Magenta Posted August 30, 2004 Posted August 30, 2004 Have any of you got any further with planning formats for your FS Units yet??!! I'm still really struggling to find a workable format!! Please help!!
Sue R Posted August 30, 2004 Posted August 30, 2004 Magenta, I would really love to help, but not really sure anything I could offer would be useful. I work in a Day Nursery, in the Pre-school Unit, but have also worked as Supervisor of a Pre-school Playgroup and (briefly and very painfully) as the leader of a Private Kindergarten. If you think I might have any useful input, please let me know. Sue
Guest Posted August 31, 2004 Posted August 31, 2004 (edited) Hi Magenta, I too have been struggling to find a workable format for my medium and short term plans. Because we are an Early Years unit I need to put down all levels of the stepping stones on my format. So on my medium term plan i have 6 boxes for the 6 areas of learning, at the side of each box i have listed yellow, blue, green and ELG stepping stones to be covered which are linked to activities we will be doing. My short term plan then lists focused activities we shall be doing throughout the week, including outside area, malleable, sand and water areas. Sounds confusing but hope it helps. I am not sure how to attach a copy but will try if you realy want me too. Edited August 31, 2004 by Guest
Magenta Posted August 31, 2004 Author Posted August 31, 2004 Hi Rocket, I have had to do the same for med plans and have also added all stepping stones and elgs. I'm now not too concerned about med term but am still struggling with short term. Are all of your activities on one sheet or do you complete separate lit/num plans? I would really like a format that fits everything onto one sheet but am still struggling to find a workable format. If you could post yours I would be grateful!!! When entering a post scroll down to File attachments click on browse to find your file. Thank you so much for your advice.
Guest Posted September 1, 2004 Posted September 1, 2004 Yes we put all activities on one sheet, we dont plan for lit and numeracy seperate. Sorry posted the wrong one i will try again. Topic_weekly_planning_sheet.doc
Guest Posted September 14, 2004 Posted September 14, 2004 Hi guys Hope the beginning of term is going smoothly! We are trying out the plans I put on this site before and so far it is going ok - will let you know what ofsted think in about 5 weeks time!!! I would like to ask how you organise the sessions/day? Currently we are trying to run a unit for the first time, but are coming up with many problems, one of which is me trying to fit in with the other teachers' opinions and methods as we both have many ideas. Am having a meeting this week to try an iron out some problems but i think it is too soon to change too much as we are still introducing our starter sessions! Which then leads me on to ask how you guys run your starter sessions - I'm not happy with how ours have run last week, so far it has been a little smoother but would love to hear what you guys do! Many thanks
Guest Posted September 14, 2004 Posted September 14, 2004 Hi We are also working for a unit and here is a copy of our timetable, which we follow daily. I hope it makes sense. We work in small key worker groups during carpet sessions and keep the timings in both reception and nursery virtually the same. It seems to be working at the moment but we are still having problems coming up with a short term planning format that everyone can work form. Where did you post your plan Kavmar? Would love to see it, especially a filled in one. daily_timetable.doc
Guest Posted September 15, 2004 Posted September 15, 2004 So far the weekly plans are working ok, hopefully ofsted will like them! week_3___13.9.04.doc
Magenta Posted September 16, 2004 Author Posted September 16, 2004 Cazza and Kavmar, Thank you for sharing your timetables and plans - we are still working on ours!!! Will post ours as soon as I feel a little more comfortable with them!!
