What do you plan for and do each day and week?

[green hippo]

Hi,

I'm in a school Nursery - 26 children with 2 members of staff (I lost one at Christmas due to numbers) plus a student Wed to Fri.

Having completed my planning this week, and having already broken my New Years Resolution "do not panic about work!", I'm left thinking "are we trying to do too much each week?".

Currently, I plan for each area of learning each week - there are 3 small group activities (where we split into 3 groups) which 'covers' at least 3 of the areas of learning - often more. Then we have 2 days where we do an activity with half the class - usually phonics and music/story type activity which is manageable with half the class. Then, the other areas are covered through either targetting children in their play or whole-class (do like to keep these to a minimum) or an on-going activity which can be accessed through the week. Enhancements to the continuous provision to support the learning intentions for the focused activities are also planned.

On-top of this, we have individual targets for each child which we work on during CI time and then we have 3 focused children who we spend more time with in that week during CI time. Any additional enhancements/changes are made as an when throughout the week to meet individual needs and interests. But somedays I come away with a long list of things I want to get out/make/impliment with individuals the next day.

We are left at the end of the week trying to catch our tails! I nearly always walk out of the door feeling like I haven't done half the stuff that I need to do - finding resources/making resources/up-dating files etc. And my TA who is experienced but worries a lot is also left feeling that there isn't enough time in the day.

How do others feel? I know that it is that sort of job where you never get 'finished' but I also think that maybe I have to be more realistic about what I can physically do in a 3 hour session! Our group-times work really well so I don't want to change this. It's more the things I want to impliment for individuals!

Thanks, Green Hippo x

[Stargrower]

I am in daycare rather than a school so don't know how much help I'd be, but I wonder if you are planning to many adult-led activities? Or maybe just planning too much in general. If you plan too many activities, plus try to follow children's interests (which let's face it can change day-to-day!) plus fit in the things that you are required to do in a school, that may be why you are finding you don't get to do everything you had planned each week.

We have two to three adult led activities planned each week, so for example our children are making binoculars today and tomorrow, going out for a walk on Wednesday, then cooking on Thursday and Friday. The rest of the time is child-initiated play. Children come and go to the adult-led activity when they want to, so one child might spend ages making binoculars, or make several pairs, one might stay for a few minutes and some might not want to join in today, but have a go tomorrow, or not at all.

Hope that's some help

Beehive

 

Forgot to say, as we are daycare we have different patterns of attendance which is partly why we have activities over a few days to try and 'catch' as many children as we can, particularly if an activity has been planned with a particular child/ren in mind.

Edited January 14, 2013 by Beehive

[sharonash]

Beehive

Can I ask do you do no other keyperson planning at all - and just cover next steps through those 3 adult led activities?

 

Do you do mini group times as well ie singing, story, circle time- do you use these times for next steps?

 

How many next steps do you focus on for each child a week?

 

Also

We split the children into focus weeks ie all children cover once over 6 weeks - We were pulled up by Ofsted saying that all staff needed to know the focus childrens next steps that we were covering during the course of their focus week- can you tell me how you ensure this happens - or dont you did I just get a fussy ofsted inspector!

 

I would really apprecaite your feedback

[Stargrower]

Some next steps are covered through continuous provision. Some activities cover several next steps e.g. our cooking activity this week could cover turn taking, counting/measuring, following instructions, developing vocabulary for different children.

Yes we do have small group times and whole group times e.g. circle times, story times and yes, these can meet next steps too.

What we have tried to move away from recently is creating a next step, planning and carrying out an activity and making an observation and then moving on to another next step. Some next steps take a long time or several activities to achieve. So some children don't have NEW next steps planned for them every week, rather more activities or enhanced provision to cover the same next step.

I hope that makes sense! :1b

[green hippo]

Thanks for your replies.

