Guest Posted November 19, 2005 Posted November 19, 2005 Had an ofsted inspector in my classroom the other week and was told (after report came and not at time) that my displays were unsatisfactory. As we are expecting ofsted at anytime i'm in a bit of a panic. Has anyone got any pictures of any effective displays that they have done? Need some displays that could be kept up....got a birthday cake on wall which children have written their name on cardboard candle. Any help would be appreciated!
Guest Posted November 19, 2005 Posted November 19, 2005 Was the report referring specifically to wall displays? It's quite hard with display boards that are high up to create good interactive displays - can only really add photographs to show how the work was produced and comments/ questions to go with the display. I like to have lots of low level table-top/ window ledge/ trolley displays with hands on stuff. I'm sorry I don't have any pics for you (have you looked in the gallery section of the forum?)
Guest Posted November 19, 2005 Posted November 19, 2005 Have you looked at the displays in the gallery.
Guest Posted November 19, 2005 Posted November 19, 2005 Yeah wall display. Thought it was a tough comment as children had only been in for about 4 weeks and all displays had to be taken down over the summer due to redecoration. So many empty!
Guest Posted November 19, 2005 Posted November 19, 2005 If you do not have any childrens work to display you could put up some nice pictures i.e. from calendars or magazines
Guest Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 Could you put up displays about the curriculum ie mallable Area - a few photo's of children at play with info on learning opportunities. Do one for as many areas as you need to fill empty display boards. If you haven't got pictures of children from class, then use pics from supply catalogues. I agree comment was a bit harsh, it takes us a few weeks to get our display boards up to scratch at the beginning of term ( especially after Summer break) Don't know why but our priority is to spend time with new children to settle them in at this time of year. Peggy
Guest Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 Thanks for that...what also makes it hard as i teach in reception for 60% so find time hard and have big class. Oh well we trudge on
Guest Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 Do you have a TA who could help with putting up the displays?
AnonyMouse_2157 Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 HI Purplecat I find it easier to plan displays around the areas of learning, like Peggy was saying. I have one wall that is dedicated to CLL (particlualrly linking sounds to letters) as this is interactive and we add to it each week as we learn our Jolly Phonics, it also has keywords that are big and bold and colour coded. Along with this our letter family formation reminders e.g curly caterpillar, long ladder , one armed robot letters etc. This wall display is near to the mat area and stays almost constant through the year. I have another smaller wall that has the ELG's outlined as in the profile and we popo our post it notes/observations on their as we go along (so another that stays constant through the year). I have a large wall area that we dedicate to Mathematical Development (I change this half termly relating to our topic) currently its got 1-10 diva candles. I also have a slightly smaller wall for writing. In addition to this I use fishing line across the room to hang 'instant' displays on e.g. things children have made daily. Do have a look in the gallery because there are some cracking ideas to inspire. Dont get too down... at least you have time to do something about it
Guest tinkerbell Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 The Belair display books are a really useful resource, there are books on display for all areas of the curriculum and over the years I have found them really useful..abit expensive could your head buy them for school??? Tinkerbell
Guest Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 Thanks for the help. It just seems like such a big task and even bigger by this ofsted woman coming in and commenting. Makes me less motivated than more. At present have target wall, birthday wall, gallery wall, winter display, firework display, magic moments for parents to see what we have been doing. Support are wonderful but feel under pressure that i must make them fantastic. I always got the children involved before but now draping lots of material around and spending time after school. Trying to make motivational posters at moment! How is everyone anyway?
AnonyMouse_79 Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 Sounds like youre doing all the right things! Can you jazz up the boards to make them look really child friendly?
Guest Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 When our Advisor pops into school to see us she is always very keen to see a good mixture of child initiated work and work from teacher directed activities displayed. I make sure I always have a large display of child initiated work with loads of 'theory' behind it, including the relevant ELGs. I also try to have lots of interactive table top displays - at the moment I have a 'counting farmyard' where the children have to put the correct no. of sheep or cows in the field and ducks in the pond etc. Have I explained that well? Probably not. Hope this helps.
AnonyMouse_4145 Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 just another note on interactive displays, i have a number of interactive displays, relating to different curriculum areas..... I think they are fantastic except for one thing .... maintenance - last year i had an entire class who would frequently trash interactive displays, this year my class is much more settled, except for one child with special needs, who consistently trashes anything that is at child level - it is very frustrating - if anyone has any suggestions i would be interested to hear them
Guest Posted November 20, 2005 Posted November 20, 2005 Take photos of the displays then you can show these if you have just had the decorators in.
Steve Posted November 21, 2005 Posted November 21, 2005 Only cos I've just stuck one up in the gallery and thought the original looked very lovely, here's a link to a nice seasons display!
AnonyMouse_4544 Posted November 21, 2005 Posted November 21, 2005 (edited) The advice we have been given is that any displays we put up should have references to the Early Learning Goals Stepping Stones and NOT be they nice frieze type we have used in the past. (Sorry Steve but the displays in your link are now a no no in our LEA )Personally I think a mixture of childrens work and topic displays works very well but ............. the powers to be disagree! Edited November 21, 2005 by MARl0N
Guest Posted November 21, 2005 Posted November 21, 2005 So what are the point of displays then? Are they just to show what adults know or are they to brighten the room and show what the children have done? Our children in pre-school are so proud of their work on the walls-good PSED if you ask me! See, I do know stuff!! I just don't need to prove it by writing it on the walls! Linda
AnonyMouse_2732 Posted November 21, 2005 Posted November 21, 2005 What an awful attitude to have to work with, Marion!!!!! I'm so glad we've not received that kind of edict from our EY people, they're happy to leave display choices to us. We do have a couple of boards in Reception and corridors that are informative and aimed at parents, but the ones in the rooms reflect the children's work 100%. Sue
Steve Posted November 21, 2005 Posted November 21, 2005 Hi Marion - I think the advice from your LEA to the effect that you should make the references to ELGs and SSs explicit is a bit crude - your LEA probably have people misinterpreting the idea that the work should be guided by the FS Curriculum into the idea that you need to be proving it in situ! Seems to me that if you and your staff are able to point to the stepping stones that were achieved while putting together the display, that should be quite sufficient. Eg: Creative Development Stepping Stone: Work creatively on a large or small scale PSE: Show confidence in linking up with others PSE: seek out experiences to share with others etc, etc. What do you reckon?
Guest Posted November 21, 2005 Posted November 21, 2005 I agree with you Syeve you can usually link it to one or other SS or we just put working towards ...... ELG
Guest Posted November 22, 2005 Posted November 22, 2005 I now put learning objectives on the displays but i wonder who they are for. Seems they are just for the inspectors!
AnonyMouse_4544 Posted November 22, 2005 Posted November 22, 2005 Hi Marion -I think the advice from your LEA to the effect that you should make the references to ELGs and SSs explicit is a bit crude - your LEA probably have people misinterpreting the idea that the work should be guided by the FS Curriculum into the idea that you need to be proving it in situ! Seems to me that if you and your staff are able to point to the stepping stones that were achieved while putting together the display, that should be quite sufficient. Eg: Creative Development Stepping Stone: Work creatively on a large or small scale PSE: Show confidence in linking up with others PSE: seek out experiences to share with others etc, etc. What do you reckon? 43353[/snapback] I agree Steve but we have been told to get rid of the types of display we previously did ie: similar to those you linked to! We have also been told to stop mounting children's work as previously it was our policy to double mount everything.
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