Our planning journey
At Ace Early Years we have been lucky enough to be given the freedom to explore and develop our planning over several years. We have moved from formal and rigid, through to a more child-led approach. Much of our planning has been influenced by Alistair Bryce-Clegg at ABCdoes.com and Shonette Bason-Wood.
Our biggest and most important piece of planning advice would be to find your own way! Never, ever assume that anyone has 'the answer'. Every child, setting and adult has different ideas, needs and ways of working. What works for one person won't work for everyone and indeed some people have tried to tell us that we are wrong. However, we're not so arrogant to assume that we know the 'right' and 'only' way of working. Read, research and question different ways of working. You know your children the best and you have to find the right way of planning for your setting, your children and you. Take advice on board but don't let people tell you that their way is the only correct way.
Our biggest and most important piece of planning advice would be to find your own way! Never, ever assume that anyone has 'the answer'. Every child, setting and adult has different ideas, needs and ways of working. What works for one person won't work for everyone and indeed some people have tried to tell us that we are wrong. However, we're not so arrogant to assume that we know the 'right' and 'only' way of working. Read, research and question different ways of working. You know your children the best and you have to find the right way of planning for your setting, your children and you. Take advice on board but don't let people tell you that their way is the only correct way.
Here's an overview of the current planning model.
Feeding forward
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This is a slightly adapted version of the Feeding Forward plan on abcdoes.com.
On a Friday afternoon all of the adults that work across reception meet for a Feeding Forward meeting. Using the observations, assessments, photos and work from the previous week we complete the sheet to create a basis for our short term planning. We are careful to keep our focus on the skills that we have identified need working on and not to create activities that might be interesting but do not move the children's learning forward.
On a Friday afternoon all of the adults that work across reception meet for a Feeding Forward meeting. Using the observations, assessments, photos and work from the previous week we complete the sheet to create a basis for our short term planning. We are careful to keep our focus on the skills that we have identified need working on and not to create activities that might be interesting but do not move the children's learning forward.
Objective Led Planning
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Following the Feeding Forward meeting we choose a skill to focus on. Using the objectives from Development Matters and the ELGs we level the skill and create next steps. We generate adult led activities that might be good starting points or areas that adults might be able to observe/work upon these skills. We start by placing the children against the level that they are working at, but this might be changed during the course of the observations as children show their understanding, During continuous provision one adult might focus on the Objective Led Planning. They may start with an exciting activity to entice relevant children but, rather than then calling over children, the adult will take the planning around the provision. If a child is engaged in a worthwhile activity that is moving their learning on, then the adult will come back later or even another day. If the child is engaged but the play isn't moving their learning forward the adult will play alongside them, before introducing the skill that they want the child to develop.
Below you can find a copy of our September 2015 OLP, complete with annotations to explain our thought processes!
Below you can find a copy of our September 2015 OLP, complete with annotations to explain our thought processes!
Continuous Provision Skills Plans
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We use the other identified skills from the Feeding Forward meeting to introduce skills into the continuous provision. We level the continuous provision and create challenge cards but these are mainly for the adults. The challenge cards help remind everyone working with the children of the skills that we are developing and the next steps they could push the children towards. We don't create a challenge for each area, as this would be unmanageable, but instead aim to create challenges in areas of the provision that the children have gaps in or perhaps have shown an interest in. Below is a completed plan.
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Linked provision
We took inspiration from abc.com to create our Linked Provision plans. After self-registering in the morning, the children find their 'mini-me' to see which activity we would like them to have a go at. The activities all practise a specific skill and the children will rotate and repeat activities during the week. Adults may support the activities but to begin with they hear readers and work 1:1 with specific children. During the Summer term we have formalised this and added ELG stage to help focus the adults. The ELG stage will move with the children and not the activities, hence why we have a space to add names - normally the children will just rotate through the activities.
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Timetable
Not a week has gone by where our timetable hasn't been tweaked to add something or to try to ensure more continuous provision etc!
In Ace TV Episode 4 we talk about our latest timetable - which has changed significantly from the one above! Check it out!
Promoting British values
Here at Ace Early Years we have been discussing 'British values' while doing our 'long term plans' (not that we really do long term planning!). We decided that we didn't need to do any specific activities but that we should note down what we have done/will be doing that show how we promote British values. Hopefully this might show that you're all promoting British values already and don't need to do any extra work! Download the whole PDF below and let us know what you do in your settings!
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