Sept Are You Still Doing...

[Guest]

Hi all

 

Just looking at my planing for september and reading posts on here and TES site and i was wondering if reception teachers who will be embracing fully the eyfs spending their time observing, supporting child lead play etc will not be doing...

 

shared reading

guided reading

shared writing

guided writing

change and hear home readers

handwriting

numeracy

P.E

R.E

PCSHE (seal)

ICT

assemblies

etc etc

 

Just interested

[Guest]

I will probably still be doing all of the above at some point, but probably not every week. I have yet to work out my timetable for September.

[Guest]

BEXJ I'm completely with you on this one there are still all these expectations and well it does worry me about the children going into year 1 they have to experience sitting down, having a PE lesson in a hall. There are also expectations of parents. My little girl who has just finished reception has had a thouroughly enjoyable year playing and has done well and loves school. I know alot of her maths has been practical great and play based but she didn't always choose to go and do these activities and well her maths/number work is not great if anything she has gone backwards in what she knows and how she work things out. There has got to be sometimes when you say you have to come and sit down and do this - children can't have complete run of the class it would be mayhemour classroom isn't that big for a foundation stage class and yes we use outside but if they want us to work child led and writing observtaions all the time they need to give us more support in the classrooms in school. My TA is always the first one to be taken saying that because we play it doesn't matter. Yes they know our feelings on this and it is getting better but it happens and i'm sure i'm not alone and i bet there are even reception classes that do not have full time TA support.

 

- Our children come in at different times but are all in full time after christmas so we are going to go to assemblies after christmas with the whole school although i'm still thinking maybe only 2 of them and then all in in the summer term. Oh and well if we never changed reading books we would have mutiny on our hands!! so that is a must to keep parents on our side and we change books twice a week and we have to fit in hearing them read so yes we will be reading We tend to do guided reading later on as this teaches them the skills involved in reading. PE and ICT well if do not put down a certain time for the suite we would never be able to use it. PE if it is really cold and icey you need to have some hall time and field time for other sports in the summer again otherwise you loose hall time. And Handwriting if it is all through mark making etc children may start to get in bad habits you can't be expected to always hovering over them and keep saying watch how you are forming that e,s etc. Good handwriting does need to be taught and does need to be lead by an adult. Again we get grief from year 2 up if we haven't taught them their handwriting correctly or they have got bad habits.

 

Shared writing and reading we will do as whole class activities and i will still do these as again when teaching how to write a sentence or writing a list etc you need to show the children a good example a good example of what writing is, how a writer should sit, hold a pencil. Shared reading we do as part of our phonics ERR programme looking for words, sounds children helping us read.

 

My rant over so from sept in a week i will have 2 PE hall times, ICT time for the suite. I will put a time in for circle time and reading time/changing book time. Then after xmas will put in the assemblies. Shared reading will be with my phonics/ERR session. Then at another time will do shared writing/number whole class so will have whole class slots in the timetable.

[Susan]

Im moving to year 1 but if I were staying in reception, then yes I would be doing a lot of those things.

Children do enjoy some formality and structure and you need to offer skills, experiences and opportunities to do different things.

[Marion]

I will be doing some but not all of those things but then I didn't do them all before EYFS.

[Guest]

Thanks for replies i feel better now! I was sitting thinking i cant not do ict i cant not let them go to some assemblies etc etc if we had a year one that was more foundation based then maybe, but it would be cruel to the children to not build them up gently to year one. i was thinking about our curriculum last year and the children loved it they got so interested in the topics they were so motivated to read, write and work with numbers we had our best results ever in writing last year.

 

what i am changing is that the children will be choosing all the play equipment using a photo album they will select the photos of the activites that they want for the next day and stick them on a planning board so we can get them ready for them (large store cupboard not suitable for children to fetch themselves) in addition we will still be doing topics (shock horror!!) but we will involve children in the planning and let them steer us. Also there will be lots of time for child iniated play and we will keep the carpet time to about 15-20 mins max and increased use of observation to inform planning

 

if i had embraced the principles of eyfs last year i know for certain that a little boy who came in loving trains would have spent the whole year playing trains and if we had followed his lead all year it would have been trains trains trains until he left but by offering him some other learning he left foundation being an expert in hatching chicks, firefighters, dinosaurs and of course trains!!

 

Happy motivated children is my aim with lots of fun on the way booo to the eyfs!!! if the secret eyfs police whisk me away to a top secret detention centre then it was nice knowing you all

 

BEXJ

please ignore the spelling errors i cant work the spell checker on this site!

[emmajess]

I will be doing some but not all of those things but then I didn't do them all before EYFS.

 

Just out of interest, Marion, which ones do you do and don't you do?

