Extend More Able Children

[Guest]

Hi, I work in F2 in a school in special measures. We are in the 2nd year of inspections- I have just had the LEA inspectors in today. Everything was good, but she said i should now try to get even more out of my more able. She said activities were good but HOW can I get even more out of them?????? HELP

The objectives are differentiated into 3 outcomes for every lesson- i am racking my brains and am stuck. Is there a clever person out there that can help me please???

[Guest]

It sounds like you are doing a lot already if you are planning for three different activties!

 

I would say that writing a question on your planning to extend thinking for children say on the carpet or at a focus activity is a good way to extend thinking. E.g. If you have been foucsing on making number sentences you might say to your more able - ther answer is 11 what could the question be?

 

Keeping activities quite open so that children can extend their thinking.

 

I would also say keep in mind what the more able would need to know next so that if they had secured their learning - perhaps explain there work to a friend. or setting up the environment so they can have a go at what they have learnt within the context of an activity to a play situation (although this is not always easy!).

 

I would also say from experience that I worked with achild who was very bright but who had poor social skills, so we worked a lot on turn taking and not getting upset when faced with a problem.

 

Sometimes there is a tendency with managers/advisors who may not be 'foundation stage focused' to want to make things more formal but I think there has been a lot of work recently in ensuring FS going up rather than bringing year 1 down.

[Guest]

we add key questions to our plans following a hierachy of thinking skills...

what?

how?

why?

what if?

[Guest]

Thank you for those ideas- they sound good. We can never do enough can we?