Timetables

[Miss Hilton]

I have been teaching in Early Years for 10 years, my Reception class are working significantly below plus 5 EHCP children. Listening and attention is really poor, carpet times are challenging, even just 5 minutes for the register is really hard-work. I haven’t had a year like this, though we are use to low starting points. I am wondering if anyone has different timetables to share to see if I can try something new. 

[louby loo]

Hi, I'm in preschool, so can't help with timetables. However,  I just wanted add our last cohort that just moved up to reception where the worst year ever!  Personally I do put it down to Covid with this age group and the lack of social interactions lack of groups at 12-24th months.    We have already noticed the difference with our this year's group and they are already far more settled with listening and attention (and tidying up)- but this age group only really missed 6-9 mths groups.

I hope things settle with you, but I will be honest it was the year that almost cracked our staff into changing careers!

 

[Mouseketeer]

On 23/09/2023 at 10:15, louby loo said:

We have already noticed the difference with our this year's group and they are already far more settled with listening and attention (and tidying up)- but this age group only really missed 6-9 mths 

 

wish we could say the same Louby, we have so many unsettled this time, hopefully they’ll settle soon, but the group that concern me more are the rising 3’s, I have never (and that’s a lot of never) known such a stubborn group, point blank refusing to do anything they’re asked to do, they won’t join groups, or attempt to do anything for themselves and there is just no blackmailing coaxing or cajoling them anymore 😔 

[Mouseketeer]

No idea how/why my reply is in the quote box louby 🤷‍♀️
 

welcome to the forum Miss Hilton, I take my hat off to you and all Reception teachers/TA’s, we can find it difficult to manage with 8:1 with the higher number of children with challenging behaviours we seem to have now, and 6 weeks later you get to do it with likely only 2 of you and having to get the phonics and maths in 😔, we recognise many chn aren’t as ‘school ready’ as cohorts in the past were, toilet training is happening much later, independence doesn’t seem to be on the agenda at home and sadly technology as a babysitter has a lot to answer for.

Good luck, hopefully other reception teachers will come along with some helpful strategies 🤞 

 

[BenTapestrySupport]

Hi, and welcome to the forum! 

Have you got extended periods for child initiated learning time? We found switching things around so that there was a lot of time for children to 'play' without interruption really helped with behaviour and focus/development. We did have a lot of chopping and changing from coming in, to register, to phonics, to playtime, to assembly, to maths time etc.... It all meant that the children never got to extend their learning and so became disengaged during that time as they knew that they wouldn't be able to really get anything done. 

We therefore looked at the things we needed to do - and put them at either end of their own learning time. So our day was - register, phonics, child initiated time, maths lunch. That child initiated time though was uninterrupted from about 09:30 - 11:15 as we dropped playtime (they didn't need it as they could go outside if they wanted etc) and also stopped going to assembly until they were in the summer 2 term. 

The afternoon was similar - register, english (which was also linked to topic), child initiated time - home. So for this their time was about 13:00 - 14:45 and again - no interruption. 

This really did help with their focus and behaviour as they realised that they had time to get into something properly. 

 

 

[Jules]

Welcome to the Forum! 

We did the same thing as Ben - didn't go to assembly until later in the year, and didn't have an official 'playtime', because the set time of that interrupted the flow of child-initiated learning time. And we looked at how we organised the rest of the day to allow for longer stretches of focus for the children in their child-initiated time. 

I really hope you find ways that work for your children.