Medium Term Planning (no Topic/theme?!?!)

[Guest]

Hello,

 

I have recently started at a nursery and was told by the previous teacher that they do not use medium term planning and that it was optional - which I thought was odd as I thought you had to have medium term planning.

 

The teacher advisor has recently told me that I now need to do MTP but cannot use a theme or a topic, so I asked if she just wanted festivals/yearly events going on it or more; she said more - but no theme or topic. Is this right and if so, how easy/hard is it to do MTP without a theme or topic?!?

 

 

Plus Ofsted were supposed to of arrived before xmas and still haven't come - has this happened to anyone else?!

[AnonyMouse_832]

The eyfs is your medium and long term planning and the next steps for the children you are working with.

[Guest]

I know that it comes from the EYFS but have you seperated each term with a topic/theme?

[AnonyMouse_3139]

I would make your medium plan a guide for the things you would like to have happen. Visits/outings, festivals, mini topics that might cover areas the children wouldnt normally show interest in partly because they havent the vocabulary to think of. Fll in the rest with the things they do show an interest in retrospectively.

[Guest]

Planning is individual to each setting, there are no wrong and right ways, it's what suits your setting and staff

 

We do not have medium term plans only long plan and a weekly plan

 

I do not see the benefit of a medium plan, never have done, waste of a good tree in my opinion

 

We plan weekly , topic and themes are guided by the childrens interests which change weekly

 

My long term plan holds timings for reviewing policies, procedures, review of sef, appraisals, points of interest like chinese new year mothers day Christmas, Diwali

 

I cannot understand how the EYFS is your medium plan?

If you have a medium plan it has to be relevent to the setting

[Guest heleng]

We plan weekly from the children's interests but alos to make sure we cover everything we have a termly plan too.

 

Each term we look at the early learning goals and decide which skills we want to focus on that term. We highlight them in a different colour every term and use the children's interests to cover them. So we might decide we want to focus on colour mixing for that term but dependent on the children's interests we might cover this through making a dinosaur landscape or making rockets or through a fairy theme or whatever of the children's interests we are following at that time.

 

So we choose the skills at the start of the term and then use the children's interests to help us cover them. We refer to this weekly when planning so we know what skills have been covered and what ones still need doing. At the end of each term we look and see if there are any others we have covered extra because of the areas of the children's interests and this just ensures everything is covered as it needs to be throughout the year.

 

I hope this makes sense!!

[Guest]

Our OFSTED was due in November, but no sign of them still. I've told myself it is because our SEF and previous inspection was good enough for us to be at the bottom of their to-do list (I hope!)

 

When doing the medium term planning, I use a list of all the DM's and at the end of each month I tick the ones we covered. I then use these to choose the DMs we haven't covered enough and list them on our medium plan. Each week I take a selection of these and/or what has been flagged up as needing to be covered from the basis of the childrens observations.

I do start of with using topic each month on the basis of what the kids are interested in as I fel it helps the staff brainstorm ideas, however by week 2 the kids interests have taken us away form numbers and on to something entirely different, such as spaghetti

Edited February 18, 2010 by Guest

[Guest]

what area is appropriate for one child may not be for the other, thats why my key staff plan for individual children.

so putting the aeas we are covering ona medium plan is not appropriate for us

 

each staff can plot indivdually for each child and therefore also have their own input into the planning

[AnonyMouse_4562]

Suer, please could you explain how your individual plans work and how your staff manage the activities for their key children. E.g. how often do you complete an individual plan? Does each key person plan to work with all their key children each day/week? Interested in how this works for you, thanks, Green Hippo x

Edited February 19, 2010 by green hippo

[Guest]

Well here goes

 

at the start of every term staff do long obs (usually 2)

involving the child,the parent and staff they plan where the childs intersts lie,

they then tie it in with the eyfs goals and DM

 

the next steps are then planned in for the following week, for the next few weeks plans are made this way and the staff do small obs , long ob done again at the end of the term.

 

it maybe that the staff are looking at psrn for that child and will either help scaffold learning around child intiated, self chosen activity or it maybe more adult directed and be planned for but it will always be around what the child is interested in. so we wouldnt make a child play a game or sit and do a number puzzle or sit in the creative area if they love role play. We will work in the role play area with the child.

