Eyfs Planning

[kristina]

Hi, I'm fairly new to the forum and this is only my second posting so please stick with me on this. I have a question with regards planning in September 2008, at present I am a Deputy and helping my supervisor set up the new planning. She is saying that we need to use the new principles for example A Unique Child for our long, medium & short term planning. However other professionals that I have spoken to are still basing their planning around the six learning areas for example creative, knowledge & understanding.

So as you can imagine I am now a bit confused as to which way to go with this, especially as I will be leaving in 2 weeks having been offered a Supervisory position in another Pre-School!!

Can anyone shed some light on this or is it just a case of personal preference?

 

Thanks

 

Kris

[Andreamay]

Hiya

A unique child within these 6 area of learning is how I have read it. Following their lead. There have been lots of posts about planning without themes recently I would read those. The 6 areas of learning are still within the framework apart from maths being something and problem solving (sorry its early!).

[Guest]

That's how I see it Andrea, I haven't been on any training for EYFS, but someone will be along who has. The six areas of learning are the biggy's really and the principles act as your philosophy, does that make sense. I would still reference the principles on planning, what with that, elgs, individual initials, resources, activities, staff deployment.... there's little room for what you are actually planning to do!!

 

But hey we all know that how to meet the 'paperwork' criteria, the real issue is that we play with the children, offer them wonderful experiences that will promote their development in all areas, scaffold their friendships and really have fun!!

If only we didn't have to justify everything in print.

Edited April 18, 2008 by Guest

[Annie-pops]

I have now completed my EYFS training (3 x 3 hour sessions) and I still don't really know what I'm doing!! Same as usual with a few new paragraphs and a few new headings sounds about right!! If you look on the CD rom there are some good planning resources under Enabling Environments ... /Observation, Assessment, and Planning ... Resources. (At least I think thats where they are). xx

[Helen]

Hi Kris,

The four themes and principles, I think, are largely planned for through your policies and practice each and every day, and it would be meaningless to plan for, say, "A Unique Child" on a Monday, and "Positive Relationships" on another day! If you and your staff are getting familiar with the cards, poster, guidance and statutory documents, have been reviewing your practice and altering your policies and procedures accordingly, then I don't see any reason to plan within the four themes: they will be covered anyway. You could, of course, create a long term plan which encompasses the four themes, but this would be very similar to your EYFS policy (if you have one) or your vision/aims statement, or something equivalent. If you don't have any of these, then maybe you could construct a document referring to the four themes, their principles, and of course, the five outcomes from Every Child Matters. This would make a good "long term plan", ie the provision you want to offer all the children during their time with you.

 

I'm a strong advocat of minimal paperwork in medium and short term planning, and only write down what I think is essential information that will provide the children with the best learning experiences, and that will ensure that all staff know what we have planned, why we have planned it and what we want the children to learn from it. If you involve your staff in the planning, discuss activities and general provision fully, and they are able to articulate the what, why and how they are going to carry out certain activities or provide particular learning opportunities, then your medium (by the way I don't have any medium term plans!) and/or short term plans can be concise.

[Annie-pops]

Just echoing what Helen has said. I am sure we were told that you don't need to have medium term plans and that your long term plans basically cover festivals and events over the year and how you will ensure you cover all the areas of learning. As most of what we do is CI now, anyway it would be impossible to produce reams of paperwork saying what we will be doing e.g. next month and more often than not we don't know. When we have used observations to plan from, we have sheets which we record this and anything that came out of it onto (words and pictures) this can be photocopied and put in the individuals concerned files, activities and resources which come out of this are recorded or displayed on the wall (similar to the "Learning Walls" idea which has been discussed on here) and then . Activities which come out of these observations can be filled into a Daily record sheet of continuous provision which has been offered and either highlighted with a specific colour or marked CI .

[Inge]

At our training we were told to use the back of the first page on the cards which details / explains the principles as our long term plan and to add a list of festivals and events we would cover over the year.

 

The emphasis was on the fact that the 6 areas of learning are really only a small part of what we are doing when you look at the overall EYFS.

 

Also to cover how you are doing this to do a continuous provision sheet for your daily and everyday routine showing how much is covered within this.

No medium term plans and any others are done a week or so at a time to cover children's interests, mini themes can be planned for to extend their interests and to give a balance to the curriculum ..

 

 

Anything to save on paperwork!

 

Inge

Edited April 18, 2008 by Inge

[kristina]

Hi everyone and thanks for all your replies, it's making a bit more sense now, and if I'm reading this right I can incorporate festivals etc into my long term plans and scrap my medium?!! Yipee!!!

[Guest]

not sure if I've done this right...

Here's part of what I'm thinking of doing for LTP, as well as the continuous provision ones I've bought from sparklebox - please let me know what you all think x

eyfs.doc

overview_of_learning_and_development.doc

[Sue R]

As Helen noted, the four principles are more for hanging documentation etc on. We are continuing with the areas of learning for planning, if that's any help. Well, in pre-school; in baby room we are using obs to develop children's interests and in toddler room, we are retaining more of the ethos of BTTM, and going with obs linked with Effective Practice, if you see what i mean...

