Showing Childrens Next Steps On Paper/planning?

[sharonash]

We have split our children and observe 6 a week, we are trying to find a way to show after observations how we are planning for their next steps and how to put it on paper

 

For example x observed- unable to hold the pencil correctly and y is really enjoying cutting and sticking.

 

On our planning sheet We have mon to friday columns along the top and the workshops down the side we add on this sheet enhancements to the areas accordingly to our theme chosen by the children also we add on the same sheet activities out according to what we observed our children doing last week so i might put under creative workshop y cutting and sticking.

Is this enough ? Is this classed as the childrens next steps

 

Surely x would need more adult support in needing to hold the pencil? so how would we show this would this -on a seperate plan? we would previously done this in seperate keyyworker time -where we would of taken our group off and done some structured activities however we were told to try not to stop free flow play

 

We feel we are observing and planning activities but not actually extending their learning???

 

 

can you give me some suggestions please x

[Guest]

Hi, I might have completely got the wrong end of the stick with all my EYFS investigations into planning and what I say may well be a load of babble, but once we have observed a particular group of children and highlighted their next steps we would make their next step our focused activity - within the focused activity we would have around 2 learning aims for each area of development, and around 3 areas of development within the focus activity - am I making any sense ?

 

If I observed a particular child with a specific need, I would add the activity to our plan and just put the childs initial - all activities put out because of child's needs or their interest we write in red pen.

 

 

I am sure I must be confusing - Dot

[Rea]

Hi sharonash, I'd do the same as Dot. But instead of seeing that x cant hold a pencil properly, can x use the pencil effectively. My friend holds a pencil in a very unconventional way but uses it very effectively.

If I note a child is interested in cutting and sticking I'd plan for more cutting and sticking activities using different materials. The other children will benefit from the new materials too.

[Guest]

We are the same, we plan our next steps for children within our focus activities and everything else is planned on children's interests. We are starting the learning wall as a way of planning themes based on children's interests and involving the children and parents in the planning. We only plan 1 focus activity a day after finding any more and the children werent interested. We do have small key worker group time and at the moment we are using that time for letters and sounds as we have quite small children who work better in small groups, but we arent tied to doing small group in the same place, i took my group on a listening walk to the shops to buy the snack time fruit, which they all loved.

 

Our continuos provision shows all resources put out from childrens observed interests in green. Resources to offer a balanced curriculum are shown in blue.

[mundia]

I think its worth also remembering that if children find soemthing hard, then more of the same isnt always what's needed to be next. So child x who may be struggling holding a pencil, may need more fine motor skills developing through pegging, threading, tweezers etc. This could then be available in either a focussed activity or in continuous provision and although you may have resourced this with specific children in mind, as Rea says, others will benefit too.

 

Cupcakes way of recording sounds as if its come from the EYFS Cdrom? Is that the case cupcake or did you use that as an idea and then adapt it?

[Guest]

I think its worth also remembering that if children find soemthing hard, then more of the same isnt always what's needed to be next. So child x who may be struggling holding a pencil, may need more fine motor skills developing through pegging, threading, tweezers etc. This could then be available in either a focussed activity or in continuous provision and although you may have resourced this with specific children in mind, as Rea says, others will benefit too.

 

Cupcakes way of recording sounds as if its come from the EYFS Cdrom? Is that the case cupcake or did you use that as an idea and then adapt it?

 

Hi Mundia,

 

yes we have loosely followed the planning and recording for children's learning from the eyfs cd rom, we have adapted it though to suit our setting. Our childcare advisor came in yesterday and said what we were doing was absolutely fine. I'ts not to far removed from what we were doing before, however I must say the EYFS way of doing it is much more parent friendly, its great to be able to include children learning at home based on parent observations, and also plan activities based on things the children love doing at home but havent shown interest in at pre school. We are also finding the curriculum overview sheet I produced to be a great resource as it lets you see at a glance what child is doing what and what areas of the curriculum are being observed as often as others, which allows us to plan more informed focus activities and introduce resources to the continuous provision to even this out.

