New To The Fsf And Reception In Septemeber

[Guest]

Hi, I am new to the foundation stage forum and will be a new reception class teacher in september, I have been working in Year 1 for two years now and have been asked to move down to reception. From working in Year 1 i have a good knowledge of the EYFS profile and lots of activities and ideas for teaching reception children. I have been teaching in reception this past term for two days of the week, to get to grips with assessment and observations, however I am struggling to get my head around how to plan a session in reception including child initiated learning. I am presuming child initiated is where children choose their own area within the classroom whether this be the sand, role play, water, creative table etc... and then use activities and resources YOU put in their to initiate their own learning, for example: If you are doing a topic on the world, in the book corner, you may place a story sack, or stories from other countries, in the creative area you may be looking at making clay pots for diwali, or your small world tray may be set up as an eygptian desert to encourage S&L and role play - i hope this is right? If this is right, do you therefore share with the children what is in each area after your introduction on the carpet?

 

Sorry If i sound totally useless i just don't want to mess it up, having had two fabulous years in year 1!

 

Any help would be gratefully recieved!

 

PS: i hope i have posted this correctly!!

[Susan]

Hi and welcome.

You have certainly come to the right place! However, I would have to say please dont think you have moved down to reception as that seems to degrade the wonderful place that reception can be although I am sure you dont really mean that!

I would say, think about the opportunities and experiences you have provided in year 1 and about your own philosophy about the way children learn and the importance of play. I would like to think that with a bit of tweaking to give the children more control that you would already be well on the way to getting it right in yearR.

 

Happy reading!

[Guest]

Thankyou for your post, no i do not mean it in that way at all, i am excited to be going to reception i just mean moving down in terms of down the school year groups , not down as in that reception is a bad thing.

[Guest]

I think by providing resources, but without suggesting what they should be used for, it counts as child initiated if the children choose to pick them up and use them, and do so in their own way.

 

If, however, we give them (for example) a story sack and suggest they act out the story, it isn't child initiated. But could become child initiated if they took in their own direction, an activity we had given to them.

[catma]

I think one thing to not underestimate is the level of independence you see at the end of the summer term when all the children are 5 or a couple of months off it and how they just know how to operate in the room etc and the kinds of expectations you have of them at this point. Come Sept it can be a very different picture with the younger age spread of the cohort - just 4yrs some of them and the level of expectation you might see now in terms of adult directed activity, guided groups etc etc isn't the same. This is not to say they are not competent but they just have differing needs at this point in time.

 

Cx