Planning and observations

[Guest]

Hi I have recently been appointed a playgroup leader provision and have been working as a preschool room leader in day care and would appreciate any ideas on planning and templates for weekly and medium term planning. Within the playgroup we have PEG places and this is new to me so would like ideas for planning around these. I have also being using themes do playgroups still use themes as I have heard some do and other don't.

 

I would also like reassurance on how often observations are completed within playgroups as within my day-care setting we do one a week is that still ok or does it need to be one in each area for each week?

 

any advise, templates would be gratefully appreciated

[Cait]

Hi sineaddonaghey, and welcome to the forum - congratulations on making your first post of what will hopefully be many!

 

I'm not sure what PEG is, so you may need to be a little more specific in order to get lots of help with that one; the rest I can probably help with!

 

On the grey bar near the top of the page there is a search facility. If you make the end box say 'forum' you can do a total forum search for planning and that will bring up loads of ideas, templates and thoughts from other forum users. Where the 'thread' has a little paper clip shown beside the title, it shows that someone has uploaded a template, so if you click on that you can download those and have a look. They vary considerably from very simple to quite detailed and involved, so it depends what you are looking for, really.

 

There is also a resource library which has things like that in too (green bar 'resources'). So have a poke about

 

As to themes, I think that by and large these have been dropped in favour of going with the flow of children's interests, although many settings still have a medium term plan to show how they involve festivals etc throughout the course of the year.

 

Observations seem to vary in frequency. For those of us using Tapestry, the FSF online Learning Journal, there will most likely be a lot more than for those using a paper recording system, as the ease of use means you have it done very quickly. Some settings have a specific target number of observations per child and others are more flexible. If you are the room leader then you may be able to set this yourself. What was the practice before you went in? If you are leading a team of staff who already have a system in place for this that works well, you may not need to change it anyway. As long as children's progress is being recorded and staff can back up their judgements to observations or other recorded knowledge, then that is good. You don't want to set in stone a rigid number of observations as it can take away the spontaneity of recording exciting events in learning. You may get a scenario where little Bobby has had two observations done this month, so I must look at what Suzie is doing now, but oh, how annoying, Bobbie has just managed to work out ........ and he has got his observation quota and I have all these others to do!

[Littlenurseries]

Does anyone have any tips for evaluating your planning.

 

Thanks:)

Edited August 14, 2014 by Littlenurseries

[Guest]

hi Cait,

Thanks for getting back to me and that is a great help as I am currently as a room leader working in a preschool room in day care we still use themes but as starting within a playgroup that has paid places for children by the education board (PEG places) was wondering the difference in planner, themes etc... and you reply has helped.

So in relation to themes many playgroups do not have a theme of the month then or a colour/shape of the month instead it children's choice?? In relation to panning then medium term planning takes into account a couple of months at a time not a month at a time?

The observations within the setting I am leaving we must complete at least one observation a week, I am unsure of what happened before as the playgroup leader that has left was very vague around how many they complete. I know it is still a paper recording system attached is the template I currently use in the job I am leaving, any new templates would be greatly appreciated.

Sinead

 

 

 

Observation template.docx

[Cait]

Are you based in England, Sineaddonaghey? If not, you may find that your Education Authority has preferred ways of working. Do you have staff already in place that a comfortable with a particular way of working? If so, you may want to discuss with them what they feel works well and what they think could be changed, so you don't upset the team by sweeping in and making lots of changes.

[Guest]

nope I am based in Northern Ireland. Yes 2 of the members of staff have been their a long time and I have not had the opportunity to met them yet so am unsure if they are happy with the way things are working or not. I was thinking the same but wanted to have different ideas to suggest to decide on what way forward if they unhappy or think it not working.

 

[Cait]

Could you perhaps try to arrange to meet them for a coffee and a chat before September then at least you are familiar with them, and not going in 'cold' ?

[Guest]

yep I have arranged this but I don't want at the same time to think I don't know what I am doing by asking them loads of questions about before