Guest Posted May 20, 2009 Posted May 20, 2009 We are a setting in Dudley with 45 children per session in a morning and an afternoon. we find that our routine of the day that includes a 15 minute key worker session, works well for morning children who can choose their own play during the child-iniaited play. the morning children can explore the environment and they get a lot from play with each other. on an afternoon it is completely different, we feel the child iniaited play does not benefit the children. the children in an afternoon are more demanding and we would like change the routine to their needs. i have been teaching for 5 years and this has been my first year working in the foundation stage. my collegues have portrayed their views and we are looking to structure the afternoons by setting up activities, which they can still choose from. i just wondered if anyone has experienced this and any ideas are more than welcome.
HappyMaz Posted May 20, 2009 Posted May 20, 2009 Hi kmann and welcome to the Forum! This is an interesting question - why do you say the child initiated play doesn't benefit the afternoon children? Have your observations been able to highlight what is different about the afternoon children that makes them more demanding? There could be so many factors at work here, but what a fascinating problem to have to solve! I'm afraid I'm in pre-school so have only an academic interest in this because it is outside of my field of expertise so I can't offer any support or advice. However there are lots of knowledgeable teachers on here who will no doubt be along shortly with their views and wisdom. I'll be interested to see how you reach a solution and to see how things improve for you and your afternoon group. Maz
lynned55 Posted May 20, 2009 Posted May 20, 2009 Not sure what to suggest but a few years ago we used to open for one afternoon and had a different group of children coming in then to the morning. There was a marked difference in some of their behaviour to when they attended on subsequent mornings. We always put it down to tiredness and in some cases the children hadn't eaten a proper lunch. Good luck with solving this, will be interested in hearing the outtcomes
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