Planning

[Guest]

does seem a lot of work................ although im begining to bun out with paperwork

[Guest]

Long term planning

 

At present our long term plans are our continuous provision sheets each member of staff has a copy in their own ‘planning’ folder. The new long term plan adds to the existing continuous provision sheets and includes suggested themes, important dates and activities.

 

Medium term planning

 

The medium term plan uses a loose theme per half term to help resource role play or stories etc. but continues following the children's interests throughout and adapt accordingly. We should think of the ‘themes’ as contexts for learning rather than a topic, which has those connotations of overly adult prescription of the content; all learning, whether self initiated or not exists in some form of context. EYFS is about the balance of adult direction and child initiation too. It's important to ensure children haven't missed out on concepts because they've never been introduced to them or chosen to explore them.

(ps thanx to catma for that last bit about topics!!!!!)

 

Short term planning

 

The short-term planning brings together planning for individual children based on assessments of their development and learning alongside the medium-term plan.

We do not plan for every child, this would be too time consuming and confuse children and adults. We use the unique children and expand their knowledge but being inclusive we expand their learning on to the rest of the children. We aim to observe all the children over a 6-8 week period.

 

We have a weekly planning meeting, involving the whole team. Practitioners bring their observation records to the planning meeting and we use these as a starting point for the weekly planning to identify and plan for individual children’s interests, learning and developmental needs.

 

Observations are then fed into the learning journeys as and when time allows during a session as agreed by the Manager or outside the team staffs normal working hours.

 

Deployment of staff around the preschool

 

As a guide, over the course of the week practitioner’s time is spent as follows:

• 2/5 supporting child-initiated play and learning

• 2/5 leading adult-guided activities (including opportunities for guided work in literacy, group and circle times for children aged 3-5)

• 1/5 observing children

 

If one adult is leading an adult-guided activity, at least one other is supporting children’s play or observing.

 

Child initiated play

We cannot plan a learning intention for a child-initiated activity but through observations and adult support of children’s play, we will be able to assess the learning that takes place. Brief notes, which remind us to follow up children’s self-initiated play, can be noted on our planning sheet.

We will then be able to consider appropriate resources that can be added to the continuous provision in order that children can revisit ideas that have been introduced in adult-initiated activities and/or extend their learning.

Where and when possible due to restrictions of the setting, we will endeavour to leave some areas of the provision for children to choose what materials or resources they want: with accessible provision, children will choose what is appropriate to their agenda.

 

Adult guided/Adult led activities

Practitioners need to consider how to differentiate an adult-guided activity, adapting resources, expectations and language in order to take into account the varying ages and stages of development of children in a group.

 

Planned learning intentions should be broad and flexible in order that we can pick up on the child’s own learning agenda. Planned activities need to provide children with lots of opportunities for speaking and listening.

 

We will plan a range of activities across different curriculum areas that have the same broad learning intention, in order that children can encounter this learning or revisit it in different contexts.

 

We will ensure that what is planned is motivating, enjoyable and meaningful: planning must promote a positive disposition to learn in each child.

 

Whole group activities

Children aged 3-4 will have a maximum of 1-2 whole-group sessions each day.

Children need extended periods of time to play and pursue their interests. Children can concentrate for longer in small group activities, where they are more involved.

 

All six areas of learning should be given equal weight and planed for across both the inside and outside environments

Learning and teaching is more effective if provision is mirrored outdoors and indoors. For example “The Three Bears” as an indoors small world scenario is mirrored outdoors as an imaginative role-play opportunity using large apparatus and blocks.

Remember that there are certain activities and experiences that children can only experience outside: e.g.wind, rain, snow and sunshine, looking for minibeasts in the earth, throwing and catching, climbing and swinging etc.

 

Plans are working documents

They are created at the beginning of the week (Wednesday) but can be amended and annotated as the week progresses.

Edited August 6, 2009 by Guest

[nicola531]

oops and these

Thanks for sharing your planning. I work in a private day nursery. We are in the process of changing our planning. your ideas will be of great use. thanks again for your hard work.

[Guest]

we plan for the individual child and it works well for us

each key person is resposible for planning for their children

[Marion]

In september we are starting to use PLODS !!! Has anyone else used this format for planning ?

I'm going to use Di Chilver's PLODs planning in September for developing Children's interests. Very simple format, easy to use which she says is perfectly acceptable as evidence for the profile as well as a planning document.

