Being Observd During Fre Flow

[Guest]

Please help - I am being observed with on Thursday with my mixed recepion and year 1 class. My head wants to see a free flow activity session, where mmy TA and I are doing obervations.

 

Free flow is my weakness as I not sure how I should best be suporting the children. We are doing the tiger who came to tea in literacy and shapes in numeracy. Our topic is all about me.

 

What kinds of activities would you have to make this an 'outstanding' lesson (though good would also be good!!) Would you have question cards out, and what would you expect the adults to do?

 

Sorry for all the questions but I have never had an observation like this before!

[Guest]

Has the head specifically asked to see you both doing observations and what kind of observations? I ask because If I am doing a detailed observations then I am not necessarily supporting play, I tend to sit back and observe what happens without any kind of intervention. If I am supporting play then I always have my roll of labels to jot down things that I see and hear as i am chatting to the children. I wouldn't normally have both me and my TA observing, one of us is usually supporting a focus activity. I only have reception children in my class but towards the end of the year I put out up to 3 challenges for the children each week that I expect them to do within freeflow over the course of the week. Seeing that you are doing the tiger that comes to tea (my favourite) I would have thought that modelling the role play of the story by you or your TA with props etc would be a good thing to do and then standing back and observing what the children do with it.

 

One thing that works for me is that on a Monday my TA and I take the children of a tour round the classroom and model play with the things we have put out and explaining their choices for the week (they don't have complete choice of all the equipment all the time, I change it weekly) so that when it is child initiated time (we call it busy board) they know exactly where to go.

Hope it goes well

Debx

[Guest]

Thanks for the help. I have no specific quidelines from my head. She has put that she wants to see Literacy lessons for others, but has put free flow for me, and wants to see how the children access the resources. I have a timetabled slot where we do long observations, which is the session she is coming into observe, but she doesn't want to see my obs, just how the children react and respond and how they access everything.

My panic is - I don't know how to make that a good lesson, especially as my TA will not be having any focus groups.

We will definitely be modelling the tiger who came to tea - especially as we are teaching it using the Talk for Writing approach.

 

Em x

[Guest]

I expect then that she will be looking for how children choose the activities for the session, how they get out the equipment and put it away at the end of the session and the quality of play. She I imagine will be looking out for those children who do not always settle to an activity quickly and tend to wander for a bit and your reaction to these children-how you support them. Do you end your freeflow session with a sharing time? I sit my children in a circle and they bring with them what they have done in the session, we talk about what they have learned, what they might improve next time, how they will continue the game/roleplay etc tomorrow, what they might need to continue their pay tomorrow (resources for us to find) and we feed that into our planning. This time is really important as it often gives other children ideas for the next day.

Deb

[Guest]

Thanks for the help - finished with a session like you mentioned and the head loved it

[Guest]

Thanks for the help - finished with a session like you mentioned and the head loved it

 

Thanks for these posts - as an NQT I am struggling with free flow and how best to support it. After my first observation this week my mentor commented about some children in free flow 'wandering aimlessly' whilst I was supporting focussed groups and the LSA worked with other children who chose specific activities. I realise that free flow should be as important a part of the planning rather than an add on but did not get much guidance with this during my SCITT training.