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Cross Phase Planning - Nursery and Reception

Whether it is Nursery and Reception or Reception and Year 1 together - cross phase working and planning can be a HUGELY positive experience for children but if it is done 'properly' then there are lots of challenges for the practitioners.

Whilst adult directed activities are not such usually the issue, the main challenge comes through effective differentiation within the continuous provision. Your resourcing and challenge in all of your areas has to cater for the ability levels of all of your children from the lest to the most able. With two age groups together you are often significantly increasing the range of ability you are catering for.

I have never yet come across a setting where the provision has been set at too high a level. Usually the provision is aimed towards the younger children resulting in the older ones having long periods of their day where there is a lack of challenge and low learning potential.

The flip side of this is where the environment is planned for Year One and Reception children completely miss out on the Foundation Stage Curriculum apart from a few token opportunities to do some 'finishing off activities'.

Good cross phase planning can be done and the results can be VERY effective both in terms of personal development and attainment.

As I have mentioned before, I am working with The Friars Primary School where Emma teaches in the Nursery and Andy teaches in Reception. They both start their day in their own space, but after their first whole class input, Reception come into the Nursery space and the the two classes work together.

Attainment has been the big focus for our work together and the team are now able to clearly show how they plan to  meet the needs of their cross phase group. They have moved to objective led planning and child led learning and have worked hard to put differentiation and challenge into their continuous provision. They are still on their journey and I keep adding things to their 'to do' list, but they have achieved a great deal over the past year.

There is a strong focus on the essentials that have been identified by assessment and observation. Lots of work on communication skills and fine motor skills

With mark making a big focus it is important that the whole team are aware of where the children are developmentally and what appropriate next steps should look like.

All children have a short, fun, daily physical intervention which is aimed at consolidating their stage of development and moving them forward.

Fine motor/hand eye development

 

How many nuts can you screw on in a minute?

Some fine motor challenges then become part of the continuous provision

The fine motor focus is then carried on into the adult led activities. There was a great deal of interest in the 'Transformers' film and that interest had been used as the focus for some activity planning.

Still developing your fine motor skills here. If you are one of the children who is really motivated by 'Transformers' then this activity is 'sold' to you as a 'Transformers' activity. If not then the activity is flexible enough to engage you through another route.

Simple deconstruction then led to more complex electronics...

 

Using a battery to power a motor to make a propeller turn...

Discovering, then being able to explain why two batteries make your bulb shine brighter than one.

'Transformers' was also used to target specific children for writing development. A Transformers box was created for interest and then filled with provision aimed at specific development. The use of the contents of the box was modelled by an adult with a writing focus during CP

 

Then a baby bird fell out of it's nest in the outdoor area and the planning focus shifted. Because this is objective led planning NOT activity led, the teaching stays the same it is only the focus that changes.

An urgent message was sent to the Head who contacted the RSPB and their response was reported back to the children. (Leave it alone!)

The Friars have had a deconstructed role play area for a while now. One of their ongoing issues is the development of children's talk. Although it was being used for other role play, a number of children had started 'hairdresser' role play so the team had introduced a 'hairdresser' enhancement box.

 Great if you haven't had time to do your hair before you get to work!

It was really lovely to share in the engagement of the children and to see the progress that the team have made in ensuring that they are planning for attainment and challenge across the setting.

Next Steps? Well, pretty much for Emma and the team to keep doing what they are doing and now expand those principles into all areas of provision. How do you ensure that you have got differentiation and challenge in your sand, water, workshop or painting area so that children get the opportunity not only to try new skills but to extend the ones that they have already acquired?

So, that is what we are working on next. I will of course keep you posted on how we get on...

Alistair

Judging Attainment in Reception

When I am not writing or delivering conferences I spend the rest of my time working in a wide variety of EYFS settings. Sometimes it is just a one off visit to do an audit of practice and provision or to help with a specific issue like mark making or outdoor. But there are some very lucky settings who have the 'pleasure' of repeat ABC visits.

One of those is Halton Lodge Primary who I 'bother' on a fairly regular basis. I was originally invited by Darren when he took over as the new Head and identified EYFS as an area for his own professional development. 

We have done some joint observations (much to the sheer joy of the EYFS team) and he always has a list of EYFS questions for me when I go. I always suspected that he glazed over after the first 2 minutes of my pedagogical outpourings but to my great surprise, and pride, he gave a very comprehensive explanation of objective led as opposed to activity led planning on my last visit. 

That would be like me understanding and being able to explain the offside rule to any of my 3 children who all reckon they know it anyway!

Football aside, here are some of the things that we have been working on at Halton Lodge and what Ruth, Karen and Lyndsey have done since my last visit...

Display

The team were keen to make sure that all of their display is engaging and related to learning. Ruth and Karen both have an iPad for use in the classroom and they have created lots of learning stories using an app called Halftone. The children loved being in their own comic strip, especially as Avengers fever was rife!

As part of their phonic work children were creating their own labels for various areas of the classroom. Because they had created them they were keen to read and share them

The 'have a go if you want to' area is right beside the self service snack area, so if the table is full you have got something to keep you amused and challenge you while you wait.

These are the instructions for a fine motor challenge activity (more of that in a moment).

Most of their display now clearly shows a record of the process of learning rather than 30 versions of the same end result. As well as adult judgements there are lots of examples of children's voices which really helps to make the display engaging for the children and clearly explains the learning process to adults.

