Child Initiated/adult Directed

[Guest]

Think I am going slowly mad!

Basically to cut a long story short, I am leading training for all my school staff (including teachers and TAs from Key stage 2!!) on the new EYFS. Partly because I am fed up with subject coordinators coming in and asking why they aren't all sitting down and why they don't have excerise books, and partly because I feel they should know what an important job we do in reception.

Anyway, want to do a bit on child initiated/adult directed activities. But can I find where it is in the EYFS documentation. Any ideas? I am going slighly mad! Searching the Cd but can't seem to find much! Am I imagining it?

[Guest]

Look in statuatory framework- p.32 I think. It says about a balance of adult led and C.I. activities. Good luck with your INSET.

[Guest]

This has come up on here before, also I wondered if you could use some of the material that is available for parents on eyfs to really simplify it for the people at work, ha ha. It would be interesting to know exactly what the ratio should be, some say it should be 50/50 for direct input and 20% adult directed for observations and 80% observation from child initiated but it will be interesting to see what others think. Good luck and stick to your guns. Make sure you point out how much time you spend getting resources ready, cleaning, observing...........

[Guest]

One of the 10 key findings of Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (2004) (EPPE) shows that settings which resulted in good outcomes for children by the end of year 2: provide children with a mixture of practitioner initiated group work and learning through freely chosen play …. In the “excellent” settings (where children achieved excellent outcomes) the balance of who initiated the activities (i.e. child or adult) was nearly equal, revealing that the pedagogy of the excellent settings encourages children to initiate activities as often as the staff.

The research also shows that: ‘Freely chosen play activities provided the best opportunities to extend children’s thinking.’ Standing back, watching and listening to the children as they play is as essential in facilitating the learning process as is assisting the children directly. By using our observations of the children we can adjust plans to take account of the interests and needs of the children and capitalise on unplanned events, particularly those initiated by the children.

[Guest]

The reference you are looking for is on page 7 in the Practice Guidance (May 2008) 1.19 You may also find it useful to use the cards with your colleagues particularly 3.1 and 4.1 There is information about self-initiated activity linked to the EYFSP on page 9 of the Profile handbook also. Good luck with your inset it sounds like a really positive way of developing your colleagues understanding of the importance of play in the EYFS.

[HappyMaz]

Good luck with your inset it sounds like a really positive way of developing your colleagues understanding of the importance of play in the EYFS.

I agree: can we all come?