starsky

Hiya Wolfie

Just wanted to say a huge thankyou for the questions they are really helpfull. I would assume that the questions are pretty similar where ever you go.

Thanks again - fingers crossed

Sorry - are you the manager of the nursery? Did you fill the position?

Claire

Hi guys

I was wondering if anyone could help me.

I have an interview on Friday for a deputy manager job in a new childrens centre. I am very nervous and was wondering if anyone had any ideas of questions and things that i may be asked. I have only had two interviews before and this is really worrying me.

Thanks so much

Claire

Hi Andreamay

Asking the children about stories that are familiar to themselves, how does the story begin - what happens next?, what chracters are there in the book? How does the story end?

blue kangaroo etc

Our children enjoy telling the story themselves and show that they are familiar with story layouts

Hope it helps

Claire

That is so funny,

My favourite is gwen stefani - mullberry bush!

I think i nearly wet myself

Claire

Hi bethie

We had this problem with a pre-school child (i work in a day nursery) The parents said that due to their religious beliefs their child was not allowed to be photographed.

We went with parents wishes but found it increasingly difficult - if an activity was being undertaken we had to ask the child to step aside or cut the child out from the picture. It was distressing for the child too as they were the only ones with no photograph for their basket or name board. We did replace their picture with a picture of an object but it wasnt the same for the child.

We decided to speak to the parents and after expalining again that the pictures of their child would never leave the nursery (not even to be developed as we use our office computer) and how distressed their child did become when they could not have their picture taken they gave us permission for use within the setting only - which was fine by us.

If the parents still didnt give their permission i guess you would have to except their wishes

Hope you can sort it out for the child's sake

Claire

Hi Northernbird

Again same as others,cheap tape - parcel, coloured electrical tape (6 different colours for £1 - poundland)

Lots of 'junk' for modeling

scrap paper from around the nursery

Xmas cards, envelopes - the kind that come through your door - stamped addressed ones!

post it notes - well cheap for a big pack from poundland or wilkos

Recycle any paintings or pictures that have been done but either no name or no-one owns up to them!

Kids just love the tape!!

But should be aloud to explore as they wish - we do discuss waste with the children and recycling but they go to be aloud to have fun

Claire

Hi janny

Harsh but fair i think

Our charges is the same as most £5 for 15min but still parents are late - i feel they have more money than they know what to do with at times!

Claire

My daughter idly picked up one of the casters and realised why they had been so difficult to manoevre.... the brakes were on. Doh!

 

Glad you're fully functioning again Claire (well at least in terms of printing)

 

Maz

Maz that actually really made me smile!

Simple things hey

Claire

Any recomendations for where to buy craft stuff and paper,toys and baby equipment?

Ta

Hi Littleanna

Have you got a local authority resourse centre near you?

It where places donate old stock to catalogues, shops, schools that are closing down! - its fab, well cheap for craft stuff we get most of what we use from there. Bits and bobs, backing paper, all kinds of paper, toys, you name it they probably have it. Plus because its all from child based catalogues i.e. NES Arnold, Consortium etc its safe for the children.

Anyone else go to one - i work in Birmingham and our closest one is Washwood heath!

Fab may i say again

Claire

Hi everyone

I needed to get something off my chest

About a month ago our very expensive laser printer stopped working - like it was not connected to the computer anymore. We tried everything, called in two lots of techies from our head office but nothing.

It is soooooo difficult not having a printer in a nursery, no registers, no photos, no invoices, no letters, no way to print off my very important informtion for my very important staff meeting on saturday. Everything had to be done by hand.

I came into nursery today - super early may i add - to have a look at it, determined to fix it. I looked at it and decided to have a fiddle - I pulled out the USB connection and put it into another port and low and behold the thing kicks into life!

Now i am no computer wizz but what were the techies doing if they couldnt even figure that one out!

Well i feel better now i got that of my chest!

