Free Flow Ratios

[Guest]

I know this has been discussed before, but we are about to finally achieve 'free flow' from indoors to our garden area (we bought some barriers!) If we have one member of staff outside, what happens if lots of children suddenly free flow themselves outdoors. Does someone necessarily have to follow them or can the ratios be imbalanced for a short while?

 

We have at least 3 staff in the setting but sometimes someone needs to prepare snacks, etc. so sometimes there might only be 2 available to work directly with the children.

 

Also, we are thinking of going for a 'self registration' system so that the children can put their own pictures on a board when they go outside. Does this work for other settings or do they just forget!?

 

Thanks.

[HappyMaz]

Does someone necessarily have to follow them or can the ratios be imbalanced for a short while?

I think the staff would need to free flow with the children in order to be able to supervise them effectively, and in our setting we never have only one member of staff outside with the children because we can't maintain sight and sound supervision.

 

Perhaps it is different if the whole of your outdoor area can be seen from inside, but I wouldn't be happy with ratios not being maintained outdoors as well as in.

 

Maz

[alechunter]

We always make sure the ratios are covered both inside and outside but it is difficult sometimes when members of staff are taken out for various reasons such as a toilet accident etc. but equipment must be adequately supervised at all times for the children's safety.

 

We do self registration when the children come into the setting. They have apples with their name on in the waiting area which they find and bring in and place on an apple tree. this works very well but we do not do any registration between inside and outside if that's what you meant as the children come and go between them and I think it would be too much to expect them to keep moving their registration picture. We just do head counts ever so often and you can usually judge where staff need to be deployed. Hope this helps.

[Guest]

Thanks for the responses. I don't think I've expressed myself very well (again).

 

One member of staff could see the entire outdoors area from one spot outside (it's only small) and we don't have play equipment as such, just a garden. We are planning to sometimes put the water and sand units out there and maybe a couple of small ride on toys.

 

I guess one member of staff could kind of 'float' between in and out to keep ratios in balance.

[Guest]

Hi all!!!!!

 

I'd would just like to throw this little gem into the equasion. SORRY XXX Our LEA advisor informed us that and I quote "The setting does not need a supervisory adult in the garden when opperating a free flow system. Under the statatory guideance having the right adult to child ratios within a setting complies with the requirements. When i find the piece of paper she wrote this info down and the statatory number I will post it.

 

Have a good night.

 

KAT

[sunnyday]

Hi all!!!!!

 

I'd would just like to throw this little gem into the equasion. SORRY XXX Our LEA advisor informed us that and I quote "The setting does not need a supervisory adult in the garden when opperating a free flow system. Under the statatory guideance having the right adult to child ratios within a setting complies with the requirements. When i find the piece of paper she wrote this info down and the statatory number I will post it.

 

Have a good night.

 

KAT

 

Obviously I believe you Kat...........but I am I the only one to think 'that's a bit odd'?!

 

Sunnyday

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

 

I am just about to offer a free flow between indoors and outdoors as my TA has been off ill since beofre Easter and is just about to come back -so have been short staffed!!! No matter where I work, I am always stuck with an ill TA!!!

 

Anyway, am I right in thinking that free flow works by anytime that a child is not completing a focus job with an adult they can choose to do anything they want in or out of the classroom?

 

and if so, is it just the equipment outide that would be used in PDR?

 

Look forward to hearing how you all do it.

 

Just so you know, we have 45 year R children, 2 teachers, 2 TA's and a faily small contained outside area.

 

Thanks XXX

[blondie]

hi we offer free flow system - we have lots of things outside - always sand ,consturction,small world , floor based activities and tyable top activities such as collage.

we were told whatever we had inside we had to have outside but we do what works best ffor us and also we didnt have two sand trays tweo water trays etc so we try to have a good variety of stuff inside and outside but they are not the same as it gives the children different opportunities in each area.

we have a rota and there is always someone outside the second person will follow outside if number of children rises and means they are needed - they would then move back indoors if number of children went back down

hope that makes sense x

[HappyMaz]

"The setting does not need a supervisory adult in the garden when opperating a free flow system.

