Help thinking outside the box - please!

[Froglet]

Hello,

I have decided that I need to start with a completely blank slate about the way I organise my day/week. TA support is changing again in school and while I will have some it won't be much and most of it is timetabled for specific things (e.g. phonics group, gross motor groups, readers). So, I am going to pretend that I am the only adult in the room - 28 children: 11 Y1 and 17 YR then any TA support I do end up with is a bonus!

I'm not very good at thinking outside the box and that's where I could do with the help! My initial thoughts are circling around doing lots of cross curricular work, having differentiated challenges in different areas, having a maths or English focus day (which I already do for YR) but the Y1s having an additional complete independent task that consolidates learning for the subject which isn't the focus. I'm thinking that this might allow me to do guided work for groups throughout the day but still allow some time for me to interact and develop play/thinking and all that other stuff with all of them (but YR in particular).

I am concerned about how to ensure children are doing their best and challenging themselves in independent tasks.

I don't know if it's even remotely feasible given the restrictions of the National Curriculum Y1 but I'd like to try and think about it. Obviously there are timetable restrictions such as assembly but I may be able to be flexible around some of them. I am open to any suggestions even if they seem completely wild and wacky - that's the stuff I'm no good at coming up with myself but if may spark a thought I can manage.

Apologies for the long post - not sure if I'm making any sense - but I couldn't think of a better place to come for ideas!

[green hippo]

Hi!

Here are some ideas (literally as they come into my head)

Could you break the day up into more structured and less structured times. E.g. could you have a session where you do a whole class then have independent activities which come off that whole class but adult initiated/directed then have guided groups rotating? Then have less structured times where continuous provision is used? This could start with a WC then maybe your Years 1 could be directed to start with/given a task to complete at a time of their choosing?

Use challenge cards (I did this at Christmas for my Nursery class and it was much more successful than I thought! It was a list of things to complete over our Christmas week and they ticked them off as they had completed them.) It's just the manageability of it but you could maybe just have 2 challenges each day for year 1 initially and see how it goes?

Try using Objective Led Planning - with everyone maybe in an afternoon - differentiate your expectations and tell them what you will be looking for them to be doing.

I think the difficulty with have R/Yr1 is the feeling that the year 1s should be doing more 'work' and then they want to 'play' so finding a way of them meeting the curriculum through a mixture. This is why I suggested having structured time as if all the children are directed at one time then you don't get that "can we play now?" element.

I'll keep thinking ...