Focused Activity Planning

[Guest]

Hi

 

I am pulling my hair out with this one!!!

 

I wonder if anyone could shed any light for me.

 

I complete a weekly literacy and a weekly numeracy plan. I have consulted two AST's who then advice me to do focused activity plans for the week, so for example this week I am doing a focused literacy activity, a focused numeracy and a focused creative activity. I will have to type these out as well as my literacy and numeracy plans. Is this common practice, I just feel like I am writing things down repeatedly!!! Can anyone shed light on how they do their weekly plan and do you do a weekly overview and daily plans!! HELP PLEASE There seems to be little or no consistency with planning in the foundaiton stage. We are all reinventing the wheel it seems!!!

HELP HELP HELP!!

 

Thanks

[Marion]

Hi

 

I am pulling my hair out with this one!!!

 

I wonder if anyone could shed any light for me.

 

I complete a weekly literacy and a weekly numeracy plan. I have consulted two AST's who then advice me to do focused activity plans for the week, so for example this week I am doing a focused literacy activity, a focused numeracy and a focused creative activity. I will have to type these out as well as my literacy and numeracy plans. Is this common practice, I just feel like I am writing things down repeatedly!!! Can anyone shed light on how they do their weekly plan and do you do a weekly overview and daily plans!! HELP PLEASE There seems to be little or no consistency with planning in the foundaiton stage. We are all reinventing the wheel it seems!!!

HELP HELP HELP!!

 

Thanks

 

38083[/snapback]

 

 

We were advised by the LEA EY advisor to do only focused activity plans BUT now the head is asking where the literacy and numeracy plans are! ARGH!! expecting a second visit from LEA advisor and if I get an answer will let you know.

Focus_Activity.doc

literacy_wk1.doc

numeracy_plan.doc

[Guest tinkerbell]

Hi Charlottejames

I dont think I can help really although there are some great planning sheets on this site if you search around.

I teach r/yr1 and produce a daily maths and daily literacy plan.The foundation curriculum and National curriculum both have to be planned for which is time consuming, my school also wants a lieracy and numeracy hour so that is the morning taken care of(apart from wednesday when I do a scienc/maths morning)

.I'm struggling with the foundation topics and am writing out a plan for the topics under the NC subjects.....

sorry I'm just as confused...can any one else help?????

 

Tinkerbell

[Marion]

Planning Guidance

 

Dear Colleagues

This guidance has been produced with teachers and headteachers to help reduce the time teachers spend on lesson planning. It is designed for your own reference and to promote discussion, leading, where necessary, to changes in practice.

The PricewaterhouseCoopers study of Teacher Workload (2001) found that most teachers would like to spend less time on planning. It also suggests that teachers produce more documentation than is necessary in the belief that it is required by Ofsted or LEA inspectors.

 

In summary, the effectiveness of teachers’ planning should be judged by the quality of learning and teaching in lessons and the progress pupils make over time.

Charles Clarke David Bell Ken Boston

[Guest]

We plan all our literacy and numeracy focussed tasks on weekly literacy and numeracy planners and then have a continuous planner for all our workshop areas. This covers the classroom, our shared area space and outdoor space. Why oh why can't there be some consistency in how Foundation Stage should be planned!!! It would save a lot of agony and worrying if we are doing it right!!!

[Guest]

I totally agree we have just changed our planning sheet for rec. why can't someone come up with a statutory planning sheet with all the requirements on not just for foundation but in schools as well we are all trying to do our best and the same job. We all seem to be trying to make new planning sheets and using up so much of our very precious time dont you agree........

[Guest]

STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think you are planning way too much!

At a recent (informal) cluster meeting of local Reception Teachers, planning was discussed and now this is how we plan at our school:

 

1. Long Term Plan - (for the year) setting out how we are going to cover the ELGs - through our environment (continuous provision), our daily routine and through our 6 topics. Many ELGs are repeated several times.

 

2. Medium Term Plan (approx 7 weeks - the new 'term') Sets out "sugested activities to bring about the learning" week by week in all 6 areas. (Normally only one focus activity per week per subject)

 

3. Detailed Daily Plan - with Learning Intentions, children to be observed, focus activities, stories to be read, etc, etc

 

Please note NO WEEKLY PLAN - Whats the point? We have already said what we are doing on Medium Term Plan and do a Daily PLan.

