Guest Posted June 24, 2004 Posted June 24, 2004 Just wondered how you all go about sorting out your pre-school sessions. Do you have the older children in mornings and younger children afternoons ?? or do you have groups of mixed ages. The reason I am asking is because until recently we had different rooms for the younger and older children and now we have mixed them because we were told it was best practise but in fact I don't think it is. Instead of the younger children learning by the older childrens example it works the other way round , just wondered if anyone had any views on this.
Guest Posted June 24, 2004 Posted June 24, 2004 We are in a village hall with one large room and a small lobby area where we can take small groups for "quieter" activities. I have always found this a problem when you have children as young as 2 1/2 mixed in with 4 + year olds. There is a huge difference between these ages/stages (and sizes!). In our situation we have always felt it would be nice to have another room to use, although not all the time. I feel SOME time spent in mixed groups can be beneficial.
Guest Posted June 24, 2004 Posted June 24, 2004 I have been running a preschool for three years and until now we have had mixed ages. I think there are pros and cons. The older ones do play a nurturing role to the younger ones, and the younger children do try and copy them. Sometimes though I find that I have different expectations of the different age groups as regards behaviour (length of time to sit down, listening skills,concentration during circle time etc) and it is hard to apply different rules to children playing in the same room. Next year we are splitting the children into playgroup and nursery and each age group is getting a mixture of mornings and afternoons - I'll have to wait and see if this system is better for us!
Guest Posted June 25, 2004 Posted June 25, 2004 i have 3 to almost 5s in my nursery and we are in a portacabin. It is sometimes difficult to find the space for activities esp when it is noisy. I find that the needs of the 3 yr olds and 4 1/2 year olds are different and i have to do a balancing act all the time. I wish i had a smaller room where i could take a small group just for some focussed time without have rest of the class joinin in or standing around to watch ( and join in). It must be worse if you have 2 yr olds as well as in the case of most pre-schools. It does tend to get noisy as well.
Guest Posted June 25, 2004 Posted June 25, 2004 I work with a group of 2.5 yrs to school age and although throughout most of the day the children are in mixed groups, we do make time during the day for a small focus pre-school session for those who are in the foundation stage. This can also be used as an ideal opportunity for observations, or a chance for us to refine some skill ( we are concentrating on independence, hanging up coats, peeling bananas, doing buttons. trying zips etc) Again it is not ideal, the younger children think that they may be missing out on something, but it seems to work quite well. Janet
hali Posted June 26, 2004 Posted June 26, 2004 We are in a hall as well with one small room we use for small group activities. Do tend to have older ones in mornings and younger ones in afternoon but they do cross and age range is 2 1/2 - 5 yrs. Most of the time i find it ok older ones tend to care for younger ones and younger ones learn from the older ones, but i agree its not ideal all of the time.
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