Medium & Long Term Planning

[Guest]

can anyone help? we are currently rejigging our planning and want to be more child led. How do you go about planning (long & medium term)? How much detail do you need? If anyone is willing to share I would be really grateful

[Susan]

Even if your activities are child initiated I think you have to have some planning in place to lead the learning and the experiences that you offer for the children to take where they will?

It is within your short term planning that you will need to be most flexible to reflect what is happening in your classroom. So perhaps your long and medium planning do not need to change too much??

[Guest]

Our long term planning is a list of themes/topics which we may cover over the year depending on the children's interests.

Our medium term plans identify the aspects from each Area of Development we intend to focus on each term. We do two from each area per term, (we now work a six term year so we cover the aspects twice over year.)

The short term planning is quite responsive and can change as the week progresses. In the nursery we tend to pick up on interests through the week and plan them for the next week. In reception they meet together on Wednesdays to reflect on the learning for the first three days of the week and then take it from there.

Hope that's helpful.