Was interested in any of your comments regarding the following

We will be going to 15 hours of funded care from next September. We are a community pre-school who run full day care on a Monday and Friday and sessional 2 and a half hour care the rest of the week. This is because on those afternoons, we have our younger children in (starting at 2 and a half to 2 and 9 months). The rest of the sessions are for children who potentially are going to school the following year. (hope you are with me so far!)
We have up to 26 children per session and usually 70+ on the register.

Because of the new funding we have been told that we have to ask the parents what requirements they have and they complete a contract for the term saying that these are the hours they require. Also that we can no longer have the seperate age groups and have to have all the children in together.

If it is anything like the children we have had this year, I cannot see how a 2 and a half year old will cope being with a child who is nearly 5. How do you ensure equal attention to all children when you have a younger child struggling to settle or who because of their age is very dependent on adult support to play? Does this mean that the more independent and able children are left to just get on with it?

We are in a church annex and have lots of provision set up daily into different areas, i.e. huge craft and messy area, carpet area for small world, tables for construction, playdoh, puzzles etc., and just the one room so we cannot seperate the children at all.

I also do the planning for the children and am struggling as to how you plan for such a wide range of abilities.

Any ideas? comments? or just anything at all?

I am also pre-school sessional on some days, daycare on others. All of our sessions have always been mixed age groups age 2.5 -rising 5. I also have about 70 on the register and 26 per session .
It isn't a problem at all because the keyperson system ensures that every child is catered for. Also we differentiate the activities. Our group times are very short in September to allow for settling in. We find that the older children are very good role models for the younger ones and often will buddy up with them

I agree with bubblejack - but would also add that perhaps you could delegate the planning to each key person so they can plan effectively for their key group children. That should take the pressure off you and give them some ownership.

Good luck!

Maz

We too are mixed aged 2 - 5yr olds in 1 room, we found splitting the group into 3 age bands and doing a little adult led activity for each age band at different parts of the morning has worked for us this year.
It meant when the older ones were doing their activity the younger ones had no worries of having ago at anything.

Maybe you could give this try?

we have 2-5s in one room too. We just ensure activities are fully differentiated with no problems - one of the best things about this is, it always suprises me just how capable some of the 2yr olds can be!!!
Key-persons plan for their children.

xxx

Thanks very much - having always had seperated age groups it is nice to know it works to have them all together. At the moment we have free flow play with 2 staff outside and 2 staff inside with the supervisor who is supernumerary. We currently tidy up at 11 to do keyperson group activities before lunch/going home.

Do you do your keyperson activities at the same time or stagger them through the morning?

Feel like I am being lazy picking your brains but it is the end of term and my brain has nearly melted by now. Need a break!!

We personally stagger ours through out the morning.
Our activities aren't done neccessarily done in keyworker groups though more like similar abilities doing adult led activities and then keyworkers work for individual children through out the rest of the morning.
Can be a struggle sometimes to get through everything though, depends on how much time you've spent in the toilet that morning!!

Snap - that's how we work too .......... do we work at the same place??

I'm thinking of setting up an activity table in the toilets - do a bit of multi-tasking!!!!!!!!!!

xxxx

Maybe we could do with a 'continuous provision' document just for the toilets!!!!

Good to hear someone works the same as us though - there's a 1st time for everything!