Cait

Sounds great. I'm glad you had a good day and fingers crossed for September!

It does make it easier, and for those of us, as Sunnyday says, who do things mostly on our own, it breaks the tasks down into manageable chunks.

If only I could do that with the summer holiday tasks for the new school year!

Welcome to the forum, be careful, it's addictive!

There are some fire regs that were discussed in another thread about book corners, I'm sure.

Yes, here

My lips are sealed...

... and mine

Sorry about my spelling of excitement - fingers running away with me in the excitement!!!

You can edit it by going to one of your posts and clicking 'full edit'.

How about enacting 'Bear Hunt'. The story itself wouldn't take that long, but you could involve them in which area was which first, and what you were going to do in each place. Then do the story. That would certainly entertain them!

I previously used to charge the same 'hourly' rate equivilent to the funding rate for any time over and above the 2.5 hrs. I did this so that no-one could suggest that the NEG money was being used to subsidise the additional time. (illegal, I think). How can you justify that non funded times are 'cheaper' in terms of running costs to the setting than funded times, especially if ratio's remain the same?

 

Parents, if working, can claim WFTC to help towards the cost of non NEG times attended by their child.

I agree with you about the subsidy - with half my head! The other half says 'why should I have my fee structure dictated to me by County, who have no idea of my running costs etc' We charge a fee which is lower than the NEG, but it is what we would need to charge without the NEG (if you get my meaning) If County want to give us more than that, well that's up to them.

I try to keep my fees as low as I can as we are in a deprived area and about 60% of our parents aren't working so can't claim WFTC. In lots of cases, these are the children who really benefit from Preschool, so I'd rather they were able to come.

We were audited by County last autumn and it didn't turn anything up, there was no suggestion that what we are doing isn't legal. I think if our fees were higher than NEG it's illegal to 'top up', but I'm not sure about the other way round.

I'm not using the ones supplied by my county as they are just a ticklist, which I don't believe tells anyone anything. Having received one of these from a child's previous setting, I have to say that it was just about useless.

Is this the one you are looking for?

My_Unique_Child.doc

Many happy returns of the day to you

Yes, last year we ordered another set of trays as we had more children than trays! They were ordered this time last year and arrived in September, when we didn't need them any more! We're using them now, but that's not the point really. Wouldn't use them again unless I was desperate for something only they have

Are they not all INCO now? Inclusion Co-ordinators

Had a quick look and bookmarked it for when I'm awake!

Ok Catma, I'll consider my knuckles well and truly rapped for daring to suggest that some of the stepping stones could be worded a little better or placed in more sensible places.

I'll think twice before expressing an opinion on them in future

Ok clever clogs! (but shouldn't it be la petite fille?)

 

Those are brilliant but can you give us a translation?

 

I am seriously impressed. Did you do all that off the top of your head?

Whoops 'la' fille of course! just making sure you are reading them!

Baa baa white sheep have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

One for the badger, and one for the fox, and one for the little girl with holes in her socks

Baa baa brown sheep have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full

One for the donkey and one for the pig and one for the crocodile who's dancing a jig

Heads and shoulders knees and toes is the other one (more or less anyway)

Baa baa moutons blanc

Avez vous des laines?

Oui monsieur, oui monsieur

Trois sacs pleines.

Un pour la blaireau,

Et un pour renard

Et un pour le petit fille avec des trous dans ses chaussettes

haha - this last line is a right old tongue twister!

Baa baa moutons brun

Avez vous des laines?

Oui monsieur, oui monsieur

Trois sacs pleines.

Un pour le âne,

Et un pour le porc

Et un pour le crocodile qui danse un gabarit

Têtes, épaules, genoux et orteils

Têtes, épaules, genoux et orteils

Et les yeux, oreilles et bouche et le nez

Têtes, épaules, genoux et orteils

Had a go with this just now. Because of the longer word syllables you can fit it in if you don't repeat 'knees and toes' the second time. The last line is longer too because of that, but I'm going to give it a go anyway!

I have a French version of Baa baa black sheep which a french child in my setting taught me once. Problem is I had to write it down myself so don't know if I spelt it all right. it's a long time since I did my o'level!

 

If one of you lovely people who has a french teacher visiting would like to download it and get it checked I would be really grateful. Then we can all use it.

 

Baa_baa_mouton_noir_97.doc

Baa baa moutons noirs

Avez vous des laines?

Oui monsieur, oui monsieur

Trois sacs pleines.

Un pour le monsieur,

Un pour la dame

Et un pour le petit garçon q’habite en le chemin

I didn't have that last line, but I like this one better as it rhymes better. It actually means the boy who lives in the way, but it's good enough for me!

Have I really only 'known' you since January? Really? Feel like I've known you longer. Thanks for being a good friend

How funny you should bring this up! A couple of my children are interested in all things French - following a lunchtime discussion about croissants and brioche! I said we'd find out some more French words if they wanted and all the children in my group were really keen! I'm thinking of introducing a few words and foods and songs (they already know 'Sur la pont', 'Ill et ne' (wrong time of year) and 'Frere Jacques', so I'm looking for some more if anyone knows any. Was thinking of doing a 'heads, shoulders' in French.

When we were revising for our O levels my friend and I used to do 'immersion' and we'd do everything in French or Spanish for weeks before each exam! oh - except revising for english lit and lang of course!

Yeah, I know exactly where you are coming from with this!

I wish I'd had that for E243!

"Understand the concept of a word" sounds like something out of a psychology textbook!

Yes, I take your point, but it always seems to be sadly lacking in basic levels - there's not as much 'meat' in it as I'd like. When held alongside the other 5 areas it's almost as if they got bored and said 'oh it'll do' I believe that Creative Development is a very important area of learning and it just doesn't seem to be given the same importance as the others, that's all. What there is is good, but there could be SUCH a lot more, is what I'm meaning.

Ok just been to count my 'stepping stones'

In PSED there are 78

in CLL there are 96

in PRSN there are 82

in KUW there are 73

in PD there are 65

and in CD there are only 58

UGH the whole thing is ludicrous if you start to pick it apart - why is the one about exploring malleable materials such a later 'step' and not an earlier one - why is the one about understanding that quantity remains the same when split into different ways such an 'easy' step, when it's actually quite a difficult concept.

I suppose this one could be about recognising the shape of the numeral, could it?

Why isn't there much about creativity in creative development?