Guest Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Hello I am new to writing on this forum although have gained lots of ideas from reading other peoples comments. I work in a daycare/preschool setting, we have a baby room ( 0 to 18mths) and then our main nursery (18mths-5yrs). I am based in the main nursery which is an open plan room. We have set up very good continuous provision for all children. My Manager also the owner wanted us to work in family groups so that we had a mix of ages as your key children , I am not sure if it would be better to have small teams of staff working with age related children e.g one member heading 18mths to 2yrs another heading 2yrs to 3yrs and a third member of staff heading the 3-5yr group with set staff working with them on a daily basis. Does anyone have any thoughts as I am going to have a meeting tomorrow about this. Family groups does make planning and meeting individual childrens needs quite difficult. Can anyone help. Thank you Sarah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cait Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Hi and welcome. Firstly I have to say that I have tried both and find that working with the age group is easier than family group for the immediate pre-school year. Below that, we work more with mixed age - bearing in mind we're only 2 - 5 year olds anyway. We mix the children so that they help each other along. It's possible to have mixes that children are unaware of, so that they think they're in 'blue group' for example, which is a total mix of ages who are a family group who may spend time together at snack table or whatever, when in fact, key persons have a different cluster of children who are age specific. Do you get my meaning? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnyday Posted August 16, 2009 Share Posted August 16, 2009 Hi Sarah and a very warm welcome from me too! We have 'mixed age' groups - but then we are a very small group and our age range is 2.5 - 4 - which may be what makes that so manageable........... Sunnyday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thumperrabbit Posted August 18, 2009 Share Posted August 18, 2009 Hi Sarah We too are a mixed aged setting 2 - 4 year olds. Our Keyworker/family groups are mixed ages, however when we are doing any adult led activities we find it easier to put the children in similar age/ability groups. This is good in one way as it is easier to plan for, but on the downside it might mean that you don't always get to see all your keyworker children doing an activity, if it isn't you who is leading - this is where we still ask the adult who is leading to make any obs. Hope that makes sense! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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