 

Sue

[Guest]

Im a childminder with my mum and what we do is

 

each child has an ipp (individual play plan) which i do every 3 months i pick 2 poits from each six areas of learing which im going to support each child with - if the children sturrgle with any of the points when i carry them ot i then do a leraning janureay to suoort that child in that area more.

 

 

i obseave each child 2 times a month and do the next step

 

i also have min themes going on as well i plan 2 topic activites a week

 

so each week each child in my care will do 2 topic activties 1 or 2 IPP activties and wil iether have an obseravtion done on them or will be doing the next step

 

i plan each activtie around the 6 areas of leraning

 

( And all my children are between 2 and half and 4 years. havent decide how im going to do it with my 2 10 month old babies who wil be starting in october yet)

 

you wil cover the 4 pinples theought your every day activites etc

[Smiles]

I attended two sessions of EYFS training and at the second one was given aCD with lots of different planning on. Much of it is very much like we use at present around the 6 areas of learning , changing Matehematical Develpoment to PSRN. I have seen the new EYS as a chance to review our planning and the major change for us will be to change it too the aspects instead of stepping stones and look more at our childfrens interests.

 

Smiles[/size]

[Deb]

not sure if I've done this right...

Here's part of what I'm thinking of doing for LTP, as well as the continuous provision ones I've bought from sparklebox - please let me know what you all think x

 

 

Thanks Janine

 

They look useful.

[catma]

If you look in the observation planning and assessment pat of the cdrom/online there is an "in depth" paper on planning which may help clarify what is expected. In fact the in depth bits are the most useful in my humble opinion. The one on messy play is great!

 

Cx

[Guest]

hiya

 

i've been on EYFS trainig yesterday which was very good, we were given a sheet on how our policies files should be under the now welfare requirements (which sections under ECM ) hope it makes sense!!

 

how plannig needs to be adjusted rather than re doing- just mainly changing the headings

 

more emphsis on observation assessment etc

 

overall it was a very good day!!

[Guest]

sorry

 

main info was that nursery concentrates on the learning and development theme

 

within plannig

 

objectives becomes development matters

observation focus - elements of Look listen and note

activity - effective practice

individual needs - planning and resources SEN, CIN etc

 

we were also given a example planning grid - i will get my admin staff to tyoe out on monday and then post on forum!

 

saki

[Guest]

My LEA have given us no examples of planning - they wanted us to follow the children's lead in a big way, and do minimal paperwork.

Many practitioners went away disgruntled with this, as they wanted to be handed planning formats, whereas I went away pleased as punch.

[Guest]

hi I'm new to the site and haven't posted anything yet, but have been reading some of your posts and have a query that hopefully someone can help with please. Is there a minimum requirement for how many observations we need to do ? I've accessed the link from the EYFS CD Rom and they gave example of setting that does 4 short term and 3 long term per child per fortnight. I've tried asking QCA they asked me to email my enquiry which I have but no reply as yet! Haven't got much faith in our family services advisor as on the training for EYFS she admitted she hadn't got a clue about most of it and is giving each setting different advice. Hopefully one of you knowledgeable people will be able to help, than ks!

[mundia]

Hi there von and welcome to the forum, good to see you taking the plunge with your first post.

 

Im not sure you can really set a blanket number of observation per child, especially if they are incidental ones. I know for example that when I worked in s chool nursery, there would have been no way on this planet we could have managed 3 planned obs per child per fortnight when there were 39 of them. We did well if we managed one-two focused obs every half term. Incidental ones can happen anywhere at any time, so you cant really put a number on that.

I think what matters is that what you observe is of quality, that it helps you identify where the child is at and helps you to plan for their next steps. Its probabaly a good idea to have some sort of system in place to monitor who is being observed and in what areas of learning (its very easy to miss a quiet child or a child who doesn't attend that often, or a particluar area of learning).

 

By the way, what's your role?

[Guest]

Hi there von and welcome to the forum, good to see you taking the plunge with your first post.

 

Im not sure you can really set a blanket number of observation per child, especially if they are incidental ones. I know for example that when I worked in s chool nursery, there would have been no way on this planet we could have managed 3 planned obs per child per fortnight when there were 39 of them. We did well if we managed one-two focused obs every half term. Incidental ones can happen anywhere at any time, so you cant really put a number on that.

I think what matters is that what you observe is of quality, that it helps you identify where the child is at and helps you to plan for their next steps. Its probabaly a good idea to have some sort of system in place to monitor who is being observed and in what areas of learning (its very easy to miss a quiet child or a child who doesn't attend that often, or a particluar area of learning).

 

By the way, what's your role?

Thanks Mundia. My role is manager but I like to be hands on so I work with the 3-5 yr olds as well. We've given the observations a whirl over the last fortnight but found that it was hard doing that amount as we have 25 children who all attend on different days etc. My colleagues all looked a little stressed by the end of the fortnight and I was more than a little frazzled myself!

