Guest Posted February 4, 2007 Posted February 4, 2007 (edited) Hi, How do you organise continuous provision in a reception class? At present we have quite a formal maths and literacy session, every morning. During this time we have a group of children accessing continuous provision. If, for example, it is the maths session should the continuous provision relate solely to maths or should the children be able to access provision from the other areas. I would be grateful for any advice as Ofsted is looming, and we want to provide the best for our children. Thanks Edited February 4, 2007 by Guest
mundia Posted February 4, 2007 Posted February 4, 2007 Hi tiddles, its lovely to see someone post for the first time after being a member for a while, so welcome on board. We have had quite a fw discussions on continuous provision, if you do a forum search you will find quite a few.
Susan Posted February 4, 2007 Posted February 4, 2007 Hi Tiddles and welcome, and as you have been hiding in the background I hope this will be the first post of many! I prefer to have a range of activities available, although my teaching and activity focus would be maths. I will be interested to see what others do too.
Guest Posted February 4, 2007 Posted February 4, 2007 We have recently had Ofsted and were commended on our balance of adult/child initiated activities. If your morning is quite formal with both mathematical and literacy based tasks I would suggest the children should be able to self select activities from your continuous provision. Why not try it for a while and see how it goes. Good luck:)
Guest Posted February 4, 2007 Posted February 4, 2007 mj-led, would you be willing to share how you organise your day in terms of adult/child initiated? It is something I am currentlyy in discussion with my job share colleague!
Guest Posted February 5, 2007 Posted February 5, 2007 Our routines alter as the children progress through their reception year - so in term 1 children do access all provision areas. In term 2 we build in short periods of time when children can only access areas set up with lit/num linked activities (so could include sand/water/paint). In term 3 we introduce a simple lit/num hour. However, having had 2 Ofsteds where inspectors seem to have little awareness of the foundation stage curriculum I wouldn't like to advise as to what the big O might want to see.
Guest Posted February 5, 2007 Posted February 5, 2007 I think Ofsted 'results' very much depend on who you get! I don't alter my provision through the year and in my school the Reception model of working is adopted up until Christmas in Y1. I've had quite a, um, 'professional debate' with my Y1 colleagues about NOT getting children 'ready' for Y1 but allowing children to adapt to the new classroom and having a gradual change that happens in Y1 rather than in Reception. After all, some children will only just be 5 when they start in Y1 - that's still a baby! Plenty of time for worksheets later on but I digress...! We were Ofsted-ed about 5 weeks before the summer holidays and the inspectors spent quite a lot of time in my classroom. The children were free to choose from a range of activities on offer that linked into our theme for that week which was 'Aliens'. There was at least one activity for each area of learning. While the children were 'free-flowing' myself and my TA pulled children out to work on adult directed tasks. My organisation is based around a line on the Standards Site which states that all areas of learning in the Foundation Stage are of equal importance and inter-related and inter-dependent. I interpret this as meaning that we shouldn't put more effort/time/importance into teaching CLL and MD aspects. However, I know this is very difficult when you've got pressure bearing down on you from people worried about KS1/2 SATs. In my school Foundation Stage was singled out for glowing praise in the Ofsted report BUT, and it's a big BUT, I read about people on here who, from reading their posts, I know are excellent teachers and provide their children with first-rate education and experiences and they've been 'done' and haven't come out that well. I also speak to colleagues in my area who have been Ofsted-ed and their inspectors have obviously been looking for completely different things than ours were. I find this VERY annoying and I think it makes it impossible for us, as teachers, to really work out what good practice is.
Marion Posted February 5, 2007 Posted February 5, 2007 We work in much the same way as Moose and in spite of getting non Early Years inspectors got a good for the Foundation Stage provision. I do think it is a bit of a lottery as to what inspectors expect.
Susan Posted February 6, 2007 Posted February 6, 2007 I thought inspectors in FS had to have knowledge and understanding of the same or you could refuse them access. Has that changed?
Marion Posted February 6, 2007 Posted February 6, 2007 I don't think having a knowledge of the Foundation Stage curriculum is the quite the same as being an Early Years inspector. What I mean by this is the gentleman that inspected us last year had never worked with children of the age range found in the Foundation Stage and certainly didn't interact with them however I'm sure he was well aware of the content of the curriculum. The inspector we had in our previous OFSTED had many years experience as an early years practitioner and knew how to talk to the children to get a response. The guidance from OFSTED says "OFSTED does not require schools or settings to organise themselves in a particular way in respect of assessment, planning or any other aspect" so guess thats why there is such a variety of expections????
Guest Posted February 6, 2007 Posted February 6, 2007 i have a range of continuous provison despite what im teaching. i often try to set up activites that relate to the topic and have some child intiated going whilst i have a focus group rlated to my input to the whole class.
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