This may well be so - certainly in some of the settings I've visited children are allowed to wander freely without a supervisory adult being in the garden, even when the whole of the outdoor area cannot be seen from inside.

 

However the welfare requirements are clear about the registered person needing to deploy staff so that children are supervised effectively so as to keep them safe. That's the basis on which Ofsted makes its judgements about effective supervision - and even if the ratios were 1:2 across the setting as a whole, if a child was in an unsafe/vulnerable situation because no adult was nearby then I think an Inspector would take the setting to task.

 

If you take what your adviser has said to the logical (but somewhat exagerated) conclusion Kat, we could just all sit in the kitchen drinking tea all day and let the children get on with it because although the children wouldn't be safely supervised, we'd still be in ratios!

 

Come to think of it, that does sound rather attractive...

 

Maz

[Guest]

We will have to have an adult outside at all times, since the area will be accessible to the public, although fenced off with barriers. Thanks for the advice it is very helpful. I think common sense will prevail once we try it and see what works best for the children's safety.

 

Our EYA is coming in next week and hopefully the barriers will have arrived by then, so she can have a look and see. She is also coming to look at our grid that goes over our pond and will hopefully say it is safe as Fort Knox.

[Motherclanger]

Hi Suzie

 

I just want to ask what sort of barriers have you got to fence off your outside area ? We have been looking into doing a similar thing.

 

Motherclangerx

[Guest]

I think common sense needs to prevail for the whole free-flow thing.

 

Maz pretty much hit the nail on the head when she said that the children must be surpervised effectively so as to keep them safe.

 

As a setting we aim for an adult:child ratio of 1:5, which enables us to have a bit of leeway with such matters. Obviously, a setting can potentially have just 3 staff for 24 children and still be meeting Ofsted's ratios. The problem though is that, with free-flow in operation, you could end up with 12 children outside and 12 inside - where do you then deploy the 3rd member of staff to ensure adequate supervision?

 

Increasing your staff levels is the easiest way of handling this and will render the above problem irrelevant. Of course the flip side is that it will lead to increased costs which many settings may be ill-placed to afford.

 

My personal recommendation in such circumstances would be to have different provision inside and outside, with higher risk activities restricted to one area. Then, when you have the 12/12 split you simply deploy the 3rd member of staff to the area deemed to be the greatest risk to the child's safety.

 

That may or may not make sense, but it is Friday night after all...

 

Cheers,

DDC

[Guest]

I think common sense needs to prevail for the whole free-flow thing.

 

Maz pretty much hit the nail on the head when she said that the children must be surpervised effectively so as to keep them safe.

 

As a setting we aim for an adult:child ratio of 1:5, which enables us to have a bit of leeway with such matters. Obviously, a setting can potentially have just 3 staff for 24 children and still be meeting Ofsted's ratios. The problem though is that, with free-flow in operation, you could end up with 12 children outside and 12 inside - where do you then deploy the 3rd member of staff to ensure adequate supervision?

 

Increasing your staff levels is the easiest way of handling this and will render the above problem irrelevant. Of course the flip side is that it will lead to increased costs which many settings may be ill-placed to afford.

 

My personal recommendation in such circumstances would be to have different provision inside and outside, with higher risk activities restricted to one area. Then, when you have the 12/12 split you simply deploy the 3rd member of staff to the area deemed to be the greatest risk to the child's safety.

 

That may or may not make sense, but it is Friday night after all...

 

Cheers,

DDC

 

 

I very much like this post DDC - it has both a measured and a common sense approach and this is very much the approach that I would advocate.

[Guest]

I very much like this post DDC - it has both a measured and a common sense approach and this is very much the approach that I would advocate.

 

Thanks - are you an Ofsted inspector?

[Guest]

Hi motherclanger,

 

They are the 'lightweight crowd barriers' from barriersdirect.co.uk, I found the company very helpful although so they should be as we have spent a good chunk of money with them!

