Scheme Of Work

[Guest]

Help - as Early years co-ordinator I have got to put together a scheme of work. Does anyone know what it should look like and what it needs to contain? I have termly overviews of coverage in the six areas but apparently that is not enough. Really need help here!!

[Susan]

hi Gill and welcome!

Not sure I can help much, arent schemes of work quite prescriptive so may not fit the flexibiluty and child interest that we are being encouraged to adopt?

I would start by looking at the QCA schemes for year1, possibly KS1, and work with your termly overviews from the curriculum guidance and look at matching this to suitable topics???

[Guest]

Hi Gill,

My only experience of writing schemes of work ( SOW) was for adult education and as Susan says it is more prescriptive than a termly overview.

However I don't see why it couldn't include child initiated/spontaneous learning opportunitie as these can ( should?) be planned for.

The SOW can be used for weekly/daily/ activity plans and informed by the long term plan.

 

The headings I used for each column on a spreadsheet were;

 

1/ The Aims ( these should be measurable and include Knowledge, skills and attitude)- by the end of the week/session/topic/term/activity ( any time scale) the children will be able to or will have..... ( in short, for a week -b.t.e.o.t.w.t.c.w.b.a.t.o.w.h.....) The aims can include differentiation ie: awareness of, understanding, (knowledge) attempts, can (skills), participate, enjoys (attitude)

 

2/ The objectives- activitie titles

 

3/ The teaching style/ grouping; Teacher led, question & answer, active learning,self directed, spontaneous, child led, adult supported, shared cooperative, etc-small group, pairs, large group, solo.

 

4/ The resources/time- equipment, etc and time (for an activity this would be minutes, for a weeks plan this could be 3 X 20 mins)

 

5/ Assessment method- This is informed by the Aim- ie: completed task, observation, child feedback.

 

6/ Next step- I used the planning format as the evaluation sheet as well and would fill this section at the end of the week/session, I would also include notes for individual students needs/achievements.

 

7/ Links- This is where I used a code to link the plan to the long term plan ie: for foundation stage - C.A1. (Creative Aspect one)

 

When I get time I shall produce an example format on excel if you like.

Hope this helps and doesn't confuse

 

 

Peggy

[Guest]

Thanks for ideas, I agree that a formal scheme of work is going to be too prescriptive perhaps I will try to map out the opportunities that we plan for the children and match them to the stepping stones and early learning goals we are aiming to achieve. Do you think that might work?

[hali]

Hi Gill welcome to the forum

[Guest]

Hi Gill,

 

Your idea sounds good, maybe also ask the person who said your overview wasn't enough, what other info they want included in your plans.

Have you seen the wonderful "continuous provision" documents? These may be a useful resource to work from. I don't know how to do a link to other posts so try search - "continuous provision" or maybe someone will come along and do a link for you.

 

Peggy

[Sue R]

Hi Gill and welcome!

 

I can see you've had some really helpful responses already!

 

Sue

[Susan]

HI gill, you do not say what year groups you are coordinating and writing your scheme for although I assume that you talking Nursery/ reception??

Who has asked you for this scheme of work?

 

I think that to include stepping stones could make your scheme very long and over complicated and I would think that you could work with ELGs. Your differentiation and the activity type and provision will allow for you to meet all childrens needs at whichever stepping stone they are operating. this could be stated?

 

If you havent found it yet, this could help! I found it very useful when writing long/ medium term plans!

 

 

 

good luck

[Guest]

Thanks for link Susan I have had a quick look and think it might be very useful.

 

I am Early Years Co-ordinator ( 3 reception classes) in a newly merged primary school (neighbouring first and middle schools have merged and Y7 have gone to secondary school) As a new school there were no policies or schemes of work in existence for any curriculum areas or early years! The policy was no problem but now am working on scheme of work. Head does not want it to be a rigid set in stone document because he realises we need flexibility but there needs to be something as we will have OFSTED sometime next term!!!

 

I think I will go along the lines of working through all 6 areas and what we want childen to achieve by end of Foundation Stage. The frustrating thing is that all that is in the curriculum guidance so why do I have to rewrite it - never mind, nothing else to do in my holiday!!!!

[Susan]

Hi again Gill, if you are writing this scheme for reception then I would definately only use ELGs!

What topics are you going to use?

Sounds as if your head wants detailed long term plans.

There were some excellent plans produced by Southwark which are now available on the Norfolk website which might help.

[Guest]

Hi again Susan

Our topics are

Bears (with a mini topic on colour)

People who help us (inschool and the wider community)

Animals (with a mini topic on water)

 

 

Do you have a link to the Norfolk site?

Thanks Gill

[JacquieL]

Our long term plans are just simple titles of the children's predictable interests like the seasons, birthdays, celebrations, known topical events. Then some topic style titles with no details- then any planned visits or visitors.

The continuous provision we also regard as our long-term planning. Medium term planning is then where we put the detail of what we hope the children will learn, and also some of the activities we intend. We add what arises out of the children's interests but this is ongoing. Short-term is what we will do each week. Your long-term plan is really the FS curriculum. In our LEA we have a document which has assessment sheets with learning objectives based on the Stepping Stones and for each one a matching sheet which suggests the type of activities that would be appropriate for children working at that level.

[Susan]

Agreed Jackie! In fact the planning guidance itself suggests that we should only have long and short term planning. So the long term planning could have more detail and be synonmous with a scheme of work??

 

Sorry Gill, try a google for the norfolk site?

[Magenta]

This is the Norfolk site.

[Guest]

Re scheme of work

Sorry to be so long in replying but have had actually had a holiday!!!

 

Thanks all for your suggestions, I think I have cracked it thanks to Susans suggestion and links to an older planning thread on the forum.

I will use my existing termly overviews that set out some main ideas, links between areas, topics and texts we use etc

Then include in the scheme of work what children should be able to do by the end of Foundation in each of the six areas with suggestions of activities that will enable children to achieve each ELG. From this list we can plan our continuous provision and and all the independent workshop activities throughout the year. This way it will not be set in stone when we have to do what and we can still have a lot of flexibility and creative planning. I think that will be a user friendly scheme of work from which we can take our medium and shory term planning. And better still most of it already exists through links on the forum and should not end up being too much work!!!

Thanks to everyone who replied

[Susan]

Good luck.

hope the holiday was a good one!!

 

I'd be interested to see your end result!