Grouping The Children

[Guest]

hi i was wondering if anyone can offer some advise on grouping the childre. i take over the class next term and the children are not currently grouped. do you recomend i group them or not.

 

i wondering how you operate your lessons with groups for example do you aloow one activity and all the children do it or a range and the children wonder between or group them sending each group to do something in repsect of the leaning intention.

 

 

can anyone offer some advise, i know i havent exactly made myself clear but its hard to descibe what i mean

 

cheers clare

[mundia]

Hi there Clare.

I am presuming yu are talking about a reception class (i think I read that somewhere, are you a student?).

If the children are not currently grouped, how does the teacher organise thngs? Does she/he mix children according to what activity is going on? How does s/he monitor who does what? Sometimes it is easier to follow on from waht the children are used to, especially to begin with. The children are already getting used to your way of working, a complete chnage in organisation may be difficult for some of them.

However, if it makes things easier for you, you could use you knowledge of the children (I presume you will have done some visits) and loosely put them into groups for some activities. I do rememeber that we had a discssion some timeback on the relative meits or otherwise of ability groupings and there was a strong argument on each side. Im trying to find that discussion for you so if I do, Ill come back and put in the link.

In the meantime, you might like to read a general discussion on organisation in reception here

 

Its one of a number of discusssion we have had that may be of o interest to you

[Guest]

hi

i've had my children in 2 sets of groups, animal groups which are ability groups (mainly for literacy) and colour groups which are mixed. they tend to be in animal groups in the mornings and colour groups in the afternoon.

i tend to work at a group at a time repeating the activity, the other groups are either instructed to complete an specified independent activity, eg a collage or a painting of something beginning with a particular sound we have been doing

i am however thinking of becoming less reliant on this way of working as a problem i have found is that i'm running out of time because i might be waiting for 1 or 2 children to finish before i can call the next group over. Instead i'm thinking of just working through a class list so once there is a space at the table another child can start their task, hopefully then i can differentiate at a more individual level and allow those who do complete things a bit slower do so without being rushed. hopefully it won't mean introducing the activity 30 times!!

i think it's quite nice to have groups as it gives the children a sense of identity, it also makes moving around as a class easier, aswell as storage of things like water bottles, book bags and aprons

Lizz

[Guest]

cheers for the help, this is great. ill have a think and a chat with my current teacher.