The Nursery Year in Action: Anna Ephgrave

[FSFRebecca]

New book review published! ::1a

I looked for this book to review it because of this FSF thread which had caused me to identify a 'gap' in my knowledge. If you are already following this method I'd be really interested in hearing how it works for you.

You can read the book review here

[AnonyMouse_7120]

We have been implementing this for almost a year.....though not to the letter as we have adapted it to suit us, we do very little forward planning, a couple of large group activities across the week and the odd small group if a KP really wants to target something that they feel isn't going to happen ITM or by adding enhancements ( or provocations as the new buzz word seems to be) rather than the 'focus' child a week each of our chn have 'focus' next steps which run over a half term, having used Tapestry to build partnerships with parents, using it to tell them the NS's we wil be focusing on and giving ideas to support at home we didn't want to lose that again, each child has an ob set up but not 'added' to their journal, anyone can add NS evidence and the KP will update at the end of the half term and also assess each aspect with band/refinement.

 

Trying to provide the 'enabling' environment from 2-5yrs has been the trickiest thing.

[AnonyMouse_19802]

Yes us too and like Mouse have adapted it to suit our 'pack away setting'. We have put in a Focus Child of the DAY just to make sure we are including all children, on a regular rota, to be at the mercy of our TITM!! Some children are 'givers' and it works so well but others appear to avoid adults....!

Like Mouse, again, ensuring we have an enabling environment needs constant supervision from ME! I do have to remind staff that what we have in continuous provision is what 'sparks opportunities for learning! Do not Skimp! Always a challenge in a packaway!

We add learning opps with key group Chatterboxes - scgs and our Transition to school group have daily 'group' time where we sing, count, sounds and letters and outside for Active Beans!

Not easy to leave all the learning to all our children - then nipping in to TITM - so we still add us in fun chunks!

We all agree it has improved our teaching, all staff are constantly looking for moments to enhance, extend, scaffold etc and we no longer hear " oh that's nice" as the staff walk on by! By no means are we expert at it but it has certainly improved outcomes and children and staff are happy!

Oh yes we too have little forward planning - a few scribbled notes in our book of Great Ideas!

[AnonyMouse_67034]

Hi,

 

We too have recently adopted a similar approach after I spent the Summer reading the above book (absolutely brilliant read and I took so much away from it!)

 

This term I decided to bite the bullet and significantly reduce our paperwork taking bold steps such as no longer writing 'next steps' for each child, no forward planning (other than for events and celebrations) and move over to online learning journals on Tapestry - I haven't looked back! We have devised an 'in the moment' planning sheet (very similar to Anna Ephgrave's) and have no more than 2 'focus' children per week. We are a small setting and this ensures that every child is a 'focus' of observations/in the moment planning within each term period.

 

Fortunately I have a really fantastic team who have a lot of experience and the interactions happening between them and the children have only got better and better since removing the pressures of unnecessary paperwork! We have a 15 minute 'group time' towards the end of each session for group singing/story sacks and the rest of the morning is purely dictated by the children and their interests!

 

On the 18th October, we had our first Ofsted visit since our registration and she was very pleased with the interactions happening between staff and children. She also made particular reference to our 'excellent instant planning' in her report which was very reassuring to hear from an 'external' point of view.

 

I would highly recommend other settings adopting a similar 'instant planning' approach however to consider that no one approach will work for everyone. As above, we had to alter Anna Ephgrave's approach to suit us and our setting - particularly as we are a pack away setting, and I would encourage others to do so too.

 

Emma

[Guest]

May I ask Emma, you mention that you use Tapestry.

 

I am part of a new nursery that is opening and am wanting to start with In the moment planning from the get go. We are also debating about Tapestry. So I'm interested to know how well these two work together - Tapestry/ITMP. We are also going to be a small setting with no more than 30 children. Do you still do Tapestry Obs on the other children as and when something significant occurs, and have 2 Focus children a week on A3 paper - so they still have a hard copy of their learning journey?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi,

 

We too have recently adopted a similar approach after I spent the Summer reading the above book (absolutely brilliant read and I took so much away from it!)

 

This term I decided to bite the bullet and significantly reduce our paperwork taking bold steps such as no longer writing 'next steps' for each child, no forward planning (other than for events and celebrations) and move over to online learning journals on Tapestry - I haven't looked back! We have devised an 'in the moment' planning sheet (very similar to Anna Ephgrave's) and have no more than 2 'focus' children per week. We are a small setting and this ensures that every child is a 'focus' of observations/in the moment planning within each term period.

 

Fortunately I have a really fantastic team who have a lot of experience and the interactions happening between them and the children have only got better and better since removing the pressures of unnecessary paperwork! We have a 15 minute 'group time' towards the end of each session for group singing/story sacks and the rest of the morning is purely dictated by the children and their interests!

 

On the 18th October, we had our first Ofsted visit since our registration and she was very pleased with the interactions happening between staff and children. She also made particular reference to our 'excellent instant planning' in her report which was very reassuring to hear from an 'external' point of view.

 

I would highly recommend other settings adopting a similar 'instant planning' approach however to consider that no one approach will work for everyone. As above, we had to alter Anna Ephgrave's approach to suit us and our setting - particularly as we are a pack away setting, and I would encourage others to do so too.

 

Emma

[AnonyMouse_67034]

Hi Joanna,

 

This is only our 8th week of using Tapestry so we are still getting used to the assessment side of things but so far so good! All of the staff have quickly come to terms with how to record observations and are getting much better at only adding 'wow' observations and trusting their own judgements without having to 'write everything down'. We do these 'wow' observations on all children but inevitably found that the focus children tend to get more observations each week.

 

Although each child has their own online journal, they do also each have their own 'paper journal' - but this tends to be more for special pieces of art which they wish to keep, special photographs, certificates etc. We also 'store' each child's ITM planning sheet in here once they have been the focus - that way the key person can easily refer back to it when making their assessments.

 

Hopefully this has helped to answer your questions but ultimately I would definitely say that Tapestry and ITM planning compliment each other fantastically

 

I'm happy to send you our template ITM planning sheet if that would help you in any way?

[Guest]

Thank you, that is really helpful. I'd love to have a look at your ITM planning sheet. My email address is joannaleonie@gmail.com.

 

Thanks so much

 

 

 

Hi Joanna,

 

This is only our 8th week of using Tapestry so we are still getting used to the assessment side of things but so far so good! All of the staff have quickly come to terms with how to record observations and are getting much better at only adding 'wow' observations and trusting their own judgements without having to 'write everything down'. We do these 'wow' observations on all children but inevitably found that the focus children tend to get more observations each week.

 

Although each child has their own online journal, they do also each have their own 'paper journal' - but this tends to be more for special pieces of art which they wish to keep, special photographs, certificates etc. We also 'store' each child's ITM planning sheet in here once they have been the focus - that way the key person can easily refer back to it when making their assessments.

 

Hopefully this has helped to answer your questions but ultimately I would definitely say that Tapestry and ITM planning compliment each other fantastically

 

I'm happy to send you our template ITM planning sheet if that would help you in any way?

[FSFRebecca]

Perhaps elberry88 will share the planning sheet on here and I can upload it to the resources library for everyone to see?

 

The planning sheet has now been added to the resource library. In the moment planning