Guest Posted October 3, 2004 Posted October 3, 2004 Well survived Ofsted. It went well! They hardly looked at our planning but liked how we had the day set up (despite us not really being completely happy). The main problem I have with our unit is with so many children in at once and two teachers it feels like we don't get much time with our classes and also I feel that it is more like two separate classes in one room rather than a unit! Has anyone else felt like this? Ofsted mainly said we need to look at assessment - so my next question is what assessment procedures do you have in place? How do you feed info in to the profiles? Take care
Magenta Posted October 3, 2004 Author Posted October 3, 2004 Congratulations Kavmar! I bet your glad thats over. We are feeling a little like you in our Unit, we've changed staff rotas several times in order to give chn. a little more continuity and to get to know classes a bit better, but as you say it does then become a little less of a Unit, but we do have plenty of Child Initiated Play so there is a lot of mixing, but we do often feel like we haven't seen certain children for days!! I don't know what the solution is! As for assessments, we haven't really got that far yet! We make brief notes on teacher directed activities and have sticky labels for anecdotal records, but that's as far as we've got so far. The next idea is for each child to have a Development Book. I have the key stepping stones + profile statements typed out. The plan is to highlight statements achieved and add evidence to each child's book e.g. photos, obs. chn.s work etc. We used this system in Nursery last year and it worked extremely well, but we have so many children that I'm not sure whether its going to work! We were planning to have our own groups to update and really get to know well, but not sure if theis is going to be possible. Anyone else have any ideas.
Guest Posted October 4, 2004 Posted October 4, 2004 Hi everyone-gosh, i've been so absorbed reading about f/stage units i've missed Eastenders!! This is our 2 year now of working in a fully integrated F/Stage Unit and I can not begin to count the amount of rota/timetable changes we have had in this time! It has been really difficult as we have had many staff changes. Ratio is best it has ever been at the moment (which is due to change again at Xmas unfortunately) we have 30 Nursery(15 full time) children and 31 Reception with 3 teachers and 3 support staff . Planning is really difficult . We have 3 free flow rooms which cover the 13 areas-eg sand, water... plus outdoors which is open access for 1hr 15mins am and 45 mins pm. I've attached our CURRENT (!) rota if it help anyone. 123 is the 3 rooms and the initials are the memeber of staff who is doing an adult focused activity in that area. The remaining staff are supervising/managing the childrens' independent play. We currently have our own 'group time' plans for whole class carpet sessions and then fill out 2 joint planning sheets which detail focused activiites for each room and an overview of the 13/17 (or whatever it is now!) areas-think I might be able to attach this too. PRIMUS_CENTRE_TIMETABLE_changes.doc
Guest Posted October 4, 2004 Posted October 4, 2004 Can't find the other sheet at the moment but will find it another time if anyone's interested. To be honest, i wouldn't feel comfortable putting a filled in short term plan on line yet as i'm not entirely happy with it, Having said that, its about getting the balance right between having beautifully detailed plans which include differentaition and a simple 'workable' format which all staff can follow. I just hope that when OFSTED come in that they show more interest in what is going on in practice than what is down on paper. Its SO difficult don't you think? There are too many factors to be taken into consideration. Must stay positive though-at least we can be flexible and do lovely things!
Magenta Posted October 4, 2004 Author Posted October 4, 2004 Thanks for sharing your timetable Zim. It looks very similar to the way we work, which is very heartening since we've only been runnung 4 weeks. How I wish for ratios like yours!! We have the same no of staff for nearly 70 children. If you could post copies of your plans too I would be grateful. I've attached ours too, though haven't got round to writing down planning for areas yet as we're still auditing resources after the amalgamation. F2_Aut_1_wk_5_2004.doc
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 Hi Magenta, sorry its taken me ages to reply. As we usually hand write our planning its hard for me to put up a filled in plan (no scanner) but I'll include the formats just so you can see. Put yesterdays bit in to give you the idea... They're not up to much I'm afraid! Some I've devised to suit the way we work-the organisation of the learning environmemt one is from LEA. Could have died when I saw your planning-its SO detailed! Do you do this every week? Do you plan together? How long does it take? So is F1 nursery and F2 reception? So you do a daily phonics, a daily maths and daily CLL? On the circle time activities sheet is that your daily cll-why 7? Sorry for the questions I'm just interested in how you fit it all in. Do you have a copy of your timetable on c? Sorry for being cheeky! Here's my stuff (hopefully!) ZimX Primus_Centre_Group_Time_Plan__side_1.doc
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 Just had this problem somewhere alse in the forum-can I only attach one thing at a time? Primus_Centre_Group_Time_Plan__side_2.doc
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 This is a partly filled in plan of activities going on in each area this week (first week back and all that!) Just filled in rest in pen short_term_plan.doc
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 Find this one difficult because in addition to adult focused activities its hard to say what's going on in that area if there's no adult there to supervise it . The idea is that the adult managing ensures this is going on and it's usually that something is Adult focused one week then targetted/independent the next. However, last term for example, I did 'Mr Gumpy's Outing' in the water and put on the overall plan 'Mr Gumpy' for the following week as independent but it doesn't mean that's what the children necessarily do-they may prefer fishing! Does any one else have this problem? p104_Organisation_of_the_LE.doc
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 sorry, having problems with pc-can only attach one thing at a time Primus_Centre_Group_Time_Plan__side_2.doc
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 Just ignore me! put same thing on twice there! think its time for Eastenders to take my mind off it!
