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…
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…
The Role of the Adult in Early Years Settings: Part 2
Part 2 continues the journey of exploring our role in supporting young children’s learning and development. It outlines the five remaining ‘selves’ of the ‘plural practitioner’ framework that …
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…
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 …
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…
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…
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…
How do young children learn to make decisions?
Babies and young children are able to make decisions that are relevant to their lives. This article examines what kinds of decisions children can make at different stages of their development and …
Child Development: fact or fiction?
Knowledge about child development is an important tool which enables practitioners to make appropriate provision for young children; but if we are not careful it can also be a dangerously limiting illusion that…
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…
Ofsted Inspection Reports for Childminders (Part 2) In this article we look at the quality and standards of the early years provision and outcomes for children.
The Practitioner as an Explorer: Effective Observation Techniques Observation is …
After our popular articles covering recent Ofsted reports last year we've brought out a new series, updated after studying over 100 new Ofsted reports from the last three months. We can see certain recurrent themes and in the reports we outl…
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…
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…
The Education Team at FSF and Tapestry HQ have been recording more podcasts this month. We have one on Self Regulation, a topic that has been the focus of much discussion since its appearance in the proposed new ELGs. We also have a couple of ligh…
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…
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…
Here at FSF and Tapestry HQ we have been looking outwards in more ways than one!
Earlier in October, Emily and Jules went to Devon to do some training for Ventrus MAT. This was a new experience for us - we don't get out much! Thank you to the …
In this month's article we have been thinking about the managers who struggle in the first few months of their role. It can be hard to 'manage' colleagues who you have worked alongside as an 'equal' for some time - in her article, Anni McTavish tal…
We have made a couple of changes here at the FSF and Tapestry HQ, and we have had a celebration too!
We are introducing a new Coffee Break item - short and sweet, updated regularly on the home page for you to dip into whenever you have a mome…
We have lots of news from FSF and Tapestry HQ this month!
We have recently moved offices - in fact it would be more accurate to say we are now in actual offices! We had a special day to open the new building at the beginning of June and we we…
