Guest Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 Please help. Ofsted are coming the first week of Feb, but no specific date.They want to see the provision for funded three and four year olds.What will they look for and what extra provision should I make?Ioften feel that there are not enough activities available , the class are very selective and tend to run as a pack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted January 8, 2005 Share Posted January 8, 2005 Hi Joanna, Can you tell us a bit about your setting, eg numbers of children/staff, the layout and brief description of your daily routine. That way, the members can be more specific in their suggestions. First of all, impossible as it may sound, DON'T PANIC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hali Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 Hi joanna welcome to the site more info would be helpful but most important as Helen says dont panic........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 10 childen, no helper and a wide range of abilities.The childen are very determined and enjoy formality--set literacy tasks and numeracy tasks.Not very good at choosing activities Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rea Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 Hi Joanna, will the children not split off into groups of 2/3? Could you ask them to do something specific in the sand, home corner, dough table? If they like formality you could perhapes give them tasks to do at each area, if you see them deviating build on what they are doing and give loose suggestions, it might make them think about other things to use/do. Like Helen and Hali say though, dont panic, I've always found that so long as you know what the weaknesses are, and have strategies for them, Ofsted are ok. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 9, 2005 Share Posted January 9, 2005 Thank you so much, that is a good idea.I am not sure that apart from observation and assessing the profile and stepping stones that I should be doing anything else in the form of paper work. I do (of course) long term plans, medium term plans and weekly plans and a daily notebook.Sometimes it alll changes if there is an item of interest brought in, do you think that is ok? Does anyone have an efficient (on one sheet) way of collating daily observations apart from post it notes.I do only have 10 childen!!!!! Very many thanks so far for the support.I feel a little calmer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beau Posted January 10, 2005 Share Posted January 10, 2005 Have you looked at the article on observation on the site? You can find it here. This has some blank forms that you can print out too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted January 10, 2005 Share Posted January 10, 2005 Joanna, I was little worried a couple of years ago that we were going down the "too formal" route, and we made a concerted effort to come up with more practical tasks, rather than the ubiquitous worksheet! One Maths resource I have recently found really useful is the Minimaths books (reviewed in our resources section); great practical tasks which a small group of children with or without an adult can get stuck into. It sounds like you are already very organised with your planning, and records, so don't change too much before the inspection. Good luck and get back to us with anything else we can help you with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 10, 2005 Share Posted January 10, 2005 The way we collate observations in our setting (also quite small) is to have A4 sheets for each session with the names of all the children listed under their keyworker with the date, time, activity and group size and plenty of space to write by each child's name an informal observation. We have at least one of these sheets for each member of staff at each session, sometimes more. At the end of the session we cut these up and give them out to the keyworkers. It looks a bit like this: Sue Smith Date/time....................Activity..........................Group size......... . Jonnie Fred Hannah Chloe Ann Jones Date/Time..................Activity...........................Group size....... Joe Sam etc It works for us! Our Ofsted inspector liked them too in Dec. Hope it all goes well for you Carolyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rea Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 Joanna, just a thought, if you're on your own with 10 children, what are your ratio's? What kind of setting are you in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 11, 2005 Share Posted January 11, 2005 Private Reception and Nursery-often feeding into the school to which we are attached-two distinct groups three very bright children and others who really want to be there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue R Posted January 12, 2005 Share Posted January 12, 2005 Can I just repeat rea's question re ratios? And don't worry about changing things to go with the children's interests!! That's great - it'd be more worrying if you didn't!!!!! Oh, and welcome! If I haven't already Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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