29 replies to this topic

[fatange]

Sorry if I sound a bit thick and if it has been covered before, but as a teacher of KS2 for 13 years I am struggling with following children's interests and planning next steps.
Here are my problems:

I have difficulty managing the assessment of all of the children in nursery and rising 3s - first of all, I have no early years training, so I need to research child development to understand appropriate next steps, but I have little time to do this at present! Therefore, I have been looking towards the Flying Start grids (combination of stepping stones and EYFSP) for next steps, as this gives me an idea of where to go next and there is pressure from LEA to raise standards. However, I feel I am 'teaching to the test' as it were.

Also, the amount of time taken to sift through and stick observations into children's individual profiles is excessive - Maybe I'm doing too much???

Then, the amount of information this throws up makes me feel overwhelmed at planning next steps - where do I begin? How do I resource this / plan for this within the unit?

Would it be an idea to group children following assessment on Flying Stasrt grids for Teacher directed tasks? (again, feels like formal class learning and teaching to the test, but how else to move on children's learning?)

Also, I am a member of the senior leadership team, so I am always conscious of pressure to raise standards.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[katekit]

Hi, I don't know if this will be of any help but we now use a sheet for observations that we put the name, date and area of learning on, write the observation/anecdotal obs and then cut and stick it into the child's folder. We then handwrite the next steps in as we stick it in and we also link to 'Dev Matters'. we tried using post its but had to spend time sellotaping them onto the file paper! (just been through OFSTED and they liked the assessment we did. also do other things as well of course!
as we are sticking them into the childrens folders it helps as we re-read them. The sheet came from the forum, called 'catch as you can' I think? will try to find it again, but they have been great for us to use.
I don't know what the 'Flying Start ' grids are though so I can't make any comment on them.
best wishes
Cath

[Rea]

Hi fatange, I'm not a teacher so not sure exactly what you need, but would this be any good for you? It the dcsf site Progress matters

[SuzieC8]

Hi there, I came at the EYFS having been a teacher of older children, and I've found it hard to get to grips with it. The conclusion I've reached is that it is much more 'slippery' than the national curriculum. What you've got to understand is that we are talking about a totally different approach to learning here than you get once children enter KS1. It's basically back to the old child centered model that was around when I originally trained many years ago.

The idea seems to be that, rather than the teacher planning for where the learning should go, instead you follow the children's interests, so if little Fred suddenly expresses an interest in dinosaurs, that might inform the way you plan an activity for the next day. Of course what this means is that it's very hard to plan for progress, because it's child rather than teacher led. You might also notice that little Amy needs to work on her counting, and find ways to get her doing this while she plays. Or you might occasionally actually initiate an activity that you feel the children need or want to cover. I hope that makes sense?

In terms of working out next steps, the guidance should help you there, as the children will be moving upwards through the age levels.

With the profiles, what we do at our setting (I'm chair of the committee) is aim to fill in a few sticky labels during each session, with a short observation or quote from what a child has said, and perhaps where this fits within the EYFS. These are then put into the profiles.

To be honest, I do feel that they are trialing this new approach on the poor practitioners in early years, and that at the moment it is far too paperwork and assessment heavy. I'm watching with interest to see what happens with this APP stuff in primary.

Good luck with your quest to understand the EYFS.
Sue.

[Emilia]

I think it is more about knowing the curriculum so when you are playing with the children you can scaffold and extend their learning. So if a child is really interested in dinosaurs and you are developing their speaking and listening then discussion about dinosaurs will be of interest to the child. If you are counting then if you use dinosaurs the child will already be interested and more likely to fuly engage in the activity.

Planning for progress again comes from knowing development matters so when you are playing with the children or in an adult directed task from what you learn about them you can then go back to development matters and plan for the next step.

Play is how children form their learning it develops pathways in the brain and enables understanding my role as an adult in this is to model the learning, know the child and offer appropriate provocations to develop their learning. I don't see the EYFS as new it is what I have been doing for many many years!

[sunnyday]

SuzieC8, on May 10 2009, 08:56, said:

Hi there, I came at the EYFS having been a teacher of older children, and I've found it hard to get to grips with it. The conclusion I've reached is that it is much more 'slippery' than the national curriculum. What you've got to understand is that we are talking about a totally different approach to learning here than you get once children enter KS1. It's basically back to the old child centered model that was around when I originally trained many years ago.

