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Planning The Day For A Foundation Stage Unit


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Hi all,

 

I am returning to Foundation Stage after 2 years and our school is changing into a fully fledged Foundation Stage unit with Nursery fully integrated and no large group teaching. There will be 3 teachers, 1 Nursery Nurse and 4 Teaching Assistants with 104 children in the morning and 80 in the afternoon (nursery will only do AM). We are all very excited about doing a fully free flow self initiated system but are getting a bit stuck on how to organise the day. We have a very large space indoors with a smaller room (old Nursery) plus a large outdoor area. We intend to do focused, small group activities but the rest will be self initiated.

 

Does anyone have a daily planning grid for adults I could have a look at? How much time to do you allot to different sessions? We have managed to get agreement that children don't have playtime or go to assemblies but we do need to alot a break time for the TAs and Nursery Nurse within the morning session too. I'd really like to have some ideas before going back in September as we have lots to do. The room is quite new and needs reorganising as well as the planning....oh and the school are anticipating an Ofsted visit sooner rather than later!!

 

Any advise would be really helpful!

Thanks,

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Hi there Claire. There are quite a few conversation about organizing the day in FSU, have you fund them yet? We also have a few members that are working very well in an FSu too.

 

Do you have opportunity to get together over the holiday or early in September to see how you want to organize things?

I wold probably look at the space we have, maybe making a sketch of the space and what areas would work well where.. taking into account things you cant move such as doorways, radiators sinks etc. It seems like the smaller room may be a good space for smaller more focused activities? In a very large space, you'll need to think about creating defined areas, with clever use of units, screens etc. we spent quite some time making these decisions before we started and it relaly saved u time having to anage things on the hop so to speak.

 

Is there a particular reason why you must have break times for your staff, when I worked in a FSU this was the biggest thing to manage and in the end we didn't timetable them in as it just didnt work.. it meant we had to alter the structure of the day to manage the altered ratios. (we ran on minimum ratio).

 

Good luck with it, let me know if you dont manage to find those other conversations

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I teach in a FSU (much smaller than yours -56 children per session 2 teachers and hopefully 2 nursery nurses )but we do have separate large group carpet sessions. Children arrive for 8.45 registration and go to their home areas - nursery or reception followed by a short teaching session then free flow until 11 am separate again nursery children to their key worker reception with me until lunch. Afternoon sessions are slightly different as reception and nursery have different starting times to fit in the 3hour nursery entitlement so no carpet session for reception at the beginning of the afternoon. Staff don't have breaks apart from lunchtime. We only attend whole school assemblies if they are relevant to us - think there is guidance for Sept advising schools not to have assemblies due to swine flu spread.

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I also work in FSU approx 60 children and absolutely love it! F2 children do attend some assemblies but have no playtimes. Allstaff (teachers, NN and LSA) have staggered lunchtime breaks (3/4 hour) to accommodate fully flexible provision. In their contracts NN are in fact only entitled to 1/2 hour lunch. None of us have a morning or afternoon break again there is no legal requirement for a break although in many schools it is a historical expectation.

 

F2 do have some large group teaching sessions - short and focussed for Lit, Num and Phonics other focussed work is done in small groups. One adult spends each morning encouraging independent learning on Challenges ( lit,NUm, Phonics play based activities) and CIUP, 2 adults spend time doing focussed tasks linked to CD and KUW during am/pm (about 1/2 the session), another adult is outside doing a mix of support, ciup and focussed tasks, extra adult supports play in tha areas and does guided reading. During particular times, 1 adult leads Lit/Num groups. Sounds complicated - so just ask if anything is unclear.

 

Helen

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  • 2 weeks later...
I also work in FSU approx 60 children and absolutely love it! F2 children do attend some assemblies but have no playtimes. Allstaff (teachers, NN and LSA) have staggered lunchtime breaks (3/4 hour) to accommodate fully flexible provision. In their contracts NN are in fact only entitled to 1/2 hour lunch. None of us have a morning or afternoon break again there is no legal requirement for a break although in many schools it is a historical expectation.

 

F2 do have some large group teaching sessions - short and focussed for Lit, Num and Phonics other focussed work is done in small groups. One adult spends each morning encouraging independent learning on Challenges ( lit,NUm, Phonics play based activities) and CIUP, 2 adults spend time doing focussed tasks linked to CD and KUW during am/pm (about 1/2 the session), another adult is outside doing a mix of support, ciup and focussed tasks, extra adult supports play in tha areas and does guided reading. During particular times, 1 adult leads Lit/Num groups. Sounds complicated - so just ask if anything is unclear.

 

Helen

 

Hi there,

I will be working in an FU in September, I'm so excited. 13 F2 and then 30 F1 split between both morning and afternon session. I the teacher and two NN's. After much debate and looking through examples on the forum I have decided to treat all children as one unit and not planning separatly for F1 or F2.

 

I have organised the day as follows...

08:45 self Reg

09:00 Carpet time (talk about news or weather or activities available) & PSRN

09:30 - 11:00 CI play and tidy up, during this time AL focussed activity with sm grps or 1;1

11:15 - Snack

11:30 - PSE/Music/story/songs

11:45 F1 home & f2 get ready for lunch.

 

Afternoon session is trickier as F1 & F2 start at different times..

 

But basically Phonics will be pm for F2, ONly because one littlen in nursery who attends pm session is well ahead or most of the other nursery children her age in nursery regarding L & S.

 

Afternoon F1

12:30 Self Reg plus half hour input that F2 had in the morning

13:00 Child initiated play, tidy up time

14:45 Snack

15:00 PSE/Music/story/songs

15:00 F2 HOME TIME

15:30 F1 Home

 

More than likely afternoon nyursery will get picjked up at 3pm as the rest of the school g home then aswell. My headmistress is hoping so anyway

 

Hope that helps slightly.

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