Literacy And Numeracy Hours In Reception

[Guest]

Hi there

 

Have got my eye on the end of the year now (!) and am thinking about my reception class moving up into (a very formal and timetabled..... ) year one.

 

I know that children should be working towards or doing a literacy and numeracy hour type lesson by the end of the reception year.

 

When do other people start this? How do you manage it? I tried to plan it this way when I was doing my planning at the weekend and as we have a music session and hall time, would only have time for 4 literacy and 4 numeracy sessions each week (ie 8 morning lessons in total) Somehow, it would have taken all week, mornings and afternoons to get through the literacy and numeracy activities we cover easily in an integrated day.....

 

Should I be seriously thinking about getting started on a literacy and numeracy hour now and just plan less so that it doesn't impact on afternoons, or wait until the end of term and have a go at it in the last few weeks...

 

Advice and ideas please!

[Guest]

I think it depends on what is appropriate for your children. We do not do a full hour until the last few weeks and then either an hour of numeracy and an hour of literacy .... but we are planning to make our rec to Year 1 transition a bit smoother this year as we feel our children still very much need a play based less formal world... although I do think you can cover the objectives in a fun, practical way for most of Year 1 too ... we are going to experiment a bit more next year. What do others think ?

 

Best wishes

Galleon

[Guest]

I dont do this until june-though even then i will continue to keep my activities practical as i feel they benefit so much more from this. In my school we only do 4 sessions of literacy and numeracy anyways as i like to have a day for my topic based learning. Even year 1 and 2 in my school only do 4 numeracy sessions as ithey use the 5th session for readers.

 

hope this helps alittle!

[catma]

isn't this a whole school debate, about transition and the ways this can be managed by the school? Can you discuss this with SMT? There's lots of info and data around about ways of managing transition to make it smoother now. What do Y1 think?

[Guest]

 

I'm also moving towards a num and lit hour in my reception class although only loosely as it will still be an integrated day with arty stuff going on and construction. But I am required to use daily num/lit plans and told to find suitable ones on the internet as there's apparently lots out there!

 

Has anyone found any good ones? The type of thing I'm hoping for will have the children working in diff groups with only 1 adult led group which rotates daily. Can always annotate to suit my class.

 

Would be very grateful for any feedback. My Sundays are pretty non existant anyway.

 

Alternatively, would any of you lovely people consider putting your own weekly plans on this site as an attachment so that only you will have to work all Sundays!

 

Keep up the good work, Fountain

[Susan]

There are literacy and numeracy plans that can be adapted as you describe at www. hamiltontrust.org. These are the most comprehensive I have found but there are also some litearcy plans on www.literacymatters.co.uk.

Alternatively there are the Scholastic and WH Smith publications

"100 Literacy / Numeracy Hours".

[Guest]

Numeracy and literacy hours are not statutory if you can show you cover the curriculum effectively using your own school system, are they??? (Or have I missed something? ) Surely the Primary Strategy gives us more freedom to do things in the way we feel is best for our children?

I say keep the elements of the "hours" but not necessarily delivered in a single session i.e. spread out over the day as appropriate. Y1 need to take the children forward towards more formalised lessons as and when the children are ready

[catma]

well no, they are not statutory but they do give support for developing the skills MOST children are expected to have by the time they enter KS1 and do link to the FS curriculum (which is also guidance isn't it? Isn't the only statutory FS bit the profile scales?). It would be foolish to try to declare UDI in the foundation classes if the school has a certain policy on their usage. Better maybe to work with colleagues in other adjoining classes to look at how progression of skills/knowledge and understanding(including sitting for a longer period and paying attention/listening and taking turns is supported through the childs journey in a particular school to inform each others' practiceand develop your policy appropriately for your school. The Primary strategy does encourage (I'ld argue you were always allowed!) more flexibility in your delivery of the curriculum in all 3 primary key stages, but this would be in the context of a whole school ethos and approach. TAlking is the answer I think.

[Guest]

Thanks for all your input, all very useful. We do lots of literacy and numeracy activities during our integrated day and the children are well on the way to meeting (and some are exceeding) the reception objectives for both, which I guess is the main thing. I think in our school we need to extend good foundation stage practice into year one instead of bringing formality to reception.

 

I can also reccommend the literacy matters plans and Hamilton trust plans. On the Hamilton trust website they have the abacus foundation stage lesson plans to download. They have really good teaching structure and lots of practical and play based activity ideas. Abacus do F1 for 3 to 4 year olds and F2 for 4 to 5 year olds. We were reccommended the materials by (a very anti scheme) numeracy advisor.

[Guest]

Thanks for all your input, all very useful.  We do lots of literacy and numeracy activities during our integrated day and the children are well on the way to meeting (and some are exceeding) the reception objectives for both, which I guess is the main thing.  I think in our school we need to extend good foundation stage practice into year one instead of bringing formality to reception.

 

I can also reccommend the literacy matters plans and Hamilton trust plans. On the Hamilton trust website they have the abacus foundation stage lesson plans to download.  They have really good teaching structure and lots of practical and play based activity ideas.  Abacus do F1 for 3 to 4 year olds and F2 for 4 to 5 year olds.  We were reccommended the materials by (a very anti scheme) numeracy advisor.

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[Guest]

 

As I understand it the Hamilton trust plans/Abacus have to be used in conjunction with their products/books and resources which the school buys into and not a resource I can use independantly. Is this right?

 

Literacy Matters is a great resource for half term plans but the weekly/daily plans are not particularly inventive, usually starting the week with such riveting activies as 'read text and talk about front page and author' etc. However they have downloadable worksheets which can be used independantly.

 

Appreciate all the fedback though.

 

Fountain

[JacquieL]

The Foundation Stage Curriculum is statutory and this was from September 2002. Transiton should be taking pace between R and Y1 but the children should move towards a more formal curriculum in Y1 not in R. It does say that the lit. and num. should be in place by the end of the reception year. The study bu NFER on Transition, which someone on here pointed us all to, is quite clear on what they recommend. Remember that some children will only be 5 in the summer holidays before they move to Y1 and some will not have acheived all the ELGs, so are expected to continue to learn in an appropriate way. the first term in Y1 revisits all the literacy Strategy objectives for R doesn't it? Children who don't then pick up in that first term then go on to ELS in January. That 's what we do at present and it seems to work quite well.

[Susan]

No fountain, you can access and use the hamiltion trust plans without buying into anything in school.

And I found them to be very useful to dip in and out of and supplement with my own ideas.