MarshaD Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 Do any of you lovely providers run stay and play weeks? How do you run them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FSFRebecca Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Hello MarshaD, We tried but it wasn't terribly successful - I think it depends on what kind of setting you are. We are full day care and most of our parents need to drop off and get to work promptly and wouldn't want to hang around. We also tried parent 'breakfasts' - we invited parents to bring their child 1/2 hour earlier than their session start time (so at 7 or 8 am) and stay for 1/2 hour and play and have a croissant and a glass of juice - this was more successful, but the staff struggled because it made the day too long for the children and unsettled the ones whose parents didn't come. Setting up activities to try out at parents evening has been more successful - it gave us the opportunity to explain the learning that was happening in (seemingly) simple play activities, and as children often come to parents evening too it worked quite well and was less stressful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarshaD Posted October 13, 2018 Author Share Posted October 13, 2018 Thanks Rebecca. I'm really struggling with this. I have tried a few things - Saturdays, start of the session but nothing has been very well attended. A colleague recently said they found the end of the day worked for them (I haven't tried end of the day). Someone else said they had stay and play weeks and parents could come in any time that suited so I just wanted to see how people did it or if indeed it worked. So hard trying to get parents in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Froglet Posted October 13, 2018 Share Posted October 13, 2018 Can I ask - why do you want to get the parents in? I know that may seem like a really ignorant question but I'm thinking that if you can answer the 'why' it might help to identify what could be the hook that would get them in or whether if getting them in is an issue you can get across what you need to in a different way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarshaD Posted October 13, 2018 Author Share Posted October 13, 2018 That's a good question Froglet. I guess I'm trying to demonstrate that we are supporting home learning and working in partnership with parents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finleysmaid Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 10 hours ago, MarshaD said: That's a good question Froglet. I guess I'm trying to demonstrate that we are supporting home learning and working in partnership with parents. AH well the answer to that is to get tapestry!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FSFRebecca Posted October 14, 2018 Share Posted October 14, 2018 2 hours ago, finleysmaid said: AH well the answer to that is to get tapestry!!! Yup - that'd do it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarshaD Posted October 14, 2018 Author Share Posted October 14, 2018 I have Tapestry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FSFRebecca Posted October 15, 2018 Share Posted October 15, 2018 12 hours ago, MarshaD said: I have Tapestry! Ah ha! Well, we do our next steps as an observation thread on Tapestry - that demonstrates shared planning for the child. Sometimes it's hard to get parents to engage fully with posting their own observations or comments and so our staff write them up as an observation from home, in nursery. E.g. "Billy's mummy told us today that he has been using the big toilet at home this weekend. Well done Billy!!" for example. I also take photos of our parents evenings and keep them on file in case I need to whip them out cometh the day! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Froglet Posted October 15, 2018 Share Posted October 15, 2018 Tapestry is always a good thing. It’s been a good while since I used it (just because I’m now in year 1) and I’ve never worked in a pre-school so this could be completely the wrong thing but might it be possible to do a shared observation which had a relevant image e.g. an ear and then a question such as ‘How many different sounds can you hear on your way into pre-school? Add your favourites in the comments. A question might prompt an answer and if more than one person can see it then that might spur others into responding too. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ladybirds1991 Posted October 17, 2018 Share Posted October 17, 2018 Hi We run Stay and Play days every half term and have done for last few years and they have always been very successful, we do them on alternate days each half term so for instance the start of this term we have just done one on Monday last week, our next one in December will be on a Tuesday and so on. We pin up a form and parents can put their names down on hourly slots, so as we are only open 9 - 3pm we do 9am -10am, 10am - 11am then 1pm to 2pm. On our last Stay and Play we had 15 parents in on the first slot, none on the second this time and 6 on the last slot. They are only open to parents/carers on children who are in on those particular days when we run the Stay and Plays and it was really nice that we had about 4 dads turn up this time. We have also just had our Space Café day to celebrate the end of World Space Week, which was 4th to 10th October and we did space activities over all of those days and we invited all parents to come and have some space juice and space biscuits lol on the last day the 10th and we had probably about 25 parents/carers/grandparents/family members turn up. It went really well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarshaD Posted October 20, 2018 Author Share Posted October 20, 2018 Thanks everyone. Running a couple of phonics workshops for nursery cohort after half term and that seems to have captured attention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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