 

every key person works and plans for every individual child

 

along side these obs we do well being and invovlement scanning

 

Key staff have a set day a week that they work with their children and they are not rota'd in to do anything else.

 

Incidental obs are done through the week

 

It works well for us, hope it does not sound to confusing

 

I do not beleive in making whole groups of children do the same planned activity because they will not all want to be there doing it.

Edited February 19, 2010 by Suer

[Guest]

My medium term plan for my nursery consists of bullet points that we *might* cover in addition to the individual interests. In the first half of Spring, the children were withering a bit, so we suggested 'Fairy Tales' which we spent 5 weeks on, and they loved!

 

Here is a copy of my medium term plan. I borrowed the format from my reception placement and apparently the ofsted inspector liked it because it was simple and clean cut. Medium_Term_Plan__revised.pdf

 

Suer, can I ask how many children you have, their ages, and how many staff you have? I would love to work how you described, completely child centered, however with 48 children split over two daily sessions, and only 2 staff including myself, I have found it difficult. We do take the children interests into account, however it tends to be groups of children, rather than individuals.

 

*fingers crossed my attachment works!*

[Guest]

so your a amintained setting , judging by your ratio's?

 

we have 24-26 children with 5 staff per morning although i am counted in the ratio's i do not key work.

the staff have between 5-8 key children and have an allocated day to work on

 

the ages are between 2 1/2 and 4 1/2

 

why have a med plan? how do you know in spring, summer etc what your children are going to be interested in? Even if you continue with a 'theme' because the children are enjoying it (and rightly so and how wonderful it is that you do that) . Why write a med plan when what you do does not follow what is written, why write it in the first place

 

just food for thought

Edited February 21, 2010 by Suer

[AnonyMouse_25754]

Hi Suer

Just wondered if you have the same children in every day. we are a non maintained setting with 29 children on roll and 4 fully trained (2 teachers and 2 NVQ 3'S ) . We do our general obs every day and like most people in this kind of setting, dont just concentrate on our own per say but if we observe things that occur whilst the childs 'keyworker; is out of the room (toileting, in the quiet room with another child) - will make the relevant observations for them. It is a struggle though to do our focus activities with our groups as some of the children only come in on certain days of the week. As an ex reception teacher i can see how this would work having the dame chilfren in every day - just wondered how you managed to do catch up with those children who may not be there on the days of adult led/ focus activities??

our ages are also between 21/2 and 41/2 and we are all keyworkers ( I have 10 in m group!)

 

Also wondering how you can reflect and develop next steps for your children without a med plan in place. Our planning is completely based on childs interests and where they need to go next but cant understand how you can 'plan' for a half term without this in mind.

 

Your theory sounds brill but my experience says differnt - please enlightn me into what Ive been getting wrong - you sound like you have such a good handle on it

 

 

 

so your a amintained setting , judging by your ratio's?

 

we have 24-26 children with 5 staff per morning although i am counted in the ratio's i do not key work.

the staff have between 5-8 key children and have an allocated day to work on

 

the ages are between 2 1/2 and 4 1/2

 

why have a med plan? how do you know in spring, summer etc what your children are going to be interested in? Even if you continue with a 'theme' because the children are enjoying it (and rightly so and how wonderful it is that you do that) . Why write a med plan when what you do does not follow what is written, why write it in the first place

 

just food for thought

[Guest]

Our long term plan covers the years rough themes, eg Autumn, Winter, Animals, Seaside, any special days eg Mother's day, Fathers Day.

 

Our medium term plan is the children's next steps eg where we would like them to be at the end of each half term based on where they were, so it could just be one step forward eg after noticing they can use one handed tools such as pencils/ pens, then looking for them drawing lines and circles and using more control.

 

Short term plans are weekly, looking at specific areas for each of PSE CLL etc depending on what all our childrens next steps are. Hope this makes reasonable sense if you would like me to upload plans I will try to!

 

Rachel

[SueFinanceManager]

Hi

 

May be worth looking in the resource library - click here

 

Sue