Qts In Children's Centres

[Guest]

has anyone delivered any staff meetings or training as the qualified teacher in children's centre? if so, can you tell me what you did? I am starting to prepare for my first meeting with the staff and I am curious as to what others have done. Thanks!!

[Guest]

so relieved to see you reading this Marion! If anyone can help I'm sure that it will be you!!

[Guest]

are you involved with children centre where you are?

[Marion]

are you involved with children centre where you are?

55677[/snapback]

 

 

Im currently involved in the Extended Schools program for our cluster group. We are going to have a children's centre attached to our FSU but not until the next round 2007/2008 so still a beginner. Will see what I can find out..............sorry not much help.

[Marion]

Dont know if this might help

http://www.foundation-stage.info/forums/in...indpost&p=55580

[Guest]

Hi

 

We have weekly staff meeting in morning for two hours. Children start later that day. I have a set agenda for meeting. Agenda is on wall in staffroom for staff to add extra, specific items. The set items are audit of planning, info on new children (those on gradual admission), info on children (including info on children with SEN), progress sheets/IEPs (shared by keyworker and the children's next steps are written down under areas of learning to aid daily planning - ensuring needs are being met), health and safety and policy review. As teacher I led start of meeting about children's needs and other manager will lead parts about policies and items from staff.

 

I have delivered training on:

Introducing BTTM (powerpoint presentation, clips and discussions)

Graduated Response - SEN (flipcharts and highlighting responsibiliities of staff - manager, SENCo, Keyworkers etc)

Led parts of Long Term Planning/Continuous provision training days

Led parts of Short Term Planning/Observations training days

Led parts of training day about planning and delivering curriculum for 0-2s

 

Also done shorter information/training sessions on value of block play, mathematical opportunities and open-ended questionining.

 

(This is what I can remember off top of my head).

[Marion]

Just thought Judy could you get in touch with Paddy Beale at Wingate? Im sure she would be happy to help. Not sure where you are in the county

[Guest]

Forgot to say all staff attend (apart from job-share if it is not their day/morning). One person takes minutes that we all sign. Minutes include section to right hand side stating "action" so that it is recorded who will do what and when by. Staff are expected to read minutes if they have not attended meeting and sign.

 

Also have team meetings (in our centre these are fortnightly and last 40 minutes) - again minutes are taken and staff discuss issues relveant to their room. Discuss what children have been interested in/not interested in, what will plan next, discuss any resources/displays needed etc.

[Guest]

Thank you so much my friends! It's just good to know what others are doing, especially when starting something new. Thanks for your replies and advice

[Helen]

Hi Judy,

I'm a QTS at a children's centre (job-sharing the role at the moment), and we've done masses of training over the last year. This was very necessary as the nursery failed its Ofsted inspection last June, so we decided to have a weekly training session for half the staff, which was repeated for the other half either later the same day, or on a different day.

 

We started with looking at the difference between free-play and a focus activity, and looking at the six areas of learning (each area took about 3 or 4 training sessions). I gave staff tasks to do between training sessions.

 

We completely changed the layout of the nursery, making it more obvious how the area was to be used, and related it to the FS currciulum. We also changed the structure of the day, and the staff shifts, so that all staff were available to be with the children for the two main nursery sessions in the day (9-12, and 1-4). Prior to this, children, parents and staff seemed to be coming and going at all times throughout the day, and it was chaos!

 

We then spent weeks looking at how to observe children, have to make relevant and useful observation notes, how to make records of children's learning that could be used in planning and could be shown to parents to celebrate their children's development.

 

Then (!) we looked at long, medium and short term planning, both for inside and outside, making sure that staff understood why it is necessary to have a learning intention in mind when planninga focus activity, or when providing opportunities for child-initiated learning.

 

Your setting may well be doing most of this very well, and therefore you won't need to do training in such detailed, minute bits.

 

I asked the staff for feedback on the training I provided, and they found that the balance of different training methods was useful, eg a mini talk with handouts, watching training DVDs (such as "Seeing Steps in Children's Learning by the QCA), "homework" tasks, discussion in pairs and small groups, sticking up reminder posters on the walls of the nursery (eg the stepping stones we had studied that week, or something I wanted all staff to think about during their working week), etc etc. I'm sure you can think of more

 

Let us know what you decide, and how it goes. I firmly believe that nursery managers and the new Early Years Professional role will need to get to grips with training their staff and helping them to develop their professional skills.