge the children a bit more and have more of a focus!

 

In the infants we do integrated maths and literacy in the mornings with me teaching aspects throughout the morning by simple gathering children on the carpet. I set out five activities which are a mixture of maths and literacy and all in relation to the topic. I then let the children choose between the activities throughout the morning, including the continuous provision.

 

Hope that makes sense and is helful! Some people are dubious abour continuous provison in year two but I can't wait to start it and think it is so much more beneficial to children that sitting at their tables all day - they are only 7 after all!

[AnonyMouse_20748]

Hi

 

I am moving to year 2 in September and have found this forum great for my foundation practise, sharing ideas and practise. There must be more people out there like me who now find themselves in KS 1. I thought perhaps I could give this forum a bit of a boost. I am setting up a year 2 class with a FS ethos in September. I am planning on having a theme curriculum centred around challenges that can be completed in different areas with the classroom depending on the child's interests and skills. Anyone interested in a similiar idea please do get in touch.

 

Thanks

 

Jay

 

Wish there were more like you in my area What a fab start to school with teachers thinking this way. My daughter has been teaching year 2 for several years and she has always tried this ethos and its worked well achieving the results and having the children well being met!! Go You!!!

Daughter has now opportunity to teach foundation in Sept she can't wait!

I naming all my resources as I know she will pinch them even more!!!

Sue

[Guest]

Hi Susan, are you able to add your timetable as you spoke about in a previous post.

[AnonyMouse_11396]

Hi how refreshing to hear that year1/2 teachers are taking on the challenge of the FS ethos, lets hope others may look at this thread and are also able to make changes in their classroom.

Good luck

[Guest]

I am moving to Year 2 having been in Reception for 3 years and like you I want to have a more FS feel - all they seem to do at the moment is worksheets and practise sats! I was intending to have different areas of the classroom set up for different areas e.g a creation area (art/DT) roleplay (Speaking and listening) investigation area (maths and science) etc etc. I have no experience of Year 2 so I'll have to see how it goes. Good luck all who have similar ideas - I'll keep you posted!

[AnonyMouse_25084]

I was just re-reading this post and wondered how everyone was getting on in their year 2 classes with a FS ethos? Anyone finding its really working/ not working?!

I have just been told that I am moving to year 2 next september! I am in my third year of teaching and have been in reception for all 3 years which I absolutely love! I have totally transformed our foundation stage and have been heavily involved in supporting the year 1 teacher make it more foundation stage. My head wants me to do year 2 to continue this process! But so far, year 2 is still much more structured. They have literacy and numeracy every morning and then topic in the afternoons. They currently dont have any child initiated learning time. I cannot imagine working totally in this way as I feel that CI is so invalubale. But I appreciate that there is a lot more to cover and children will be able to cope with more structure but I actually don't know what is best for the children by this age - any support would be great so I can prepare over the year, not just for myself but also the ground work in making other teachers accept this new approach. My head will support me, but other teachers (literacy and numeracy co-ordinators) still think I need structured lit and num sessions and one of them will have a child in my class!

I feel quite inexperienced in how to go about year 2! x

[Guest LornaW]

I have just been told that I am moving to year 2 next september! I feel quite inexperienced in how to go about year 2! x

 

Hi KST take a look at the work in this school in Croydon they have been working on a different ethos for many many years and it works really well. Look at their Context For Learning.

 

http://www.ridgewayprimaryschool.org.uk/in...b04625f4cb01a91

 

I always found visiting schools was a useful way to find ideas and see how it looks in practice.

 

Good luck I am sure you will be great!

 

Lorna

Edited November 7, 2010 by LornaW

[AnonyMouse_25084]

Thanks for the link Lorna, have just read their philosophy abotu context for learning and its great! Thank you very much! x