 

Plus, my understanding of the Foundation Stage is that you are meant to use your observations to plan following up the children's own interests and needs. I thought this was meant to be good practice? How on earth can you do this with so much planning already planned? I was finding that last year I was only planning the morning on my Daily Plan because the afternoon depended on what happened in the morning.

 

Plus on our Medium Term Plans we have started to leave the last couple of weeks blank to allow for a mini topic again responding to the children. Last year we had our best topics this way - eg map making, story telling - probably the times when the children learnt the most.

 

I know its not easy (especially if you are the only Reception teacher in your school) but I think you need to explain to your Head that things in the Foundation Stage are different. Good luck.

 

I think Marion's post was excellent and I thoroughly agree - does all your planning make the teaching and learning more effective? I would rather spend my time getting really fantastic first hand experiences ready for the children and putting all my energies into the indoor and outdoor learning environments.

 

I also get the impresssion that planning seems to vary SO much - may be we would benefit from some standard formats???

[Guest]

Thanks for that great information Bungalow.

 

I have spent today looking at my medium plans and then repeating the same information in my daily plans for each activity i plan to deliver.

 

I am going to take your idea and give it a try. I will still have to provide my TA with more detailed plans but doing it your way would change my workload and allow me to spend my PPA time on the very neglected co-ordinator roles i have.

[Guest]

thanks everyone for your reassuring comments, its nice to know Im not alone with this. I just feel that Im repeating myself through long term, medium term, short term and focused activity planning, I will be doing hourly planning soon!!!!!!!!!! ha ha.

Could you attach me a copy of your detailed daily plan so I could pose this to my head. It would be lovely to use my ppa time other than planning and replanning and oh yes...more planning!!!!!

 

charlotte

[Guest]

Hi

I am attaching a copy of an example of a Daily Plan used last year. As with most things, we are constantly evaluating and making changes - we currently use a simplified version because the children have just started and are doing only mornings.

 

This Daily Plan could possibly give you a starting point perhaps? Its not perfect but was given to us by our Advisor as being 'ofsted approved!' whatever that means!!!!!!!!!!!!

Daily_Planning_Wednesday.doc

[Guest]

Sorry if this is a hijack of this thread.

 

Bungalow, you say your children are just in for the mornings at the moment. I am in this situation too and was just wondering if you would mind sharing how you plan your mornings, I am finding it soo hard to fit everything in?

[Guest]

Again, sorry if this is a hijack of this thread but I'm in the same situation and would really welcome seeing anyones part time timetable. I am not on a proper timetable at the moment as we are spending a couple of weeks getting to know the children and doing some initial assessments but I can't get my head around it all. Wish they were full time as it would be so much easier in many respects.

[Guest]

Thanks for sharing your daily plan, really interesting to see how other people are doing things. can i ask how long are the children doing a focused task with the adult, for example on your planning it says yellow grp numeracy books and then, ' can you tell a story.....etc' Do the children do both activities in a morning.?

 

So interesting the response from this topic, kind of puts me a little bit at ease to see that we are all trying to find a way of doing things....

thankyou everyone

 

charlotte

[Guest]

Hi everyone

 

I am happy to attach a copy of the Daily Plan (well Morning Plan) that I use at the moment - I made it up myself so it is probably quite rubbish - I evaluate down the right-hand side. From Monday our children are full-time so I will revert to Daily Plan format.

 

I have found that I just haven't fitted much in at all - you will see from the Morning Plan that the focus has been on Classroom Climate etc - I feel this is so important. Its been great to have a very slow, careful start - we haven't even really introduced the children to our outside area yet (partly because it is still in the process of being 'done; - but we feel it has been of great benefit to the children not to be "full-on" from the start but to add things in gradually - also hopefully, it will keep them interested in school after the initial excitement is over!

 

So I am not worrying about fitting every thing at all - feel can justify why we have a slow start!

 

In answer to the other question on the Daily Plan, my TA and myself did try to work with 2 groups per teacher directed session for about 10 mins each. But we work towards this.

 

Tonight in our planning meeting we all got in such a muddle with our outside planning - sometimes we feel we are going round in circles!!!

Wednesday_21st.doc

[Guest]

Thanks Bungalow. My children go home at 11.45 which makes it even harder to fit everything in, I wish I had them till 1.00 like you. The parents keep complaining too! Perhaps I could suggest a later finish next year.

[SmileyPR]

You're lucky to have 3 adults in your class! Well, I suppose your group will be a big one, buy anyway you have several adults having an eye on the children and not only yourself. This makes it easier to prevent or catch on time any problem situations that can be emerging.