Eyfs In Reception Class

[Guest babyjane31]

Have just spent the morning helping in my daughters class which is a mixed reception/year 1 class, and as a pre-school manager can honestly say i could see no sign of the eyfs in practice. The children were only allowed to play with the resources that had been set out for them during free play and were told off if they tried to get out anything else, and they were only allowed outside during outside play time and were painting pictures about cinderella. At the painting table they were told they had to paint something with reference to cinderella whether they wanted to or not, if their pictures were not recognisable the TA was holding the paintbrush with the child so that "it was done properly". One little girl was painting a lovely, if somewhat abstract picture of cinderella, when i looked again she had been given a new peice of paper with a drawn picture of cinderella on it that the TA had done for her, when she painted the face blue she was told off as "our faces are not blue are they look at my face" all of this in full view and earshot of teacher who said nothing.

Now I appreciate that balancing a mixed age class with 2 differing curriculums must be very difficult but please tell me this is not comon practice. I plan on raisisng my concerns with the teacher but don't want to appear like a know it all about eyfs and offend her. What do you all think?

[Marion]

It isn't common practice.

[Guest]

It's not common practice at all.

It sounds as if the teacher maybe has little experience of the EYFS and of child-initiated activities?!

Maybe just offer support and advice on a professional level when you have a chat.

Sam x

[Lucie]

I'm one of the people trying to not make it common practice. Ive just come into reception as an NQT and am undoing practice like this and having to sort of re-educate the TA in some ways. However I must say that she is very keen on what i am saying (but i also take on board what she says and we compromise sometimes!!)

 

lucie xx

[kittycat1279]

It's certainly not common practice in my school. In fact at the moment all our children have done except CP is hand and foot printing (if they are happy to) a maths and english game and book sharing time. What I am finding interesting is although we had so many discussions last year about the transition to year 1 and how it would be the same as summer term in year r, it seems a lot more formal than that already - whole class handwriting on the 'special lines' already! I feel the need to loosen it up in year 1 now!

[emmajess]

It shouldn't be common practice, but it's certainly not good practice.

[Guest]

Just a thought about the blue face - aren't we supposed to teach the children that our faces actually aren't blue??

Yes, it's the child's choice - if she wants to paint it blue, paint it blue - but surely we are within our rights to tell the child that Cinderella's face isn't actually blue and check that the child knows this and knows which colours are "real" colours for skin.

[Susan]

Hi superstar and welcome.

Thats certainly a point for reflection and I would certainly argue that there is a place for doing that.

 

This is where the learning intention is useful!?

[JacquieL]

I think we have to be sensitive when talking with young children about their paintings, as there are so many reasons why they choose the colours they do. They may choose a colour just because they like it, or don't wish to change colours once they've started, or have a completely different agenda to that of the adult, if it is a directed activity. If my learning objective in a directed activity was to observe a face and features and to mix colours appropriately then I would be discussing the colours to use. Even that can be a matter of perception though. I think Raymond Briggs' wonderful picture of the polar bear shows that although we see a white bear, when we look closely at how he has drawn the bear he has used small lines in a variety of colours to convey white.

 

Picasso said "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."

I think perhaps he kept a bit of that child in some of his works

[Guest tinkerbell]

Hi Baby jane

 

Of course you are concerned this doesn't sound like good practice.

 

Lots of helpful advice from collegues.

 

You were in helping for the morning ,will this be a regular thing??? if so you could ask the teacher if you could 'oversee' an area eg painting table talk to her about how you might do this ,getting across your ideas about the EYFS,offer to do jottings /observations about what the children have talked about when doing their paintings,why they have chosen colours etc

 

(I am presuming the teacher knows your background and you have been CRB checked by the school etc)

 

By feeding back to the teacher and TA you will get across the EYFS pedagogy.

 

Tinkerbellx