I think it's perfectly acceptable to teach LLC and MD in morning then other activities in afternoon.  During the morning, the children who are not working with an adult - what are they doing?  Choosing from the environment/challenges?  Or are they directed with no choice?  Have you planned into your timetable time slots for obervations, or if not, if you make observations incidentally how do you make sure you are getting time to observe?  Just questions that popped into my mind.

Also,as a school we decided to make sure that when carrying out written/recorded actvities, that the learning intention was carefully looked at.  e.g. if a maths activitiy can be carried out practically with some recording at the end, great.  If a worksheet was needed, was the learning intention being met by completing the worksheet or was it a worksheet for the sake of having one in a  book?

biliboi

LLC and MD

 

?? Translation please. If I've missed the obvious - sorry.

Are you familiar with Foundation Phase?  Language, Literacy and Communication  and Mathematical Development. 

I have a mixed aged class of nursery to year 2. All the children in my class work in a similar way focus activities and accessing provision around the classroom. However, I am aware that year 2 need to be challenged. Therefore my enhanced provision plan includes areas of learning which are child led, some where there is a skills focus based on previous focus tasks, resource enhanced provision and particular adult planned challenges. I used to use the sally featherstone carrying on in ks1 books to help with challenges for my areas of learning but now I've got used to it and feel confident adapting and making up my own. I tend to have a challenge or skill for all the children and then an extension for more able children. These are orally told to the children and recorded in the areas using voice recorders and written for the more able children to read. I do have structure throughout the day including phonics sessions, guided reading, literacy and maths focuses in the morning and my year 2 children tend to spend more time doing focus activities compare to reception. It's hard because I don't have enough of one year group to enable me to have a teaching assistant e.g I have 4 reception children and even though they are in a class where the ratio is above the 1 to 8 ratio technically there are only 4 reception to one adult so it doesn't count! I am flexible though, sometimes I do literacy for the first hour and maths the second hour but other days I spend a morning doing literacy based activities with all my year groups (usually starting the year 2's off and then letting them continue independently while I take other groups) and the next morning I spend it doing maths based activities. Then in the afternoon it's more topic based. I ask the children's opinions on what topic they would like to learn about for instance this term they decided upon the sea and gathering their ideas together I split it into four mini topics under the sea, boats and ships, islands and pirates. At the beginning of the topic I talk to the children about what they know and want to know and use their questions as a basis for my MTP. However my planning is flexible and sometimes the children spark new ideas or they find something so interesting that we go more in depth with it. Even in year 2 they do have the chance to 'play' and come up with their own ideas. For example the children wanted to find out about ship wrecks so we looked at the titanic and found out about it in a focus session but then they went to the creative and decided that they wanted to make life jackets for the people on board the ship. They used the junk modelling box and designed and created them without any adult input, working together and problem solving. However, the following day I did decide to scaffold their learning, I placed new materials in the creative area such as wood and duck tape and challenged the children to consider how they could make their life jackets waterproof and test if they float. I don't know if I'm doing it right but there are opportunities to allow the children to have their own ideas and often their ideas can be better than mine. They are working in a skills based curriculum and the skills are being met and they are very much using skills across the curriculum too! Ok so officially my year 2's are still working in the national curriculum this year but this activity for example was cross curricular and involved design and technology as well as science and yes the children were in control of the learning. I believe that yes the children need basic skills such as reading writing and number but the great thing about the foundation phase is that it brings these skills to life in a purposeful and creative way which often extends children's ability as they are fully engaged and motivated. My bug bear is that there is this sense that standards are dropping but none of the evidence has been taken from children who have undertaken this new skills based curriculum and approach to learning! Give them a chance to bloom and in ten years or so, when they have completely gone through the curriculum. That is when we can fully judge and criticise! Right now the results are from children who have undertaken the old curriculum which has already been replaced and is still in it's early days of development. I don't regard myself as an expert and do feel like I'm feeling my way in a dark room at times but from what I can see it's working as long as it's not used and abused. You've just got to be sensible about it and think about what it's asking from yourself and the children. We are there to support and enhance the learning we're not there to take a back seat and let the children teach themselves. What is the point of teachers then? but at the same time we're not there to prescribe a preplanned curriculum which is churned out year on year and not adapted to the children's interests, abilities and skill needs.

"My bug bear is that there is this sense that standards are dropping but none of the evidence has been taken from children who have undertaken this new skills based curriculum and approach to learning! Give them a chance to bloom and in ten years or so, when they have completely gone through the curriculum. That is when we can fully judge and criticise! "

 Indeed.  Although if we are truly following a model based on scandanavian countries, then why do we still need to give an outcome at the end of FP?  You would't see a teacher in Norway trying to get a 4 yr old to learn letter sounds - there wouldn't be enough time to carry out all the practical activities which take time and people to deliver.

Your right! I completely agree!

Hi

I am moving from teaching years 3and 4 to the whole of foundation phase from September. Although daunting, I have accessed some training and my planning and classroom already reflects the foundation phase principles.

Like you I will be teaching nursery to year 2. I will have 2 experienced TA's. I have begun to make plans and any help would be welcome.

I plan to have self registration and social time with everyone together, then split into 3 focus task groups over 2 rooms. I shall focus on literacy and numeracy in the mornings and topic work in the afternoons with child initiated play in the continuous and enhanced provision areas.

I planned to come together again before nursery go home and have a fun phonics session for the last half hour before lunch witth R 1 and 2.

Can I ask how you do it?

Do nursery and reception flollow the same routines/timetable?

Are the topics the same throughout but at different levels?

How do you organise snack time?

Do you have input into each year group/stage and if so how?