[Helen]

We try to plan a lengthier observation for one child each day, but very often, we don't get that done! We have lots of "catch as you can" ones, though, and probably comment on each child every week.

[Guest Wolfie]

We have lots of catch it as you can observations every day and also one planned observation per child, watching them over the course of a day at different activities, in different situations, etc. once a month. We would have liked to make the planned observations more frequent but, as Helen says, there's always the danger then that we'll fall behind with them so we chose a time period that everyone felt was manageable.

[Guest]

Hi

 

We have just started to impliment new EYFS in respect of observations - though none of us have bee able to attned planning course as yet so I hope we are on the right track.

 

We have around 43 children coming into our pre-shchool for morning sessions with some just attending one session and others 5. There are four main staff who all have keyworker children and we have made it our own responsibility as key-workers to observe. We are using one of the observation forms available from the EYFS cd so we all make notes of which children have been observed and the areas of learning that was emcompassed - so hopefully over the week all of the children would of had a 5 -10 min observation. The observations are taken when the children are involved in an activity of their own choice, so that is how we will be informing our planning for the next week to ensure their interests are planned for. By identifying the areas of learning on the observation form.

 

However, we do loads of incidental observations which I feel are so valucable - no particular person is responsible, we make incidental observations of the children around us and pass slips to each other over the week. One of our staff is always involved in our focued activity each day, and again when they have observed they pass their observations to whoever keyworker child was focused. This works really well for us, as all staff have a turn carrying out the focused activity each week, we all work as a team and really know all the children well.

 

Dot

[Guest]

Hi

 

We have just started to impliment new EYFS in respect of observations - though none of us have bee able to attned planning course as yet so I hope we are on the right track.

 

We have around 43 children coming into our pre-shchool for morning sessions with some just attending one session and others 5. There are four main staff who all have keyworker children and we have made it our own responsibility as key-workers to observe. We are using one of the observation forms available from the EYFS cd so we all make notes of which children have been observed and the areas of learning that was emcompassed - so hopefully over the week all of the children would of had a 5 -10 min observation. The observations are taken when the children are involved in an activity of their own choice, so that is how we will be informing our planning for the next week to ensure their interests are planned for. By identifying the areas of learning on the observation form.

 

However, we do loads of incidental observations which I feel are so valucable - no particular person is responsible, we make incidental observations of the children around us and pass slips to each other over the week. One of our staff is always involved in our focued activity each day, and again when they have observed they pass their observations to whoever keyworker child was focused. This works really well for us, as all staff have a turn carrying out the focused activity each week, we all work as a team and really know all the children well.

 

Dot

[Guest]

Hi, thanks for saying how you do your observations. We've decided to do do one long and two short on each child per week in addition to our spontaneous observations.

[sharonash]

can I just ask a few questions about when your observing plz

 

your planned obs- do you plan to observe anything in particular or just watch the children and then note down obs under each area (make sense?)

Is it the childs keyworker doing the planned obs?

 

We are being advised to split our children into weeks! so they all get observed once a term, so we watch them week1 and plan week2, so am i right in thinking you guys are doing this? and then planning focus activities for these children?

 

What about all the other children observed on the adhoc observations do you just record and file these and not include in planning as you are planing for your target children?

x

[Guest Wolfie]

I don't know whether this form would be of any use to you?

 

We do planned observations on each of our children once a month, observing them for no more than 5 minutes at a time but at several different points during the session so that we get a good "snapshot" over the course of the whole session. These observations are recorded on this form and then we make links to the appropriate area of learning and particular aspects within that area, highlighting that on the form too. From this, we plan next steps, based on those assessments and referring to the "look, listen and note" section of the EYFS learning and development section.

 

I'm not sure if the form will come out coloured - each area of learning on the form is printed in a different colour and several members of staff like to write the next steps in the appropriate colour as well so that the link from assessment to planning can clearly be seen.

 

 

Ooops, the second sheet hasn't come out right - it's meant to say "Next Steps" ina box in the middle and then staff record next steps in each area around that. I have stressed that there don't need to be next steps in every area every time - that they should concentrate on real areas of interest or areas that they feel need most support at that particular time.

EYFS_Planned_Observation_Sheet.doc

Edited April 25, 2008 by Wolfie

[Guest]

not sure if I've done this right...

Here's part of what I'm thinking of doing for LTP, as well as the continuous provision ones I've bought from sparklebox - please let me know what you all think x

 

These look useful as a good overview, thanks for sharing. Have looked on Sparklebox and not sure what resources cover continuous provision? Can you point me in the right direction?

 

Many thanks

 

Anna

[Guest]

Hi

I am new to forum. Completely baffled by new eyfs have been to training but not sure what headings to use on short term plans. Can any one help. Lyndy.

[Guest]

Hi Lyndy

 

Welcome to the forum - still to go on the training so not much help - in respect of our weekly plan we are still using the headings under the areas of development - so once we have been on our training hopefully we will know more.

 

Sure someone with more knowledge will be on their way soon - Dot