Timetable For Mixed R/1

[Guest]

Hi

I was just wondering how others organise their timetables for mixed R/1 class. I will have about 29 in my class and the majority of the Reception children will go home at luch time until January.

I have read some other threads on timetables but haven't seen one for a mixed age class.

How do you fit it all in and still find time to play with and observe the children?

[Guest]

I will have 28/29 R/Y1 children too, though the reception children will be starting in the afternoons, swapping to mornings in week 3 and then full time. I don't have any definitive answer for how to fit it all in. I always feel guilty that I am either ignoring the Y1 children when I should be working wiht them as a group, when I am working with/observing reception, and I feel guilty that I am not observing the Reception when I am working with some Y1 children! I try to keep the class as a 'class' but they still have their separate identities as R/Y1, but we may change this this year as we have 3 statemented children (2 Y1 who will be working in R groups). I still have a separate milk/fruit time for the reception children (usually just before or after an infant playtime) which the TA leads, and I work exclusively with the Y1s, usually doing some maths work. I then set them off with independent/adult led tasks with me/TA and the other on of us then does a short maths group session with the R children.

 

I have managed to find a timetable that we drew up last year bfore term started. It was quite detailed subject wise and adult wise, because 5 Y1 children were in with the Y2s and all the Y1s came back to our class for much topic based stuff. We also had lots of help as we had 4 childen with statements so had to pan in lts of small group times. This year the Y1s will be going to join the Y2 class for 3/4 afternoons a week for more topic based stuff so we will be able to focus more on reception observations/individual reading/more fun/creative stuff.

EY_timetable_staff.doc

[Guest]

Thanks Marie, I was beginning to feel a bit lonely.

I have had a look at your timetable and it has helped a bit. My concern is always providing a broad and balanced curriculum when most of the Reception children go home at lunch time for the first term. So I try to get around it by doing some Literacy and Numeracy in the afternoons.

Thanks for your help

[Guest]

I agree with you about swapping the lit/num sessions across the day. I would like to have less structured lit/num sessions but I can't ses how you can do that easily with Y1s as well.

 

When our R children are part-time we try to make sure that there is a balance of activities for them to access. There are some small amounts of adult-initiated (I think a guide is 60% child intitiated, 40% adult-led) in the autumn term.

 

When you also have Y1s to teach it is quite tricky to make sure that they have the structure that they have been used to at the end of reception, and also to make sure that they have sometime for child-initiated themselves. We will give much more structured adult input to the Y1s when the R children have gone home for the first few weeks. The Y1s will still need to have more adult-directed activities (even though they are likely to be basic pratical things they can do independently).

 

When the R are in full time we will see how we feel!