Nursery is back to normal - staff are very happy that they now have all their pictures they had been taking - two memory cards full!!!!

Thanks for listening

A very relieved Claire

Hi Littleanna

We also use a laser printer for printing of our photographs and with a 98 place day nursery with 4 rooms thats a lot of pictures.

The quality is really good too - we just print onto ordianry paper but for special pictures we do use photo paper - we get this cheap from our local resource centre.

As for the photframe Maz i have one at home and you can add text to it but it was an expensive frame about £70 - good idea though!

Claire

Everyone

Thanks so far for all the advice, I have strated to feel a little more confident now. I started pieceing my notes together today and am definatly going to use the idea of pretend observations

Thanks again guys

Claire

Big birthday wishes to everyone,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Hapy Birthday to everyone,

Happy Birthday to you!

At least i spared you me singing!

Claire x

I would like to make some badges for speial helpers, or leaders or similar does anyone already uses badges for this purpose and what titles do you use and do they work?

(sorry thats a lots of asks!)

tahnks guys x

Hi Skippy

We have a staf of the week badge - shapped like a star. It gets given to a different child each week. A list of the childrens name is on the wall and a star arrow next to the names gets moved when the children take their turn therefore the children can see when it is there turn.

Works really well. The star of the week gets to do al the special jobs, and help he 'teacher'

If we forget to do it the children always remind us.

It will work really well

Claire

Hi everyone

I really hope you can help me!

On Saturday we are due to have a staff training day, my part of this is observation and assessment in the new EYFS. I was wondering if anyone has got any information they have shared with their staff team or any ideas for activities and order of the day. I was planning on doing a brief background on the EYFS then a discription of the 6 areas but after this i an stuck i know i want to include palnning sheets and learning journey observations!

I work in a day nursery setting therefore need the information to be relevant to a vast age group.

I really hope you can help

Thanks Claire x

Hi Salbans

An idae we use if a sheet where parents sign their children in and out at the door, this keeps a record of what time childen come in and out of the setting. This works throughout the day nursery well.

Children then self register themselfs as they come in

~~Just an idea

Claire

Hi there,

 

just been asked a question by a friend who did a BTEC in Nursery Nursing 10 years ago - she now wants to get back into working with children after a long break and was wondering if she needs to do any more qlalifications to help her to do this.

 

Thanks

 

Sarah xoxo

Hi Sarah

I did my Btec nat diploma in 1997 at college and mine is still a valid qualification but as suggested she will definatly need to update her knowledge with extra training. I mean back then it was the 'Desirable Outcomes' that were being taught in colleges!

Claire

Can others please explain how their environment is set up and what you do please? Ie do you free flow all morning or do you stop and have group time, do you plan to cover each`area of learning each day through a planned activity?

Also if you are free flowing please explain staff roles to me ie we have one person stationed in each room x2 one in the garden and a floater doing nappies etc - how and when do staff do any targeted activities/learning with the children?

Am I getting too bogged down with all this and worrying too much!

Feel the need for that bottle of wine again!

Hiya

At our setting we use a workshop idea. Everything is accessible to the children. We have writting areas stocked with forms, paper, various pens, pencils, envelopes, post its, sticky labels, stenils, note pads etc. Our creative area has free acces to a wide variety of sticking materials from feathers to buttons to wood to materials. A variety of glues, cellotape ect are available to te children can free choice.

This theme of free choice for the children runs thoughout the setting from toddlers upto preschool. Children enjoy the independence they get.

Yes it can be very messy but providing clothes and brushes for the children to clean up with afterwards can really help.

Aswell as the workshop environment we have focused activites based on the childrens interests happening throughout the week, they can be adult lead or left for independent choice.

This works very well in our setting but you have to adapt things to work well within theres.

Thanks for listening and i hope it has helped

Claire

Hi there,

 

this sounds similar to what we use, but does anyone have an example that they would be willing to share - we use Steeping Stones booklets, but they aren't good enough to expand on. Any help?

