AnonyMouse_46159 Posted January 2, 2017 Posted January 2, 2017 Just never seem to get the planning right although children seem to be doing well so we are obviously doing something right.We are a small pre school in a school,17 on role.We plan a next step for each area of learning each half term,each week we focus on an area of learning and don't pre-plan too much we just observe the children and collect an observation from their play and interests,this then gets written up onto Tapestry and assessed.We don't have very much written down at all just a CP sheet which staff fill in and a plan of an activity on offer each day if they wish to participate.Every 7 weeks I go through Tapestry snapshots with staff and their manual tracking to see where the best fit is. I just feel I am still missing something?
FSFRebecca Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 If it's working for you and your children are making progress in all areas then I would say it's great ... My only question for you to think about would be 'do you have rigorous systems in place to support those who are below age related expectations and those who are exceeding?' and 'what do you have in place if a child's rate of progress changes?' - if you've got all that covered I would say you're on it!
AnonyMouse_7120 Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 Hi RedDragon, sounds good to me, we do similar but only focus on a couple of NSs per child per half term instead of one for each area, but as Rebecca suggested we then use our Tapestry snapshots to look at cohorts eg my snapshots showed at the end of last half term that our oldest boys made little progress in exploring media and mats over the last half term so we will target that within our CP this half term, our recent ofsted inspector was happy when I explained how we use tapestry to track our groups and provide enhancements to cp to support those findings, this is the statement from the report... 'The management team and staff monitor children's progress well. Staff observe and assess effectively to plan activities and learning experiences in response to children's interests and next steps. They provide prompt support for children who need extra help so that they can catch up developmentally' :-)
AnonyMouse_46159 Posted January 3, 2017 Author Posted January 3, 2017 Thank you both,I think because we are so small nobody slips through the net I go through tracking every 7 weeks with staff so we can see if somebody is under achieving. Gardner I need to do that on Tapestry what groups do you have on your tapestry? 1
FSFRebecca Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 Thank you both,I think because we are so small nobody slips through the net I go through tracking every 7 weeks with staff so we can see if somebody is under achieving. Gardner I need to do that on Tapestry what groups do you have on your tapestry? Children will automatically be allocated to a cohort (which will be their anticipated leave date, based on their date of birth), They will also show as part of a key persons group when you set the staff up as key people. When you add the children you will be able to say if they are part of an EAL, SEN, EYPP, BOY, GIRL group. You can then manually add any other groups that suit your needs - we have groups that are our nursery rooms. You will then be able to filter according to all the groups as well as Autumn, Spring and summer born children. 1
AnonyMouse_7120 Posted January 3, 2017 Posted January 3, 2017 Gardner I need to do that on Tapestry what groups do you have on your tapestry? To be honest I used to have lots of diff groups and print off snapshots for each ....Salt, summer boys, funded 2 yr olds etc, but now just print off my year cohorts as girls/boys at the end of half term and scribble 'salt' or '2yrF' against their name, I put their age in months against names, would be fab if snapshots included that ;-), I then highlight each aspect that a child made progress, it quickly shows where they didn't and if a number show the same lack of progress in an aspect we look at our CP :-) 2
FSFRebecca Posted January 4, 2017 Posted January 4, 2017 To be honest I used to have lots of diff groups and print off snapshots for each ....Salt, summer boys, funded 2 yr olds etc, but now just print off my year cohorts as girls/boys at the end of half term and scribble 'salt' or '2yrF' against their name, I put their age in months against names, would be fab if snapshots included that ;-), I then highlight each aspect that a child made progress, it quickly shows where they didn't and if a number show the same lack of progress in an aspect we look at our CP :-) Age in months is coming ..... soon (ish) Although snapshots already has that (it shows you the age of the child at the beginning and end of your chosen assessment period). We will be putting the age in months on the obs tab so that it is easier and quicker to make age related expectation assessments. 2
AnonyMouse_7120 Posted January 4, 2017 Posted January 4, 2017 (edited) Sounds good Rebecca, will this be the group ones showing age in months, do you think there will ever be the option to download as a word doc rather than a PDF, as a landscape PDF the table starts half way down the page if you could edit and lose some of the heading text they wouldn't run onto two pages :-) Edited January 4, 2017 by Mouseketeer
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