Differentiation in Continuous Provision

I usually give the same advice to all settings when we start to look at building differentiation and challenge into continuous provision - start with mark making! Ruth and the team started looking at that a good while ago and have now extended the principles into lots of other areas of their CP. They have gone for a 3 colour system. This is more for the adults than it is for the children. The colours relate to levels of difficulty within the CP. Although any child is welcome to have a go with any if the activities, the adults will use their knowledge of the child and the content of the basket to ensure challenge by encouraging them to have a go.

The fact that the activities are VERY engaging and based on children's interests and not boring topics or themes makes the children more than happy to try.

Threading onto sticks against the clock

Differentiation on top and inside of the provision

Fine motor development

'use a stick to pop the pictures'

Of course you don't always have to have the same colour as top, middle or bottom you can rotate them - as long as you can remember which is which!

It was also good to see some challenge bags in use, with specific challenges for specific children.

FIne Motor Development

The team have a daily focus on fine motor/grip development for all children, really looking at the small steps in development as opposed to the broad sweep, 'name card and tracing paper' approach to letter formation and writing.

Their activities are differentiated and themed to children's interests. Although not exclusively, there were lots of activities 'dressed' for interest around The Avengers.

Threading for fiddly fingers

Skinny straws and fat pasta

The children use the cocktail stick to punch holes in the paper around the outline of the image. This is really good for hand/eye coordination, strengthening wrist pivot and developing a triangulating grip.

Differentiated of course!

Opportunities to Mark Make

I saw loads of opportunities to mark make from focused adult intervention through to continuous provision. One thing that they all had in common was a high level of engagement. Partly that was due to the subject matter and partly to the fact that the mark making was relevant and purposeful.

Sign and label writing

Secret bat messages

Come and write about your favourite bit of this activity

'I put some cheese and ham on the wrap'

Finding pirate treasure

Then recording your 'finds' by writing in sand

There is nothing like an iPad to engage children in the writing process!

Yes, they are working on that grip!

There was certainly lots of purposeful learning going on. Attainment was very evident and easy to see without having to trawl through reams and reams of paperwork and planning. The environment on its own gave a very good indication of the type of practice and the quality of judgements that were taking place and then the practice just backed that up.

I have not even mentioned the child initiated army den, complete with hand printed camouflage netting and 'Keep Out' labels, or the hovercraft in the KUW area...

or the brilliantly managed self service snack ...

It was here where I was 'invited' to taste test a sample of the dips. The request was made by a lovely little girl who, after I had eaten my carefully prepared bread stick, revealed that she had 'already sucked the dip off twice' but she didn't like 'that stinky one'! That would be the garlic dip then! There is nothing I like more than licked garlic dip off a twice sucked bread stick!

Thank you Ruth, Karen and Lyndsey for a great day. I will be sending Darren the bill for the Pepto-Bismol!

Alistair

Make your own dinosaur eggs!

When it comes to dinosaurs, there is hardly an Early Years setting that doesn't dig up a bone or two at some point during the year. Wherever I go, dinosaurs never fail to capture the imagination of lots of children.

 Imagine finding this box of goodies buried in your outdoor area!

all photos from and abcdoes project at Moor Park Primary find out more here

In most settings the dinosaur discovery starts with some bones or an egg. Bones are relitively easy to get hold of or make. Even if you haven't got a collection of sheeps skulls and foxes jaw bones like me, you can usually lay your hands on some big bones from the butcher and boil them until they are clean, or have a go at making your own.

Eggs can prove a little more difficult and you usually have to resort to good old papier mache and a balloon.

What I was after was a more 'realistic' dinosaur egg that would have some texture, a hard shell to crack and then 'something' inside to be discovered. Although we know that some dinosaurs were HUGE not all were. So, I was looking for something that you could make bigger or smaller depending on your species!

What I have come up with is a playdough hybrid recipe that you can bake in the oven, so you not only get a hard breakable outer crust (or shell) but you also get a gooey inside that allows you to hide a mini dinosaur, bone or treasure for discovery!

This recipe will give you four eggs (roughly the size of a baking potato!)

You need:

1 cup of plain flour

1 cup of used coffee grounds (the used ground beans from a coffee machine. If you don't have a coffee machine, ask at the large high street coffee retailers and they will usually give you as much as you can take away! They also make a great alternative to sand in your sand tray)

1/2 a cup of salt

1/4 of a cup of sand or soil

1/4 of a cup of water (to start with you may need more depending on how 'damp' your coffee is)

Something to hide inside your egg

What you do

• Mix all of the dry ingredients together

• Add the water and mix until you get a 'dough like' consistancy. Add more water if too dry or more of one of the dry ingredients if too wet.

NB - The stiffer you make your dough, the better it will hold its shape. If it is too 'springy' your egg will have a flat bottom!

• Take a handful of dough.
• Press your 'find' into the middle
• Shape like an egg

• Place on a greaseproof paper lined baking tray in the oven at 180 degrees for 35 mins (ish).

You need to extend or reduce the time depending on the size of your eggs. As long as the outside has gone hard and crusty, it doesn't really matter about the inside.

Just keep giving them a poke until the outside of your eggs feels 'rubbery'

They will harden up as they cool.

Once cooled, hide them and await the discovery!

Thanks to Pat at The Friars Primary for the donation of the luminous dinosaur!

The inside of the eggs stays hot for a while so be careful! Best leave them to cool overnight.

Even if you don't make the eggs, the coffee grounds dough is good to try as it has a lovely grainy texture.

You could also use the same recipe to make 'discovery stones' and hide gems or even pieces of long lost writing inside them - the possibilities are endless!

I hope your dinosaurs all lay well! If they do, please send me a photograph and any additions/amendments you make to the recipe so that I can share the dinosaur love!

 

Alistair