Thanks

These booklets are what we used to use but as yo say found them very restricted. This is when we swopped to the learning journey style of obs. Our baby rooms and toddler rooms always used thi style and we really found it interesting not only for staff but also parents to look though.

will attach form style some time this week

Claire

How many observations do you do on each child? What is expected in the new eyfs?. It seems like I will be complete obs all the time with no time to be with the children.

I thought I would have 2 focus children each week, 1 for me, 1 for other member of staff, how many obs per child should I carry out in the week. We have up to 16 children per session, but not the same children every day. Maybe I need more focus children each week?

 

Any ideas??

 

Cassie

I have approx 16 children in my class session - two sessions a day, some children are in full day care, some just do the NEG funded hours, some only come in each week. The way are tackling it is we choose approx 5 am children and 5 pm children per week split between myself and another staff member and focus on these children for learning journey obs. We still do incidental obs(post it size) on the rest of the children if we see oe hear anything of importance. The children chosen for obs are subject to change - for example if a child is seen doing something of interst or something they do not usually do we will observe them. It is supprising how quick you begin to biuld up the observations.

You do not have to stop being with the children, an observtion takes approx 5 minutes to complete and can often be done from a distance while you are still interacting with the children.

Me and my collegue take it in turns to complete our observations, we do them on our key childen, this way one of you is still with the childen.

All incidental observations are done duringthe session, we always carry post its with us - these are done on all children no matter if they are your key group or not.

Hope this helps - it works well for us

Claire

I have found a blank learning journey sheet on the eyfs disk, could someone tell me if this is to be used as an observation sheet, or do will still need another sheet for observations.

 

Hopefully I have attached the sheet below

 

Sorry I am getting really confused

Cassie

Hiya Cassie

This is what we have adapted and are now using in our day nursery throughout. We then put them into an individual scrapbook. We do also evaluate planned and unplanned learning that we may obseve thoughout the day on our daily planning.

Can see my planning sheets and evaluation sheets on another thread - planning

Claire

hi claire thanks alot I am already doing some of whats on your plans but there are some great ideas on how to extend further.

 

could you let me no how you document your observations and what assessements you do.

 

thanks for the ideas

 

angela

Hiya Angela

We use learning journey books to document observations. I have a sample sheet which i can put on her if you would like to see it. It includes a space for observation, evidence, next steps and evaluation and what the children think of the observation. We also fill in a daily evaluation of each planned learning and also observations we witness from unplanned learning. On this sheet we also have space to put the next steps from the observations.

Hope this makes sense - will up load the sheets tommorow

Claire

Hi All - our local authority has given us some guidance re learning journeys and has mentioned that that the child's folder containing all their evidence in any form be split into the four themes of EYFS - have you all had this advice as well Dot

Hiya

No, nothin been given at all. What bough you under?

Claire

Anyone have any suggestions for suitable games for 2.5 -5 year olds. I can think of the normal ones - pass the parcel, musical bumps, statues etc.

Hiya again

Is there anywhere you can attach a large piece of material on the ceiling. We did this then filled it with balloons, this kept the children very entertained and they all took one home.

If not just balloons on the dance floor will go down a treat.

Claire

any suggestions would be gratefully receievd

Hiya

We have used our book corner as a role play area and it has encouraged the children to use it.

First we made a jungle, making vines, and trees, adding potted plants and hiding various animals in there. We also added a table clothand a basket containing various experdition items such as binoculars and magnifers.

Children really enjoyed using it. They would sit on the coushions or around the table cloth and read books together.

We have transformed it into a library now. We have added a rocking chair, posters, a man made computer made from boxes and various books including magazines, atlas, self made books etc.

The options are endless.

We always have flowing curtains hanging down and accross the ceiling, pillows and bean bags, blanketsand lots of words in the area

Hope it helps

Claire