The idea seems to be that, rather than the teacher planning for where the learning should go, instead you follow the children's interests, so if little Fred suddenly expresses an interest in dinosaurs, that might inform the way you plan an activity for the next day. Of course what this means is that it's very hard to plan for progress, because it's child rather than teacher led. You might also notice that little Amy needs to work on her counting, and find ways to get her doing this while she plays. Or you might occasionally actually initiate an activity that you feel the children need or want to cover. I hope that makes sense?

In terms of working out next steps, the guidance should help you there, as the children will be moving upwards through the age levels.

With the profiles, what we do at our setting (I'm chair of the committee) is aim to fill in a few sticky labels during each session, with a short observation or quote from what a child has said, and perhaps where this fits within the EYFS. These are then put into the profiles.

To be honest, I do feel that they are trialing this new approach on the poor practitioners in early years, and that at the moment it is far too paperwork and assessment heavy. I'm watching with interest to see what happens with this APP stuff in primary.

Good luck with your quest to understand the EYFS.
Sue.

Sue - I really like this reply and would second everything that you have said. Ref. the EYFS being 'slippery' - love it!

Hi fatange and welcome to the forum!

Sunnyday

[SuzieC8]

Thanks for that, sunnyday.

Emilia, I didn't mean 'new' as in new to early years practitioners, but the approach is very different to what's been going on at KS1 and KS2 in schools in recent years.

[Emilia]

Sue I suppose it depends on the type of school you work in. I have worked much more cross curricular in my school for over 8 years now so we are not finding it that much differenct.

[kittycat1279]

Emilia, on May 10 2009, 17:28, said:

Sue I suppose it depends on the type of school you work in. I have worked much more cross curricular in my school for over 8 years now so we are not finding it that much differenct.

I'm in the same position as Emilia - we never stopped working in a cross-curricular way so it's not a huge shift for us either. Our English/Literacy usually linked in with our topic - therefore it kept more meaning if you see what I mean. But from talking to friends in other schools it is quite a big change so I can sympathise.

[Suer]

exactly what should be done ...........observe children, do long obs, look at the childs interest and scaffold the learning as already said, i have always worked in early years and for me i cannot understand why you would make a child do something that he has no interest he will not learn to his full potential. What i dont understand is why this type of learning end at reception or ??KS1 my teenage daughter would be mush happier in secondary school if she was learning in a way that suits her, so digressed there!

another example is .. we have a child who loves cars so cars go into sand, water , paint, stories snack time even forest school and so on

[catma]

Quote

Or you might occasionally actually initiate an activity that you feel the children need or want to cover. I hope that makes sense?

Sorry but I don't agree with this - it's not occasionally at all, it's a continually balanced delivery between adults initiating and children leading.
Equally I can still deliver my learning intentions through a child's interests, I just have to adjust my context, not the learning I am promoting.

Cx

[SuzieC8]

I thought that it was meant to be only about 20% adult led/initiated but I could be completely wrong in my reading of the EYFS and the posts on here? I see what you mean about changing the context though. I do sometimes wonder whether always following children's interests is rather narrowing, in that you can end up only doing what they appear to like, rather than introducing them to new experiences.

[heyjude]

[quote name='SuzieC8' date='May 14 2009, 14:14' post='194708']
I thought that it was meant to be only about 20% adult led/initiated

The 80/20% is often quoted. This refers to the Profile evidence - 80% of observations and "evidence" should be from child-initiated/led/independent activities to give a truer picture of what the child can actually do; 20% should come from adult led activities - guided/focussed activities.
In other words the bulk of our assessments should be based on what the children are doing independently.
Hope that helps

[katiepotatie]

Hi everyone

I always thought it was 80% of the daily routine should be child initiated and 20% should be adult led nothing to do with the observations. I am finding it also hard to go from the children's interests because how are you meant to plan your medium term and weekly plans if you are waiting to see what the childrne do or say. Also what if you have a variety of interests in one day or in a week how can you possible keep changing things all the time without getting the children confused and losing focus. There is only two adults in our Nursery including myself and I find it so hard to keep up with observations, profiles, catch as you cans and everything else as well as teaching. I think all this paperwork and assessment critera stop us from teaching the children to a high standard and getting involved in their play. It ridiculous!

kate

[Suer]

without a shadow of doubt child led is always best and the best learning comes from child intiated