Guest Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 Hi all Does anyone on the forum work in a creche or support creche settings (and i suppose playgroups may be similar). Im very passionate about planning for children's interests and am working with a lot of settings who are still very strongly topic based to encourage them to adopt a more child centred approach. I would be interested to here how other people in these type settings plan. Myself and settings have had a lot of discussion about planning as sometimes they may only have a child in the settings once a week for six weeks while mam is on a course (very little time to build up a whole picture of child's interests etc), therefore many of the settings i support feel comfortable with a set topic in place. At present i am helping/encouraging settings to put a long term plan in place based on their continuous provision to highlight what learning opportunities are available (i try to emphasise the importance of their environment as it has to be stimulating and cover all areas of learning with some children only attending for very short periods). Medium term planning i have been discussing with them is predicatable events/interests which children will naturally be interested in as it is something that is going on all around them and is a part of their life e.g. festivals etc. Short term i encourage them to keep a daily diary (not possible to produce individual files as they children arent their long enough) to record significant events and use this to think of next steps for the children. (some settings are beginning to add curriculum links to this) Am i on the right lines? It gets to a point where you start to doubt yourself especially when practitoners are asking if OFSTED will think this is enough! (we all know it depends on who the inspector is!) If anyone has any suggestions or feedback i would be greatful Thanks again Paula x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Running Bunny Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 Paula, I would say that you are on the right lines - I have a hard time trying to convince providers that you do not have to plan too far in advance as you never know what the children are going to be interested in. I was delivering some training last night with some childminders and we discussed planning in the easiest way and one childminder said that she had an A4 diary with the yearly planner at the front identifying celebrations, festivals and seasons. At the start of each month she transferred the celebrations to the page in the calendar and then thought loosely about what she might do during that month and the resources that she may need to find or purchase. Then, at the start of each week, she would think about the individual children she had in each day and note down something that they had previously shown an interest in to focus on or develop. Activities would then be linked back to BTTM/FS after the event rather than getting too hung up on what we want to achieve and focussing on what was achieved. She did say that she didn't often do formal observations, but these could also be recorded on the page in the diary, written on a post it note and stuck in or shown where the observation can be found. This would then be used to plan for the next week. I hope this confirms that you are doing the right thing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 17, 2007 Share Posted October 17, 2007 Thanks Its a case of trying to inspire them and ensure they are confident about what they are doing and not just doing it for me because i said it good practice!!!!! Paula x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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