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 I'm having problems with this-attached a few documents but they don't seem to be showing up-can any one help? Thanks
Susan Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 Hi Zim, everything looks ok to me! sometimes the attachments take a while to appear and you can only attach one at a time!
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 gosh do you do all this planning on your own. Seems a lot.
Guest Posted November 2, 2004 Posted November 2, 2004 Wow this is really interesting! we are in the process of becoming a FS unit. For the next 6 weeks we have an ASt in one day a week. Her school is already a unit so i will ask her if i could post her planning formats and any other info andhelp she may be able to give. Beccy
Magenta Posted November 3, 2004 Author Posted November 3, 2004 Hi Zim, Thanks for posting your plans too - I don't think there is that much difference in the detail. As there are 6 members of staff working from the plans I find that the detail means that we all understand what we're meant to do. We have weekly planning meetings where all activities are decided then I write up the plans - Learning Intentions often stay the same so there's not as much writing as you'd think, also have all steppings stones on PC so only have to cut and paste. We only do daily phonics and Maths - CLL/Maths/Creative are focus activities for each room. There are 7 Circle Time Sessions as we rotate hall sessions too at same time as Circle Time - so there are 7 Circle Times and 3 Hall Times. Here's a copy of timetable (number 9 I think!!!!) will be changing Fridays this week to have longer Music Sessions which will be alternated with cooking sessions - so will be same A.M and P.M. Yes F1 is Nursery and F2 Reception. Does it seem a lot to fit in - perhaps we can cut it down a bit!! Hope this all makes sense!! Ask again if it dosen't.
Magenta Posted November 3, 2004 Author Posted November 3, 2004 Forgot to attatch timetable!! TIMETABLE_D.doc
Guest Posted November 3, 2004 Posted November 3, 2004 Would like to see those plans Beccy-thanks. Thanks for your reply& timetable Magenta- I like the fact that your planning doesn't take ages (feel better about that!) So do you sit the chn on the carpet 3xs a day or 4?(we do 3 whole class sessions+story at home time) so you do phonics, maths + 1 other? so if there's 7 circle times+3 hall does this run over 2 weeks? sorry for being a pain!
Magenta Posted November 3, 2004 Author Posted November 3, 2004 We do 4 whole class sessions Zim - Circle Time a.m. (or Hall), Maths, Phonics and Circle Time p.m. (or Hall). We have changed the plan this half term so that we only plan 4 of the circle times, as the other 3 will be sharing stories. Sounds like its similar to you - what are your 3 carpet sessions?
Guest Posted November 3, 2004 Posted November 3, 2004 Daily maths and CLL+ 1 other from the other 4. As I do a weekly dance and music lesson and have to do RE I have to rotate the other areas of learning for whole class sessions depending on what we're doing that week. As music and dance is creative it usually ends up being KUWor PSE. We used to do 4 whole class sessions but found that with story as well it was just getting too much. We didn't feel that we had enough time for adult focus or independent activitites and that the chn were tidying up all the time to come and sit on the carpet. Maybe we're planning too much though?? I don't think there's a right answer though is there?!
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