What needs to definitely be flagged up in Reception planning

[jayney78]

Hi All,

I've been to a meeting of Reception teachers tonight and we were discussing planning. I was fairly happy with my planning for new framework before this meeting but some of the stuff people were sharing was unbelievably detailed and had so many bits that I haven't got on mine. One of them was a leading teacher. So now I'm having a major crises of confidence and don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I know there isn't a 'right' way to do it but I want to ensure I've got all the elements that I'm supposed to have. If you have any examples of your Reception class planning or just the areas that you include, please, please help, if only to put my mind at ease. Thanks in advance x

[Guest]

I didn't want to read and run but will be interested in what ideas others have. I have a similar worry that am missing something in my planning systems.

[Guest]

Long-term - we use the curriculum guidance and have a brief A3 sheet mapping out skills we want to cover through the year, just in outline.

 

Medium term - we use the Burnley Creative Curriculum planning wheels throughout the school - mapping skills and activities on one A3 sheet.

 

Short-term - we have planning for one adult-led activity each week for each of the 3 prime areas, one adult-led activity each week for each of the specific areas, separate phonics, maths, guided reading and outside adult-led planning. 'provocations' are planned in each class on an ad hoc basis to extend children's interests. Responses to children's interests are as immediate as they can be as they crop up during the day, and are recorded.

 

i don't have anything written down (yet) for continuous provision, and that is the area I am working on this year.

 

I too feel that this is quite 'thin' incomparison with some planning I have seen, but it works for us and isn't too cumbersome - peolpe are comfortable to use it and change it as we go through the week to meet the needs of individuals and different classes. I really don't want planning that takes all weekend to write, and then I can't find the relevant bit in class (I can never remember what I'm supposed to be doing when so it needs to to clear and accessible!).

 

Hope that helps! MW

[Guest]

Awww i wouldnt worry to much. I had the same prob as leader when my colleagues went on a course and saw other planning and come back and said we needed to chnage everything. I rang a lady from our learning and assessment service who ran the course and explained our situation and explained her planning and she said it was fine and that people often go away from course and panic when they see what others have done. But like she said how do you know theres is right or good?

 

The only minor changes she told me to add to our short term plans was to make sure we call our lessons under the new heads and to put the characterisitcs of learning on our planning (we had it on medium term but not short term) we discuss how to do this this and basicly what we are doing is choosing one area to focus on a week and making suggestions on our lpanning how we can model it, it has to be modelled for them to learn. We are to rotate this over three weeks (each week a different characteristic of learning) hope ive explained this well. Its literally a small box on our planning.

 

As long as you plan around the needs and the interests of your children and you plan and deliver good lessons you will be fine.

 

Hope this helps

[Guest]

Mary do you have any examples of your planning that you would be happy to share?? How on earth do you manage to get 7 adult focuses done during a week??? I get 1 lit, 1 num, 1other area and read individually 2 times a week.

 

Thanks