[Marion]

My class don't attend whole school assemblies unless it is something special that will interest them (we have a short act of daily worship at home time) We don't have PE as such instead we use the hall for Write Dance /Pen Pals which takes in the handwriting part lots of physical Dev outdoors and a movement area for Jabadao .

I will do a daily phonics input and once the first set of sounds have been taught will link the apply part to reading/writing also a daily number input. PSHE/SEAL is usually covered across the curriculum rather than taught as a discrete subject New Beginnings fits in nicely with a new term. ICT is part of the CP with adults supporting and modelling rather than a separate taught lesson.

[emmajess]

It's so interesting to hear all the different ways people organise everything.

[Guest]

I'm still grappling with ideas, and find myself going round in circles. One problem I'm finding sometimes, is that I read posts and think 'I'm not sure I could work that way' and then find myself wondering if it's child minders or playgroups discussing - I know we have different forum, but sometimes you click on something that might not be obvious or things are put in a general forum. I understand that EYFS now covers birth to five, but things can't be exactly the same can they?

 

We have to have playtime with the rest of the school, because, although the reception class have their own little playground (strip of tarmac!), the KS1 children have to walk through it to get to their playground. Also FS and KS1 staff share playtime rota. During playtime large wheeled vehicles etc. are moved around the corner out of the way.

 

Because of playtime (morning only), last year I had 3 input sessions - one in the morning, one after morning play and one at the beginning of the afternoon. The 1st session was Letter and Sounds (tied in with KS1 classes as some children worked with different groups, according to which Phase they were working at), then a brief numeracy session after play and input/introduction to activities after lunch. Because of pressure from above I felt I had to have at least 4 lit/numeracy sessions during the week - though these might only have been 10 mins long. But I am worried that this isn't right and doesn't fit in with the thinking behind EYFS. So .......... what will others be doing? How many input sessions? How much teacher led activities linked to input sessions? In general how will you organise your time so that you make sure your getting enough observations done to ensure you're able to plan around the childrens' interests?

 

I hope someone can help, because last year I felt that my time for observations was limited and I know how important this is.

 

A desperate Harricroft

 

PS having read this back I hope it makes sense.

[Guest]

i will be doing some simliar to marion for me this year working in unit it will just be a different way aproaching them and organisation.

[Guest]

Hi,

It is a difficult one! Last year we trialled having no set playtime for the first term. We still found that we were stopping for our carpet sessions (phonics, number) so we found that it didn't work for us.

This Sept we are trialling 'Discovery Time'. This will be 2 afternoons per week when the children are all taking part in self-initiated activities and we (2 teachers and 2 TA's) will all be observing. We will continue to make observations as and when we can during the week too, but are going to try this to make sure that we actually are observing.

We do still have time for changing home readers and group readers too, but it is all a rush to fit in. It is such a shame that we have pressure from above.

THanks for sharing your worries. I think for recpetion teachers it is difficult.

WHat are you doing about the key worker aspect of the Foundations Stage document?

[Susan]

WHat are you doing about the key worker aspect of the Foundations Stage document?

 

Hi flaxholme and welcome.

There has been another thread about keyworkers in reception and you will see that in this instance the teacher is the keyworker.

[Guest]

Hi

I teach in Reception. We used to go out to the big playground at playtime with KS1 but OFSTED questioned this and made us think about it. I think it had just become normal because it had ben going on so long. Now we don't go out for playtime, insted we have constant access to the outdoor area. This works really well unless we have torrential wind and rain when our sheltered area cannot cope! I know there's supposed to be "no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes!" but sometimes it's really not nice for anyone! I've been looking into getting a class set of waterproofs but they seem so expensive, still looking for cheaper alternatives!

 

We don't go to any assemblies until the children have settled in and then we only go to two a week. We do have hall time and a weekly slot in the ICT suite but again we don't use these until the children are settled.

 

We have five very short carpet sessions a day. First thing when register is done and usually do shared reading or writing or just general class discussion. Then we have a phonics session at fruit time (have tried rolling snack bar but found it didn't work for us). Just before lunch we have whole class numeracy session. I think this is important as it allows us to model mathematical vocabulary and intoduce concepts to all of the children. Then when they are choosing mathematical activities throughout the day they can use ans apply this knowledge. Straight after lunch we have to do register again so usually have some whole class input here, either Seal, Music Express or something topic related. Then at the end of the day we have the usual story and singing session, once a week this will be circle time.

 

It might sound like a lot of carpet times but it works for us, providing a bit of structure to the day as they do like to know what's happening next, particularly the children with SEN.

 

It's interseting to hear how others structure their days. I'm sure ours will change somehow. it all depends on the children and how they start in September. I think the key is to be flexible and willing to change what we do.