[Susan]

Presumably thats copyrighted Marion but can you give more details for those of us unfamiliar with the ideas. please?

[Marion]

I have an example which I don't think is copyright

basically it is three concentric circles. The child's interest is written in the centre circle then the activities and resources used to develop the learning are added outwards.

[Susan]

Thats interesting, thank you. I can see that could be manageable!

[Marion]

Di Chilvers suggested we use A3 format and use it on a learning wall will photographs and children's work around the plan which is what I am thinking of trying in September.

[Susan]

Perhaps you can keep us posted then with that one, will be interesting to know how you get on.

[Guest]

this is very interesting Marion.. how many children do you complete these for?

[Marion]

That could be the planning for one child or the whole class and it could cover a day or a full term depending on how long the interest is sustained.

[Guest]

That looks really good and quite managable. I like the idea of a big sheet on the wall so everyone can see it. Let us know how it goes in September.

[chasrosam]

Hi everyone,

 

I like the idea of the PLODS sheet and can see how that works for individual children, my only problem is that we have 40 children in our room per session and I am not sure how that would work, I can only think that the childrens interests would overlap? any suggestions?

[Guest]

We use something similar to Marion's planning sheet but often have two children's names on the sheet. For example if a child is completing a number puzzle with a friend and they are discussing the numbers and sharing ideas with each other etc. we would complete a planning sheet (Plods style) for both children at the same time. Our sheet includes what we have seen the child/children achieve, how we think we could provide resources/adapt the environment to develop the learning further which has smaller sections for each area of the curriculum etc. It has worked well for us over the last couple of terms and we are planning to continue with the same planning format. If I have completed a planning sheet for two or three children and they are not all my key children, I give a copy of the sheet to the other children's key workers for their files.

[Marion]

I used the format last term beginning with a group of 3 children but it eventually included over thirty children in the activities.

[Guest]

Hiya, using ideas and examples from here and all over the internet I have changed our planning... (still got to decide on a final focus plan format). (we are pack away preschool).

 

I've attached it all as I hope someone can use parts of it... thank you to all of you helpful people on here!!!!!

 

(the long term plan also includes continuous provision documents but I've not uploaded them as I don't know who/where I adapted them from, suffice to say, the long term also consists of continuous provision plans)

 

We have a reflective planning meeting every week where the team comes together with obs and we decide on what we need to add/adapt etc. and discuss children's interests/needs.

 

There has been lots of discussion on here about topics/themes and I just wanted to add that for the past year we completely lost topics/themes and I that the children were worse off. I have introduced a medium term plan back into the planning and have planned some activities on the long term plan once again ( so we don't spend the whole year as superheroes), these themes will be used loosely and if we go off track completely that is also fine. (anyway I'll go on forever if I start) I think the word I want to use is 'balance' ask me in 6 months and I may have changed it all again, thank goodness for the words 'working document'!

 

Thanx again everyone.

 

Carla x

 

 

Hi! This is my first post and I just have to say Carla, as many others have your planning is fab! I was just wondering if you do a topic/themed weekly plan for your carpet times as this is one area I am struggling with in the planning format side of things. I teach free flow with 60 reception children and we have a seperate CLL plan and a seperate PSRN plan with opportunties and carpet session. Then we have an all other areas plan but this does not go into detail of carpet sessions only what opportunties are avaliable throughtout the week. I would be greatful for any help/ideas or examples you have.

[babybeat]

Hiya, I am a bit of a planning maniac.... the planning I've attached is hugely cut down from what I was doing...

 

for a number of weeks we stopped nearly all whole group time as an experiment.... it didn't work, we also lost the rota for staff to be responsible for each area, as the team felt we didn't need to know where to be to support the children, it should be obvious... well that didn't work either... some activities had no support, some too much, snack bar didn't open... so back to rota again lets see how it goes.

 

Carla x (p.s. around 35 children on role from September, some every day some only 1/2 sessions per week) mon/wed/thurs lunch club and wedesday am and pm session so some stay all day.... max 26 in a session)

 

 

Hi Carla,

We are a pack away nursery too - planning is the bane of my setting - too much or too little.

do you have to pack away everything as we do and how do you do it?

 

Staff are complaining sainsbury's here I come!

 

thanks for planning formats - they are really interesting which I can adapt