Planning
Continuous Provision
Our continuous provision is linked to the thematic focus that we’re focussing on each month. But remember, it is for the children to decide how you explore that theme during circle time so continuous provision needs to adapt and evolve throughout the month
- Setting it up right - Managers should work with their Room Leaders to evolve the layout once a term to keep things fresh. Consider how the room can be reformatted to make the experience more challenging or dynamic, physically, for the children.
- Contextually relevant resources - managers must work with Room Leaders and the lead chinese practitioner in the room once a month (but no later than the middle of the month for resources to arrive in time) to plan the resources (Chinese & English) for continuous provision to be linked to the thematic focus of the month. Remember this is but a central idea, children and practitioners will explore how to interrogate it further in projects and activities that are delivered throughout the month (see annual plan above for activity ideas).
- Weekly updates to CP Planning - Room leaders are responsible for updating the continuous provision weekly (see here for template) in line with how the children are evolving their learning. Each room has their own working template (Google Sheet) in their Room Folder, located in the 01 Teaching & Learning folder of the Google Drive that will need to be updated each week and then printed for the room boards
Continuous provision for us, is the primary focus and delivery mechanism for our children across all age groups but is especially important for the 0-2 yr olds, whose primary driver in cognitive development is that of sensorial processing and experiencing his / her immediate vicinity (see Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development).
Individual planning / Next Steps:
Practitioners / Key Workers are expected to plan children’s “next steps” - learning targets based on the observations key workers take of their child’s abilities in each of the 7 areas of learning - on an on-going basis. Room Leaders and Deputy Room Leaders must factor in children’s next steps into their overall planning. This allows for us to plan activity ideas that are available in both continuous provision and in the more adult led focussed activities that will aim to provide the child with the environment and focus to deliver on those next steps.
Room Leader and Deputy Room Leaders are therefore responsible for reviewing the key children’s next steps in their rooms and to liaise with nursery management each month to ensure that activity ideas, language lists and words that are relevant to their room and their children are tabled ahead of each month’s planning cycle.
Room leaders must review the children’s progress in their rooms to identify areas needed for support and liaise with the nursery manager on interventions as and when required
Preschool Planning
- Develop the Monthly Plan - Room Leaders / Chinese lead practitioners must review the central educational calendar for festivals and international days of interest and / or look to the monthly theme to brainstorm ideas / concepts around our structure
- Develop Adult Led Focussed Activity ideas - jot down your intended “WoW” moment activity ideas in the monthly plan
- Finalise your Language List - input your English words in the Yellow column of the planning sheet to see if the Chinese and Pinyin pull through. If they do not, go to the Language Database- Master List and first search for your term by holding CTRL F and typing in your word. If you cannot find it, please insert a row and add in the English in full, the Chinese and then fill out the semantic categories and filters across the sheet. Return to your language list
- Copy & Paste English into Preschool Database - Look to Column H and add in your words directly to build up your database list over time, ensuring that the words in the language database are linked to the month.
- Edit your Google Calendar timetable - to enter your WoW moments and edit the calendar schedule of activities described to provide parents with an update (the calendar should be already shared with the parent community via newsletters). Upload any resource to the calendar events to provide parents with home based activity resources to further the child’s learning at home.
- Weekly Continuous Provision runs along side for spontaneous and in the moment planning