Mouseketeer

😆 it’s all too mind boggling isn’t it? I’m looking forward to the holiday to find some headspace and focus on this, I think I have a plan then something else pops up and I feel like I’m back to square one. I agree with the ‘they can go as far as they can’ and this is where my thinking was with the concerns/no concerns screen and wanting it in black & white to record who had exceeded the expectations we’d set in each area, with the thinking being to then consider what was needed to extend them (and if a high number of over achievers in an area then clearly our curriculum wasn’t ambitious enough in that area ) but now I’m even confused by the no concerns/concerns not being the same as on track/not on track 😵‍💫

I’m thinking all our chn depending on cohort year leave at the same time (we have a max of 3 school year cohorts)so our expectation of what we want them to achieve by then will be where we start and work backwards, our CP should cater for all abilities to reach the expected end point and not matter at what age/stage they join us, if I want them to achieve something by 4+ then by 3 to 4 yrs and 2 to 3 yrs I’d expect them to be achieving something along that pathway that builds on their skills and if they weren’t that would be where my ‘concerns’ come in (we’d have all the resources/equipment to allow that to happen within CP and interactions) does that make sense? I’ve seen a number of fab looking progressive curriculums that say by the end of Autumn, end of spring, end of summer, but we don’t have that luxury with not just one year group to cater for (ours are 2 to 4+ all using the same space).

I didn’t either (maybe pull together what we already do and how we do it and call it our curriculum) but then you have to wonder why this has been produced 🤔 https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/get-help-to-improve-your-practice/curriculum-planning?fbclid=IwAR38ksmbx7xaZdkzmmybYZWq9Z2k81y2be2Xc956rx7ESPWoePkyqJcEHJg

Hi Emily Thanks for all the info, I’m not sure I understand how a higher achieving ‘group’ will help as they’ll still only be ‘no concerns’ won’t they? Do you think there won’t be an option to print in black & white?

I’ve also opted to go with DM, there were elements of B25 I liked (the aspects threading back through all ages for one). I think the 0 to 3 is too wide so my plan is to start at what we (staff team, they’ve all been asked to think about this) would want/expect our children to be achieving by the time they are due to leave for school, I’ve also asked the reception teacher to give input on this, will likely ask parents for their input and refer to the observation checkpoints. The plan is to between us decide on the most important for each area and work backwards e.g if we want them to be achieving this at 4+ by 3 to 4 we’d expect, 2 to 3 we’d expect. I’m thinking about bringing a little more ‘this is what we’re doing/when’ back in to our routine, we have been ITMP for about 3 years now and whilst we can see chn are making good progress on the whole without the vast amounts of paper pre-planning I’m concerned that they find L&A and MFB a challenge and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s because pretty much everything is done on their terms, what they want to do or are interested in and mostly when they want to do it and have we helped create the situation we find ourselves in now where many don’t listen to a thing we say to them or participate in something we want them to do without a lot of negotiating …..or are they just a challenging cohort that need to ship out 🤷‍♀️

Thanks FM, just have to hang in there for 2 more weeks 😕

It just feels like fire fighting in my place at the moment and not just the children, stuck between a rock and hard place and lots of soul searching this week 😔

Yep! Staff member sent home for testing yesterday, sent home, tested, neg result in less than 12 hours!

We have schools all around us affected now, we have a couple of children off isolating due to our closest secondary school siblings testing positive 🥺

Not available ….I’ve been trying for weeks now, I gave up in the end and bought ready mixed x 5 litres, reasonable from consortium and it’s lasting longer than I expected.

Or will put her off for good 🤦‍♀️ What have they put in place fm?

Maybe it’s changed, the last child we sent to school (2 yrs ago) with an EHCP had been awarded full hours 1:1 bit then county only paid for 14 of those hours a week and the school budget paid for the rest.

This is such a difficult subject isn't it? (Not sure what’s happened to the quote box). It so is FM, it’s an ever worsening crisis, more children with higher levels of Sen are going into mainstream, even with an EHCP our county (presume it’s the same for all) only fund approximately half of the hours that child needs 1:1 support for, putting even more of a burden on already tight budgets as a child needing 1:1 needs it for all the hours they go to school not just half of them, the need doesn’t go away once the 14 funded hours a week have been used up.

Not at all, I’m with you on this, how is anyone being helped by the lack of professional support we receive for these children or the shortage in Sen provision places, they are either not listening to us or not wanting to hear it ….staff were prepared to work for the crap pay because they enjoyed their job, they don’t anymore ☹️ I do wonder how the new EYFS with it’s no age bands or refinements is going to help up secure funding when we can’t even get it now when we have assessment evidence to show they are x bands below where they should be ….or is that all part of the plan?

I think it will take some sorting to get the ears back to the right settings…I am done with this year group and have never felt like that, there are only a handful that are not a challenge in one way or another, Covid will be blamed but I don’t believe it’s all down to that, the most challenging didn’t stop coming (funny that, but what does that say 🤨), my only thought is that they had a lot of attention when so many others stayed off that they then didn’t cope well when others returned and they had to share that attention so stepped up the unacceptable behaviours to gain ‘negative attention’ 🤷‍♀️

Thanks Emily, it makes sense not to mess with the current EYFS assessment pdf exports. I have already raised that I’d like to be able to export the concern/no concern group view screen in black and white (the option that’s currently available for Summative assessments screens), not just print in mono, the reason being I’d like to then be able to highlight the ‘concerns’ in diff colours to show a concern is a below expected or above expected, I’m a little concerned that by just recording a higher achiever as ‘no concerns’ it might mean their development won’t be stretched and deemed ‘they’re doing fine we won’t worry about them’.

We have 30 chn leaving, so going with one parent each, 6 staff and don’t think we need to count the chn as under 5’s 🤞I know the one parent/carer per child won’t go down well but it will be a case of take it or leave it I’m afraid 😳

Another vote her for being able to open as a word doc (though I will check out the above to see if they can be converted), I’d like the Summative assessments as word doc so I can fit a cohort on one sheet and not have a couple drop onto a new page that I have to cut off and sellotape to the bottom of page one 🤣

There is definitely a leaning to ‘being best friends’ rather than parent/child relationships with some of ours :-(

Does anyone else wonder if the past years of free choice, free flow, free anything else you fancy has finally caught up with us?

I hear you Blondie…it’s driving me nuts, I keep asking mine to cut down on what they’re doing , I even split key children up so they could focus on less a week to try and cut the work load but they just now do excessive amounts on those few a week, I really hope I can get them to adjust their mind set for September 🤨

Sounds like a plan, sometimes it’s the adults that need teaching in our place they will let a group create a massive mess inside then move outside leaving the next adult in to clear it away with the help of children who didn’t get it all out to start with ☹️

It isn’t just you zigzag, we have a right unruly bunch at the moment and feel like we’re failing to get on top of it, they don’t treat anything with respect (I have never known so many broken resources), they wind each other up endlessly and use lots of of silly language, no doubt picked up from older siblings or the rubbish they’re allowed to watch on tv but then the younger/immature ones in the cohort hang on it and think it’s funny to keep repeating it, if anyone has ideas on putting a stop to that I’d love to hear them (the ignoring it strategy is definitely not working) 🥺

I hope all you half termers have managed some down time …I’ve pottered in the garden, read a book, met friends for lunch and had 2nd vaccine, am now feeling a tad guilty that I’ve given little thought to work other than plant watering (well that’s not strictly true, I have thought about it, just not acted on it 🙈) hoping the last half term is good to you all 🤞

Fab! added to the list 👍