AnonyMouse_5970

Me too!

We don't charge for anything except meals (breakfast, cooked lunch, cooked tea). Parents supply nappies, we supply everything else. We don't charge for snacks.

I'm glad you had such a positive experience Louby Lou! Could I ask what paperwork relating to staff she looked at. Did she read supervision records and talk about targets for staff etc?

We used to have a kind of flat box that attached to the wall. It was made specifically for big books and had two holes in the top that you hooked onto hooks on the wall. Have you tried Googling "big book storage"?

Commission an independent review of childcare funding and affordability The petition, which has more than 112,000 signatures, states: “We have the second most expensive childcare system in the world. A full time place costs, on average, £14,000 per year, making it completely unaffordable for many families. Parents are forced to leave their jobs or work fewer hours, which has a negative impact on the economy and on child poverty.” In its response to the petition, the Government said: “The Government is not currently planning a review of the childcare system. Support is available to help with childcare costs, and the Government monitors the sustainability of childcare providers.” Well that was short and to the point wasn't it!

Oh goodness, I didn't even realise there was one!! Is that where everyone's gone? 😆

Thanks everyone. I'm going to look at ours today/tomorrow (probably tomorrow, ha ha!) so all your replies are helpful. I have to say, although I love Tapestry and we have used it from the start, I'm worried about the term "concerns". I think it could make it sound like we are worried about a child's development, when it could just be that we are keeping an eye, supporting etc. I'll have a look at the EYA Progress Check, thank you.

Hello everyone Has anyone made any changes/amendments to your Two Year Check because of the revised EYFS? Or are you carrying on as you were? All seems very quiet on the forum lately, I hope everyone is ok 😊

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ofsted-eif-inspections-and-the-eyfs/registered-early-years-providers

The whole thing makes me feel so weary and overwhelmed (not caused by this thread!) It's a shame we're all feeling our way and not sure which way to turn. We are open all year round, so I don't know if I'll have a solution by September. Plus Ofsted came our way over four years ago...😬

But hasn't the learning and development part of the EYFS always been our curriculum? In the old days, we had the pink folder which was called Curriculum Guidance to the Foundation Stage with Birth to Three added later. Then it became the Early Years Foundation Stage with the six areas of learning, then it was changed to the seven areas of learning plus the Characteristics of Effective Learning. Development Matters/Early Years Outcomes has been about (and non-statutory) for a while as support documents. I think of all of this as our curriculum and it's down to us to decide what we think the learning priorities are for our children and how we teach them.

I think we are already doing this and have been for years. If we have high expectations of our children and what they are capable of and we differentiate for children who learn at different rates then our curriculum is ambitious. It is carefully planned, no matter what 'style' of planning we use - we all think carefully about what we want children to learn and how we're going to teach it. And of course, it is sequenced. We know all the processes and skills that children need to practice before they are able to start writing (for example) All that sensory play as babies, leading on to manipulating malleable materials with hands, then tools, experiencing mark-making on a big scale, shoulder pivoting, before refining it down to smaller movements, tinkering with smaller resources to develop those fine motor skills, all that emergent writing etc etc. We do all this! I don't think it was Julian Grenier's intention for us all to write (or re-write?) a new curriculum. But maybe I'm wrong?

They way I understood it (and this maybe/probably is completely wrong) is that we don't need to devise our own curriculum. The curriculum is everything we do with children, everything they learn, everything we teach them, no matter which way you plan (or don't plan at all). I was looking at it from OUR children's point of view. What do we want the children at OUR setting to learn? What are THEIR needs? Do we need an extra focus on speech and language? What will out post-pandemic thoughts be on PSED? Will our children have extra needs in this area? We live and work in a small, rural market town and have a mix of well off and deprived families. But if we were an inner city nursery with lots of families living in high rise flats and many different languages spoken, our curriculum would be different to meet the needs of those children. We will be using Development Matters at least to begin with as I feel the transition will be more straight forward.

Thank you so much! Yes, that's it! I couldn't for the life of me remember where I'd seen it but it was obviously in BT5M. Thanks again.

Hopefully someone will come along who knows! I've tried "googling" but I just got lots of results about children and ballroom dancing! 🤪