I think you may be right that I'm trying to do too many separate adult-led activities but I feel that I should plan for each area of the learning each week. As I said above, some of the adult-led activities cover more than one area of learning. But I do also feel that we've got too many 'jobs' to do during CI play. For example, today, I wanted to: 1. Spend some time with both my focus children (extending learning - next steps and other AOLs as appropriate to what they had chosen to do) 2. Spend some time with 2 children from 'target' group on their next steps 3. Target children with 'target skill' for this week - as and when but should be done by end of week 4. Then make sure I've had some quality interactions with other children! The problem is that writing it down it doesn't seem that much but the time just goes so quick especially when you get into something with one child or group of children which is really 'working' and then you feel that you need to go somewhere else!

The adult-led, small group activities at the end of the session work well and we are happy with how they work and feel this is an important time for our children. Also, the 'focus children' also work well - we can really see the benefits of targetting them, not just to do a long observation but really to extend their learning then and there and document this instead (as in Anna Ephgrave's book). It's the other things that we put pressure on ourselves to do - basically to make sure that children are getting quality interactions but I'm not sure how to take that pressure off!

Arggggg,

Green Hippo x

[Guest whitty32]

Wow!! Sounds like you need to simplify what you do. This will allow you much more time to observe the children during child-initiated learning and also I agree with you that target children need to be worked with by all members of the nursery team. I only have 3 adult focused activities each week - two indoors and one outdoors. As long as these are completed over the week with all children its great. This also allows adults working in an area to learn to manage their time over the week and spend time at the other activities in their area. All children access an adult led small group time each day with their key worker. We have whole nursery time at the end of the session where we do phonics, counting, whiteboard activities. This is working really well for us and everyone has time for spontaneous observations, playing with children and adapting the activities for individuals.

 

We have also simplified the Learning Journals - staff I work with have half a day non contact to work on assessments and updating the learning portfolios. :rolleyes:

 

Good luck

[green hippo]

Hi whitty32,

it actually sounds like you are doing more than us! Our small-group times ARE our focus activities - so we have 1 hour 45 mins of CI time, tidy-up, small-group times, then a short whole class time, then home-time/lunch. We moved away from offering focused activities (as a general rule) during CI time so that all the adults were available to observe, interact and support. We then enhance areas to support the learning objectives from the activities as well as other individual next steps. What I am trying to do now is spend less time thinking of PLODs really for individual next steps and considering next steps as we are interacting with the children and enhancing accordingly at that time or for day after, then writing on the plans afterwards (I used to spend hours going through each child's nexts thinking 'what can I put out/do for this child', spend hours setting it up or money, then they don't want to use it. So now we think about it as we are working with each child e.g. a group of girls were engaged in drawing and decorating princess dresses, one of the little girls needed to practise her counting, so I printed out some princess cards for her to count for the next day). It's not that we weren't doing this sort of thing before but just ON TOP OF planning before-hand as well. I do still consider the individual's next steps while I am planning e.g. I have a group of children who need LOTS OF gross motor mark-making practise, so I am ensuring that there are plenty of opportunities for them to practise this, but I am trying to move away from going through each child's next steps and planning an enhancement/activity for each which basically leaves me too much to do on a Monday.

With the focus children, we often end up with mini-focused activities - extending something they've started.

Thanks for your help and support

Green Hippo x

[Guest]

HI there -

First post, how exciting!

Just wondered if any other R teachers in school could help? Also considering how many Teacher and TA focusses to plan for each week. In addition to 4 lit (Sp and LIst/shared reading and writing), 4 maths, 4 phonics carpet sessions we also plan 2 Teacher and 2 TA focuses ( I in and 1 out.) We also change resources in each area (workshop, art area, role play..) to reflect current topic area or theme and to stimulate interest. On a course last week, other R teachers said that they did more -up to 2 lit and 2 num. per T? Obviously the rest of the time we're not doing focuses we're making observations and interacting with CI activity and the rest of the time is spent on whole class PE, Music, sessions. We have a timetabled afternoon for 1:1 reading... What does everyone else do?

Also interested in how you chose your 3-4 targetted children per week- is it ability/randomly/alphabetically organised? If so how do you identify this on planning and ensure that all contribute to the monitoring?

Lots of questions- look forward to help and support!

F