 

Hope I have made sense...bit of a ramble there

[surfer]

Hi cupcake - have you already posted the curriculum overview on here?

 

Would you be willing to share your planning formats please?

 

How do you show the parents input - are you using the PLODs?

 

What age are the children you are planning for?

[Guest]

Hi Surfer,

 

Yes the curriculum overview sheet is on here. We show next steps within the focus activities, we list the learning intentions each activites aim is, then next to this we put the childrens names (who are the focus ie next steps) it could be that from the same activity you are looking to support a child reach that stage, but there is scope within it to challange a child looking to go beyond it. Every spontanteous observation, long observation and obs from small group time and whole group time are logged at the end of each day onto the overview sheets, this is what we take to planning and we refer to it when planning childrens next steps. It is down to the observer to decide what areas the observation covers, before the key worker used to decide where to place the observation and we found this time consuming, its far better for the person who did the observing to then interpret it, what we are also seeing is more relevant observations, not long rambles that dont say alot.

 

Each key worker aims to do 2 long obs a week on there key children, this observation is shared with parents and their input is sought at this stage, however we do have home communication books which goes home everday with each child, where parents can note down any significant learning or interests they have observed from their children, then on our observed interests sheet we can not down that child x has been ejoying such and such at home as observed by there parent etc we then enhance our continuos provision according to childrens interests (shown in green) and everything else is in blue to ensure a balanced curriculum.

 

Hope this makes sense, all of our planning sheets are from the eyfs cd rom aged 3-4, we take children at my setting from 30months. We have adpated them to suit our setting.

[surfer]

Cup cake I have looked for the overview and don't seem to be able to find it. Any clues?

[pinkkitty]

[color="#FF00FF"]Cupcake, can you explain what a learning wall is and how it works - it sounds v interesting.Just had our first meeting today about implementing EYFS but nothing from LEA so looking around for ideas. Thanks! [/color]

[sharonash]

Hi Surfer,

 

Yes the curriculum overview sheet is on here. We show next steps within the focus activities, we list the learning intentions each activites aim is, then next to this we put the childrens names (who are the focus ie next steps) it could be that from the same activity you are looking to support a child reach that stage, but there is scope within it to challange a child looking to go beyond it. Every spontanteous observation, long observation and obs from small group time and whole group time are logged at the end of each day onto the overview sheets, this is what we take to planning and we refer to it when planning childrens next steps. It is down to the observer to decide what areas the observation covers, before the key worker used to decide where to place the observation and we found this time consuming, its far better for the person who did the observing to then interpret it, what we are also seeing is more relevant observations, not long rambles that dont say alot.

 

Each key worker aims to do 2 long obs a week on there key children, this observation is shared with parents and their input is sought at this stage, however we do have home communication books which goes home everday with each child, where parents can note down any significant learning or interests they have observed from their children, then on our observed interests sheet we can not down that child x has been ejoying such and such at home as observed by there parent etc we then enhance our continuos provision according to childrens interests (shown in green) and everything else is in blue to ensure a balanced curriculum.

 

 

Hope this makes sense, all of our planning sheets are from the eyfs cd rom aged 3-4, we take children at my setting from 30months. We have adpated them to suit our setting.

 

Can I ask- are you then planning for all your children each week ie observe 1 week and plan the next then observed what you planned etc??

[Guest]

we would really struggle to do 3 long observations a week on our keyworker children as we have 14 keyworker children each... this is one of the problems i'm having is how to plan for the child with so many children... if we picked 3 different children a week, we wouldn't get back round to them till 3 months later roughly...hope this makes sense...

[Salus]

Would it be ok to have focus activities based on children's next steps on min-weds and then have other adult led activities on thurs-fri simply based on children's interests/or a new skill you want to introduce? Or should there be a next step based activity every day.

Also I understand focus activities to be adult led and small groups. Is this correct?

[lsp]

Hi Salus.

 

I see you have lots of questions around planning etc on the forum. As others have said it's quite difficult to explain what we do as everyone is different and constantly changing. Have you got another setting close by that you have a good relationship and would be willing to share ideas with, that you could visit? Or maybe invite some other groups to you for a local planning cluster?