Reception Unit - 60 Children - How Do You Organise The Day?

[Guest]

We are looking to set up a Reception only unit for 60 children - have 2 interlinking rooms, an easily accessible outdoor area, 2 teachers and 2 TAs - can anyone share their experiences/organisation/planning formats please? Thanks

[Guest]

we are also looking at running a Reception unit of 60 children, with a similar set up to you. It would be

great to compare notes.

[Susan]

Here is some really thought provoking advice http://eyfs.info/for...s-the-question/

[Guest]

Yes - lots of ideas on the link - thanks Susan :rolleyes:

 

Anyone got any planning formats - more to reflect the organisation rather than the content? Pretty please!

[Guest]

we are also looking at running a Reception unit of 60 children, with a similar set up to you. It would be

great to compare notes.

Would be very happy to!

[Guest]

We will be setting up a Reception unit exactly like this in September too. How are you going to organise your two rooms? We are tentatively thinking of free flow between both with one class having more of a literacy/creative focus and the other more of a maths/KUW focus. We might have a role play area in one class and a home corner in the other. That's as far as we've got so far!

[Guest]

The planning is where I am really struggling. I want to try and get this right as I am supposed to be leading the reception unit in september! I like the idea of having Literacy/ creative focus in one room and maths/kuw in another room.

[becs08]

Hi

I've been leading our two reception classes for the last 5 years. We free flow across both rooms and the outdoor area. We have writing and number and reading zones in both rooms as well as having writing/reading opps across all the zones. Then I have physical/fine motor and small world/construction in my room. The other room has creative, role play and discovery. We teach our own classes apart from phonics when we group across reception and key stage 1 at this time of year. Not sure what else you want to know but I'm happy to help if I can. Interestingly I've been asking about what three form entry schools do as we might be heading that way in the next couple of years. It's surprising how much one more class can change the whole set up.

Becs

[Guest]

My thoughts were of free flow and areas through 2 rooms and outside as described above. I don't want to have set classes but the children in 4 groups of 15 which work separately and in varied pairs - eg for whole class teaching/PE in hall/ICT etc. The 4 groups would be led by one of 4 adults but again this would vary so everyone works with all children at some point. We group for phonics already so that would work well. I want a really good daily routine that runs like clockwork - probably no school playtime, longer periods of child/adult initiated without lots of constant tidying up. Am happy with planning but want the routines to be right. Think running a fully integrated unit will help with getting Y1 classes right as well - will know children really well and get the balance right at the end of Reception

[bradfordjane]

Hi

We have 2 reception classes. They are class-based with their teacher for registration, phonics, story time and any other whole class carpet sessions. Adult-led focused activities (usually literacy/number based) are in the classrooms, but we do have focused activities in the messy room or outdoors. The rest of the time is a free flow system. We have 3 rooms and outdoors which are covered by 2 teachers and 2 TAs. We have a rota so that all adults work in all rooms through the week. One room has water, sand, creative and role-play. The classrooms both have a reading and a writing area; one has construction, playdough, the other has small world and investigation. We are finding that some children will only access their own classroom so we try to ensure that the same opportunities are provided in all areas. Sometimes the system works well and the children are fully engaged and the adults are engaged, but on wet and windy days it can be chaotic and it seems that the children are not learning or achieving and the adults are simply policing. We offer outdoors as much as possible, sometimes just to let off steam, but our children are very fair-weather children! Adults are engaged in observations - long and short, or with play and language and extending learning (at least that's the plan!)