 

I will feedback on how well they're working once they arrive (should be middle of next week, we are all very excited!).

 

Thanks for the helpful thoughts on ratio DDC, we have a higher than necessary staff ratio anyway, so on a busy day (18 ish children) we have 4 staff and on other days about 3 to 12. Plus often parent helpers around as well. In fact sometimes it seems like we have more adults than children

 

I always think that high staff to children ratio is the best investment our committee can make in the setting.

[green hippo]

Hi,

Our EYAT (who is also our school advisor) told us that the ratios are for the WHOLE SETTING so the ratios do not have to be exact but as other's have said we must use our common sense and of course, risk assess the area and decide on whether certain sections need to be out-of-bounds if there aren't any adults outside. So, in order to maintain safety, we sectioned of a small part and allowed a limited number of children outside (worked well in Winter) or if most children want to go outside we bring the children that want to stay in into the conservatory which leads to the outdoors and can be seen well from the outside - a member of staff stays near the door. Fortunately we will have an extra member of staff next year so one adult will be able to be outdoors all the time and we will go with the children in terms of ratios.

 

Green Hippo xx

[Guest]

We also struggle with the technicalities of maintaining our ratios but, as mooncat said, deploy ouselves to the area of most need. We also use walkie talkies so that if at any time the person outside needs urgent help we're there immediately! We got ours in Maplin for about £20, but I've seen them in Tesco and this week spotted the exact same ones in the Sainsbury's Active Kids online brochure!

[HappyMaz]

These ones, SuzieC8?

 

I can see lots of opportunities for children to customise these barriers - great for weaving all sorts of things through the bars! How big is that gap between the ground and the bottom horizontal bar though? I can imagine several of our smaller escapologists taking that as a personal challenge!

 

We struggle in our setting to use effective barriers. Our outdoor area is bordered by a picket fence, and runs round three sides of the building which makes it very difficult to supervise effectively. We put up a barrier down one side of the building because the Parish helpfully stores roofing slates there - at the moment we use two bamboo trellises bought from the 99p shop which we secure in place with velcro straps. Bit heath robinson but it works for us!

 

Maz

[Guest]

Yep, those are the ones (haven't worked out how to post links yet). I had wondered about that gap, Maz, but in the end they were the best option because they can take a bit of weight if leaned on, whereas the plastic ones we looked at (avalon barrier) weren't that sturdy at all. The kids would have to lay down on some pretty nasty tarmac to slide under, so I'm hoping it won't even occur to them. But if it does look like being a problem then we will have to fix something on the bottom to stop them.

 

Customising is a great idea, I was just talking about that this morning with my other half. We'd been discussing whether I need to padlock them and he suggested painting the pre-school name on them to deter thieves. Well then my imagination started to go wild, and now I'm thinking that we could paint them in brightly coloured stripes. Love the weaving idea as well, will definitely mention that to our leader.

 

Luckily for us it should be possible for a staff member to be positioned to see the whole of the outdoor area at once (and actually part of the hall as well). But I had been pondering whether we needed walkie talkies and I think that's a really good idea so will look into that.

[Guest]

Hi all,

I know I added a statement about ratios and not having and adult in the garden as it wasn't necassary, this was only what we were informed. Of course I do make sure that there is an adult present/supervising. Common sence is valuable in this area and these days of 'free play'.

 

Saying that tho, I went on a outdoor learning course this weekend and tutors reiterated that no adult was necassary within the garden as long as we stayed in ratio. He He He.

 

If people haven't been in this game for a long time as I have, some might take it at word..... I only played devils advocate and added extras

 

Have a good night.

 

KAT

[Guest]

just throwing a thought here

 

ratios are important inside or out and need to be maintained ..................but also

how can you help scaffold and extend childrens learning outside or in for that matter if you are so low on numbers of staff

one person outside can not be doing this effectively and maintain an eye on what is happening around you

key work needs to be done inside and out and the person doing this cannot be expected to waych out for the other children