Nursery Help!

[Guest]

Hi everyone, I apologise in advance for the large post but as you may be able to tell I am in a bit of a 'flap' :rolleyes:

 

I am currently a Reception teacher who has been asked to support a teacher who has been put into nursery recently with NO early years experience and is seemingly beginning to sink. I am currently only in my second year of teaching, so I am still learning the ropes and deciding what works and doesn't work myself. However next week I am expected to work with the head to change the planning and general day to day goings on of the nursery as I have recently done in Reception.

 

To give you some background this is how the nursery currently runs;

*there are 45 children in the morning and 45 of the afternoon.

*Currently the practitioners plans a focused activity each day which all children MUST complete (a tick list is used to ensure this) :mellow:

 

I have recently been and observed in the nursery and would like to change the whole of the planning structure. My difficulties are that we are a very formal school in comparison to other settings with a head who expects VERY high standards in numeracy and literacy in particular!! We have worked around this in Reception to create an environment which balances both child led and adult led activity. Nursery however is not my strong point therefore with the standards that need to be achieved in Reception at the back of my mind I have formulated the following plan to discuss with my head next week;

 

*free up ALL adults to facilitate and enhance activities that have both been set up as part of continuous provision and initiated by the children.

*During term 2, loosely group children either by ability or personality – 3 groups per family - to complete adult led, fun and engaging number activities.

*Literacy (mark making in particular) will be enhanced by the facilitator throughout the day.

All other skills in each area will be taught through well planned activities and those which are provided as a result of observing the children's interests - children will choose to take part in these activities and strong facilitating will ensure that their skills are encouraged and enhanced.

 

I would really appreciate some feedback if anybody has the time to offer some and any advice of how nurseries balance their facilitating role along side adult led teaching to ensure children are developing their number skills for example would be very much appreciated.

 

G4U x

Edited May 19, 2012 by Guest

[Guest]

Hi

 

I am currently a nursery teacher with 26 children in morning session, and 26 in afternoon. I have two teaching assistants. My morning group runs differently to my afternoon, due to alot of high need children in the pm and also their developmental levels generally. Our setting is also part of a school and run quite formally (same as you - due to expectations of others rather than what I think).

 

I don't know if this will help, but I shall have a go:

 

We try and split our sessions into 'slots' to ensure that everything gets done. I don't think it's ideal, as the children could do with more child - initated, and this is something we are working on. We start the morning with group time - we split into key groups, with our main focus for this slot being speaking and listening/psed skills - something our children need. This lasts for as long as it needs to really. The children then free play, with one adult outside, one inside (these adults are there to interact/extend/teach thorugh children's child initiated activities and also observe). The third adult carries out a planned focus activity. The children are given a choice as to whether they access, but we keep a note of those who always refuse and then over a period of weeks make sure they are included. We then have snack altogether (contorversial! but roling snack wasn't working too well for us with our particular children/set up). Then back to the free play/focus activity slot. We run 2 focus activities for the week. Then at the end of the morning we have a phonics slot - phase 1 activities, and phase 2 for my tops who are ready for it.

 

In the afternoon, we get our focus activities in through group time and free play the rest, with adults facilitating.

 

We loosly plan our enhanced provision, but children can change it or we can as their needs and interests dictate. We also try to look for little interests and note these down and build on them, e.g. recognising an interest might be as simple as cutting up using the scissors, or transporting. Look for schemas and build on them through planned activities or enhanced provision.

 

Hope this is of some use - it does work quite well for us (and seems to keep everyone else happy ;-) ).

[Guest]

Hi, this is how my Nursery day goes....

 

I have a 39 place nursery with children 3/4 year old children, staff wise there is me and 2 Nursery nurses.

 

At the start of the day we are very similar to Naomi's post above. We have a 10 minute key worker group session, this will be a story or PSED story.

We then have one adult inside, one outside, supporting play and one adult with a focus. This focus varies over the week, it could be planned long observation time, a creative activity based on our theme or a more formal task we hope all children access. The amount of focus tasks/ activities vary across the week depending on the task or how far along in the year we are.

 

At the end of the day we have another group time but here the children are split differently. The majority of the older children who will be going to reception in sept have a input with the teacher,such as, phonics/PSED/ shared writing, the second group is a small group of 3 or 4 of these older children who need extra support and these will listen to a story or have another PSED input, the third group is made up of the younger children who will still be in nursery this year. This allows us to extend the learning of the more able children without other younger children receiving the support they need at their level.

 

Hope that helps and good luck! X

[green hippo]

Hi,

I work in a school Nursery with 30 children (just morning) and 2 TAs and over my 4 years have changed our routines and way of working a number of time but am quite happy with how we have things working. We also have quite a lot of pressure from above but think I have found a happy medium.

We gather together for registration, we do action songs, dancing, IWB games etc before children have all arrived. After registration we do a SHORT phonics (5 mins) - this changes through the year so at the beginning of the year I split the children into 3 groups and take a group out each day to do a phase 1 activity to meet their needs while the other 2 groups stay together for phase 1 songs, story etc. After January, we start introducing letters sounds (Read, Write, Inc) to the larger group. Then after Easter we start a small group on Phase 2 if they are ready (they are taken 3 mornings a week for 10 mins).

The children have an hour and a quarter for CI play supported by all adults. During this time we carry observations, provide enhancements and do 'mini' focused activities to support individual needs as and when needed.

Then we tidy up and have milk and snack together (works better for us). Then we split into our key groups and do a small-group activity. These activities cover all areas of learning and are open-ended or introducing something or introducing/developing a specific skill and playful and fun etc. They are often specifically aimed at target children but are carefully planned and differentiate by staff so that all children benefit. It's a bit like the high-scope method. It means that all the adults can concentrate on the CI play and we are not having to pull children away from their play but also avoids the same children avoiding the adult-led activities. We also avoids them rushing through a task to get back to playing with their friends or a queue to do an activity!

Good Luck,

I'm sure you'll find a way that works for your Nursery

Green Hippo x