Guest sophie Posted September 25, 2003 Share Posted September 25, 2003 Can anyone help me I manage a pre-school/playgoup where we have children aged 2 to 4 years. can anyone tell me how they do their planning do you do three sets of planning. Foundation stage profile stepping stones birth to three I'm tearing my hair out everyone keeps telling me different advice Sophie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beau Posted September 26, 2003 Share Posted September 26, 2003 Hi Sophie, I run a playgroup too. Basically there is no right or wrong way!! I tend to decide which of the Early Learning Goals I want to work on, split a large piece of paper into 5 (6 for you in England ) and go through each area of learning jotting down ideas which also tie in the topic I'm working on. Then when I've got a good range of activities in each area - hey presto - my planning is done!! Beau Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hali Posted September 28, 2003 Share Posted September 28, 2003 Hi sophie as Beau says there seems to br no right or wrong - i run a pre school in berkshire and we put all the early learning year stepping stones/aspects into our long term planning which are listed in the back of your foundation stage profile file and then work them in from there for each half term. if you want me to explain it in detail then let me know.... hali Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sophie Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 hi I would love you to explain in detail I would be very grateful always looking for different ways of planning. Thanks Sophie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alison Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 Hi Sophie I work in a preschool playgroup and we dont worry about the foundation stage profile that is for the reception to fill in but most teachers would say that their life is made a lot easier though if they have a list at the start of the childs time in reception which shows what goals the child has already achieved our local EYDCP has devised a sytem for all the local preschools to follow to create a record of development to pass onto the schools In planning we list the activities for each week or session and then for each activity pin point one or two stepping stones to observe the children doing and then slowly over time we can highlight stepping stones in the childrens development files (remembering to collect evidence of observation as we go!) In our setting each child has a file with a list of the stepping stones and ELGs for each area of development we highlight the stepping stones as the child achieves them, and we colour co-ordinate for easy reference so all children in the area have identical files and the colours on each childs records are the same so when the files are passed on to reception there is a universal system for the teacher to work with Colour coordinated term after 3rd birthday Red 2nd term - orange 3rd term - yellow term after 4th Birthday - green 2nd term -Blue 3rd term - purple so for example - when a child starts in the group and settles well in the first term the stepping stone " settles happily at nursery" can be highlighted red to show that the child achieved that stepping stone early in the foundation stage. Stepping stones are only highlighted when the practitioner is confident that the child has achieved the stepping stone or ELG they wouldnt for instance highlight as soon as a child had achieved a task for the first time we are very new to planning and NEG and we are finding it fairly easy to follow I hope you can understand my explaination! but we are now looking at how we should be planning for the younger 2 -3's any ideas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sophie Posted September 30, 2003 Share Posted September 30, 2003 hi thanks for your advice at present I am also looking for 2 to 3 years asssessment and madly reading the birth to threes for ideas is there anyone out there that can help us. Sophie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hali Posted February 6, 2004 Share Posted February 6, 2004 Hi sophie as i said earlier we do our planning as in the foundation stage stepping stones. (spitting all the stepping stones into terms over a two year rolling program) I have just found out that i shouldnt include my 2 1/2 yr olds in this, but as yet have had no guidence on the birth to three matters. So i have simplified the 6 elgs onto a form which i have labled our 'progress sheet' to do with these children which simply outline simple tasks that they can/canot do till they reach 3yrs and can folloe the stepping stones Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senlgh Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 Hi Alison, I'm new & very interested by your joint groups method. Being an Essex girl(!) we're floundering in the dark, (hence being here!) looking for any help with planning!Currently within my pre-school, we only plan for one step a week, & each keyworker has one hour a week to record their children 'achieve' that step!! Anything else noticed at any time has to be ignored, as "It's not planned for" or "It's not your time!" I'm going to post a plea for help anyway, but I wondered if you had anything you could send me to explain your method a bit more as it sounds brilliant. Thanks Sam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2004 Share Posted February 10, 2004 I know this may seem like a pretty silly question but if you are only planning for one stepping stone a week what are you doing the rest of the time?????? How many planned activities do you do with the children each week? What else is going on? I assume you have all the usual stuff like sand and water, construction etc? What on earth do you do if you see a child making a major step, such as balancing on a beam for the first time or joining in in singing? do you just ignore it? How difficult that must be making assessing children and recording where they are. By the very fact that you are working with the children you are observing them. It is second nature. What a waste of all that knowledge you have stored in your heads!!! We make observations all the time. We do both formal, during a planned activity and informal, which are jotted down on stick it notes to go in each childs folder. This then informs future planning. We chat to one another about the children on a daily basis. Do you do an area of learning in one go or is it a different one each week? The trouble with doing it this way is that by the time you get to the end of the year you may have overlooked a major gap in one or all of the childrens learning. Our early years teacher advisor had suggested we did an area a half term with PSED first and work our way through. We didn't do it thank goodness because my worry was that whatever we left to the end, and it would probably have been creative, we wouldn't know until too late if there was an area that children were struggling with. Actually we would because I'm sure we have enough experience to realise this. Anyway our OFSTED inspector said that she was glad we hadn't done it this way for the very same reason. I don't have any solutions to your problem other than taking back any info you get off this site and perhaps telling your supervisor how other settings are doing it. Although that often just gets peoples backs up. Good luck Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helen Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Hi Sam, A good place to start would be the articles on this site about planning, and about observations and assessment. Have you found them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
senlgh Posted February 11, 2004 Share Posted February 11, 2004 Hi all, & thanks for your help. Yes, I have now found the article which is excellent & very helpful & has been duely printed! To Linda, I agree with you completely & the answer is-getting very frustrated!!!Yes, of course we have all the usual things like sand and water,etc. & yes we do only plan for one area a week, with no apparent logic. Our Supervisors devise a long term plan where the goals are split over the year- we are told which steps are which weeks, & then in our end of term planning days, we have to devise activities for the children to achieve those steps in the following term! These are our formal obs of planned activities, & that's it! Yes, we are expected to ignore everything else!!! & whenever I question why, I'm told what would be the point of planning if we all recorded whatever steps we wanted whenever we wanted?! & we're not allowed to 'jot down' as then apparently all the staff are writing and not playing with the children!Hence each keyworker having an allocated hour a week each to observe and record the planned step for the children in their group! Hence my enormous relief at discovering this site, and just maybe retaining my sanity after all!! Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 12, 2004 Share Posted February 12, 2004 Hi Sam I'm glad you are finding the site useful. Perhaps as somebody said elsewhere matters will be sorted when you have your next inspection. I'm sure that they will perhaps find that although you are observing it probably isn't enough. I can appreciate how frustrating it must be for you. Do you know when your combined inspection is due? You just have to hang on in there until then and hope they ask for it to be changed!! Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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