A Reception Teacher's Blog (4)
I teach in the Reception class on Wednesdays. This Wednesday I am in the middle of the usual early morning chaos in my house (me, a husband, two teenagers and a 9 year old all attempting to leave at approximately the…
Are You Ready for Your Joint Observation? Observing Practice under the OfSTED Inspection Framework
Why does the joint observation element of OfSTED inspections cause us panic and anxiety? Providers and senior management are the people who have ove…
Choosing 'Next Steps' from your observations
One of the biggest concerns when the EYFS was first published was about doing observations of children. How will there be enough time? How could you observe every child? How much paperwork was this goin…
Objective-led Planning (Alastair Bryce-Clegg)
Objective-led planning has to be the most effective way of taking teaching into children’s play that I have ever used. With objective-led planning you would still group the children by ability based o…
On our forums it has been a very full month with staff beavering away to ensure they have everything ready for the ‘end of the year’ handovers. We constantly monitor our forums to ensure that threads are constructive and welcoming. We also use the …
Twenty top tips for helping to develop self-discipline for positive behaviour management in young children
With increasing numbers of children being diagnosed with special educational needs such as ADHD and autism, managing challenging behaviour i…
Using the Mosaic Approach to Listen to Young Children Developed at the Thomas Coram Early Childhood centre, the Mosaic Approach uses children's photographs, tours and maps to gain an in-depth understanding of children's lives and what is importan…
Aspects of Art: Printing
We continue our series on Art in the early years with a closer look at printing.
Exploring practitioners' perspectives on 'quality' in early years services
Michelle Cottle is a senior lecturer in early childhood stu…
We have published an inspiring article this month by June O'Sullivan who is the CEO of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF). June was very recently listed on the Debrett's '500 people of influence 2017' list for her work with LEYF. June's article…
Since our last newsletter we have published two articles to help you reflect on your practise. In her article, Teacher Choices: Visible and open to question, Jill McLachlan asks us to consider how we can work most effectively with colleagues, complem…
The New Ofsted Inspection Framework
Summarising the revised inspection framework documents, we include reflective questions and some useful proformas for you to use in evaluating your provision in the light of the new framework.?
Characteristics …
Our contributors have been busy writing inspiring articles to enthuse and motivate your practice. Natalie Perera, who is Executive Director and Head of Research at the Education Policy Institute, wrote for us explaining How research is used (or no…
Resilience and early years experience: child, family, community
Kate Cairns invites us to consider the interaction between resilience and trauma, the key aspects of resilience, and the links between resilience and experience in the early years…
Safeguarding for managers
We have recently published a series of articles about safeguarding for managers. They are aimed at new managers undertaking the management responsibility for the first time but would also be very useful as refre…
We have published several excellent articles recently. Nancy Stewart, who co-authored 'Development Matters', wrote a fantastic piece about why it is so important that practitioners do not use the Development Matters document as a 'tick list'. You …
We've been very busy this half term writing and commissioning articles to extend your knowledge and to challenge your thinking. We have brought you details from two masterclasses held at the Nursery World South show. Kate Cahill reported back to u…
This half term we have kept our courses and events page up to date with details of CPD being offered around the country as well as online. There is sure to be something that interests you! Some courses are completely free, others are more pricey, …
Positive Behaviour Management
What do we mean by "good behaviour"? We are often quite clear about the behaviour that we don't want to see in our settings! Can we be proactive about this and plan consistent positive behaviour strategies where a…
We have published an inspiring article by Alistair Bryce Clegg this half term. In it, he discusses the ways in which different theorists impact on our practice. At FSF HQ the practitioners amongst us agree we are probably all 'magpies' lifting lit…
At the beginning of November we published an inspiring article written for us by Julian Grenier. 'Supporting and Motivating your staff team' encourages those of us in management positions to involve and consider the staff around us and use their s…
Since Christmas we have published two articles by extremely prominent Early Years folk. Our first article, Being 'Outstanding' - Passion, with bucket loads of enthusiasm and commitment thrown in, by Jenny Barber was very well received with members …
This term we have published two articles designed to help you and you staff team set ‘Next Steps’ effectively. There seems to be an ongoing conversation about the best way to approach ‘Next Steps’ and hopefully our articles will give you things to …
Our last newsletter was published in February. Since then we have commissioned several articles from well-respected members of the early years community. This half term we have worked in collaboration with national trauma expert Jane Evans, in our…
