Nursery Weekly Planning

[Guest]

Hi,

I'm about to start a new job in charge of 65 place nursery and feel that I need to get to grips with where everone is in terms of 6 areas of learning and letters and sounds. Any ideas?

Would you stick to topic based approach eg fairy tales and observe eg 6 in am and 3 in pm in all areas of learning and over course of half term get through them thoroughly. Alternatively do all 65 in simple assessment sheet during course of week. Planning has to be displayed for parents so want something loose but enables me to find out where they are in order to plan for future learning.

PS school is in special measures.

Thanks in anticipation for all your advice

xx

[Guest]

Ummm I think I would find out what records are already in place and what info is already held. It's a bit of a tough term to be going in to start from scratch as I know down here I have to start sending records to school in June for transitions.

 

I know you are going to need to work quickly as it is under special measures, but also try to be realistic for you and the staff.

I would imagine a major task will be getting the staff on board and assessing their learning as much as the children - you will only be able to work as quickly as your worst memeber of staff allows. You may well be going in and have to start from scratch with them - the whole subject of assessment may well be new to them.

 

 

You mentioned Fairy tales topic - How have the children (and the staff) been working up to now are they used to topics or do they use child iniatiated play?

 

I personally do not think you can asess all 65 children in a week or even 6 weeks over 6 areas of learning.

 

Rather than rush with ticklists etc - that are really not ecommended I would try and put EYFS basics into place key persons for everyone and then work on getting learning stories going, involving parents and children in assessment.

 

Could you start with continuous provision plans for each areas displayed- so parents know what children learn in each area and these will really help the staff know what to observe.

 

Good luck - it sounds exciting if not a bit terrifying