What and who is Sally Featherstone? Can you give me examples of the challenges in your enhanced provision please.

I am looking at timetabling phonics time and am looking to follow funky phonics. Is there anything you would recommend?

Thanks for your help

 Hi, I am moving into a Year 1/2 class in Sept having taught Early Years for 20 odd years!  I am hoping to bring with me the success of foundation phase into Year 1/2 but I don't want it to be the same.  These are my ideas for Sept so far!

Self registration and big group Welsh, quick fire oral work revising vocab including movement and brain gym type activities, for 10 mins.

Language is Read Write Inc so this is already set into groups.

Big group time -whole class teaching of subject followed by challenges (I plan to have 4 main challenges for the week and groups rotate throughout the week - will cover K&U, CD, RE, Fine Motor skills etc)

After lunch- Big group maths followed by small group maths tasks.  During milk time, they will be encouraged to make plans for child-initiated activities.

Last session - child-initiated activities (or completion of challenges from morning if needed) with feeback/review in small groups. 

There is no time for challenges and child-initiated activities every day as we have to fit in P.E. etc.  

Also, I have planned the theme for the term with my ideas, but it is very flexible and I am very prepared to move in a different direction if need be.  I am mostly looking forward to getting them working outdoors more - can't wait for the challenge myself!

I am utterly depressed after having read this thread. I qualified as a Primary school teacher over ten years ago, but couldn’t stomach the job – the curriculum was too rigid; school itself felt like some kind of semi-benign prison; the staff were often unthinking; standards and expectations were low and narrow; creativity scheduled not omnipresent; and several of the heads I met fancied themselves as cult leaders, caught up in all manner of disturbing cognitive dissonance. Now, I am reading up about the foundation phase, talking to heads and teachers, trying to get a handle on what we can expect for our son when he starts school in two years time. I assumed that things had changed for the better since my day. Alas, no:

1.      Post #8 – ‘Your right! I completely agree!’.  YOU ARE or YOU’RE, not YOUR

2.      Post #9 – ‘I will have 2 experienced TA's.’ NO NEED FOR AN APOSTROPHE!
3.      Post #10 – ‘including movement and brain gym type activities.’ BRAIN GYM!? Please read up about the Brain Gym my friend. Complete and utter made-up nonsense. A scam. Any school implementing the Brain Gym should be ashamed of itself – unless of course you too believe that processed foods don’t contain water!
 

I think teachers and heads, in fact, anyone associated with education needs to learn about scientific methods, scepticism and proof. One day you may be in charge of budgets and staff, so please don’t go throwing time and money and effort at that which hasn’t been proved. And crucially, doubt yourself. We are all full of prejudice and tainted by ideology, and remember, a  teacher is often the last person you should trust on matters of education. Learn statistics, learn about scientific methodologies, read all the studies, seek out contradictory opinions, challenge yourselves, challenge the system, your head, your government, or I’ll soon be joining the ranks of the home educators.

Woahh things must be a barrel of laughs in your house! 

Firstly, well done on picking up the errors in the previous posts.  I am a stickler for correct spellings and grammar, but sometimes, if one is typing quickly then one does make a mistake.

Secondly, you say that 'anyone associated with education needs to learn about scientific methods, scepticism and proof', well... I think you can safely say that the average hardworking teacher, who cares about providing the best education for his/her class gets into school before 8.50 and leaves way after 3.20.  This time is spent planning exciting, stimulating lessons which are differentiated to cater for the vast range of children that are in their class, making/preparing resources for said lessons, completing countless forms and dealing with unecessary paperwork.  In the evening, after having fed themselves and their family then they may do even more work. This could be reading through a pile of reports from various SEN agencies/Ed. Psychs about a child in their class (as I did last night).  So, after my average working day, excuse me, and thousands other teachers for not really fancying learning about scientific methods!!! 

Your other comment made me spit out my toast too!  'A teacher is often the last person you should trust on matters of education'.  Well, scientists and researchers who are funded to produce these wonderful methodologies don't have the foggiest about what goes on in the average classroom!  I trust myself thank you very much and I trust my own judgement on what works in my class and with my children.  One of the latest buzzwords is the creation of 'PLCs' within and across schools in order to raise standards and to ensure consistency within and across schools across Wales.  Yes sounds like a great idea (it has been sold to us by Professor Alma Harris) but there has been no money or time made available in order for teachers to devote time to it.  Yet again, scientists and their methods are great on paper, but not in the real world!

By all means home educate your son - create another Che Guevara!! You don't want to put all of your training and experience to waste! 

Ohh Helenthemelon don't rise to the bait!  It's just what he wants! 

It is always enlightening to hear from failed teachers. However, I too am saddened by this thread. We, the profession, the nation seem hell bent on keeping our schools as minor versions of the Victorian Grammar School; with teaching approaches as inflexible as the canes that ensured standards were maintained the century before last. At last, we introduce a teaching phase with strong philosophical credentials, with a long history of success and we in the school community are determined to beat it in to becoming watered down but more bureaucratic version of what it has replaced. I am not only annoyed with out teachers and heads (of which I am one) but also with the support personnel who have little or no experience of this mode of learning and with the inspection industry which increasingly feeds on uncertainty and fear. Go to Finland, Sweden and almost any of the 'new' Balkan states that we are being told are 'better' than us in Wales (UK too) and you will see Foundation Phase in action, where it works, where children learn, where 6 year olds begin 'formal' lessons rather than being labelled 'success' or 'failure' in reading tests just so their schools can be graded. It has taken me a long time to find schools that work; unfortunately, it is at the end of my career and in other countries.