To think reception classrooms shouldn't have 30 chairs with desks...

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Watched 'b is for book' on the bbc last night, and it made me think about early years practice.

Out of interest, how many of you have children in a reception class where they sit down at desks with books daily for work tasks?

A few years ago a class I worked in introduced writing books for reception, a big thing then but enjoyed very much in small groups by a number. Some hated it though! The room had lots of play areas, a few table for putting bits on, tables used for regular small group work (phonics/ counting activities with an adult). Large areas were forts/ book corners with cushions/ lego areas.....free play basically reigned. We'd call 5/6 at a time on a rota for focused work while the rest played.

More and more I see, particularly in areas of 'deprivation', a model where all of reception sit down to formal learning together (rather than just carpet time phonics/ stories etc) at their tables. Some of the children in the programme were not ready, as were many (most?) I've taught. Frankly it looked like a miserable start to reading for many. I know my own little boy would be unlikely to have absorbed anything said to him as a just 4 yr old in reception, let alone actually learn in a class size group.

We used to provide opportunities for able/ advanced pupils to write and extend learning, but we certainly had more play. It does make me wonder how some of these children will be with creative writing later on when you look at the methodical approach to their learning early on and the sheer relentlessness of intervention for the more immature pupils.

ds1 and ds2 have SEN (AS). They vastly prefer a more traditional classroom layout and found the free play even in reception chaotic. I suspect that whilst your ideas might suit some of the children better it would make it a lot worse for others.

Ours is a school in what's classed as a deprived area.

The classroom is divided up into different areas which are moved around at intervals during the year. These include things like a reading area, a construction corner, a role-playing corner and a writing area. There is also an outdoor play area with a variety of equipment and activities.

There are only a couple of actual tables with chairs. One is in the art area and the other is used if a teacher needs to work with a small group. Otherwise the children sit down on the carpet or on beanbags and soft chairs.

There are times when they are told that they need to do a particular activity but otherwise it seems to be mainly free play.

It's an approach that has worked well for DD. She's learned a great deal during her time there and is always happy to go to school.

My son's reception class has about twelve seats at tables, and thirty children. When they do whole-class tasks they sit on the carpet with whiteboards. When they do paper and pencil work it's in small groups.

Three quarters of the classroom looks like a nursery, then there's the outdoor classroom (eight seats), the vegetable garden, the "forest", the lawn and what's currently a "car wash". If they added another eighteen places to sit they'd have to give up the reading corner or the home corner or the messy area etc etc.

It's just a community primary school. It is Ofsted Outstanding and actually genuinely outstanding. Judging by the Early Learning Goals information they've just sent home, the children are 98% at least Expected, where the national rate is 85%. It looks like a very unschool environment but the results speak for themselves.

In Year 1 they have a place to sit and workbooks to get on with first thing. I think that's plenty early enough.

Really? No shit

All private schools that have EYFS aged children are inspected by ofsted.

Ours is outstanding, also. The set-ups is similar to artandco's. All the EYFS classrooms give out into the garden, which has a verandah over the door area, so children can go in and out as they please. The water and sand are out there. 'desks' are tables at teeny child height, with chairs, but they tend to use easels for painting tbh.
There is a home corner. This is sometimes a cafe, a shop, a castle, depending what overarching theme they're looking at (I think it was an emergency despatch office when they were studying 'people who help us').
A reading corner with beanbags/cushions etc. Sinks, cup station, drawers for their personal items, carpet area, dressing up stuff etc, etc. The desks are.used to build lego, play with animals, cutting/pasting, writing, maths with cuisenaire rods/shapes/toy props etc.
It's not like Victorian chanting and slates!

40 years ago children left reception (well, it was named infant one then!) being able to read, write, and do basic sums. Only one child in my large school could not. My children could both read fluently before reception year, as could I. DH could not, but he doesn't feel harmed by sitting behind a desk as a small boy.

That is sad about Arts school. I envy much of her lifestyle but not the school! I think the private school near here is similar. Now I have a 7 year old I may well prefer a local private to escape the sats driven curriculum and more creativity etc but not to be in a formal classroom so young.

I was talking to a Polish neighbour this morning who has a little boy and asked me when they start school here. She was horrified! She said it was 7 where she had come from. I told her reception is still play based so it's more like 5... But still!

My Summer born DD cannot read and write really and is coming to end of reception. No SEN. DD2 can write her name and recognise most letters and is 3. They are all different so I think they should have some desks and option to write in reception but shouldn't be forced/made to sit down at desks for long periods.

A lot of middle class parents are hypocrites when it comes to demanding play based learning. They want lots of lovely free flow play at school until the end of infants, but they get out the workbooks at home. Children from deprived backgrounds may have no where suitable to work or parents willing and able to sit with him.

Children need a balance between work, rest and play. I doubt that the reception children in B is for Book spend all day at desks. Children in reception need to build concentration otherwise the transition into year 1 would be hellish.

I'd love more Play until the end of infants!

Year 1 is formal learning at desks here.

When people say desks, do they mean tables? With places for children to sit down? Often in their own group. Surely desks are individual things with lids, like classrooms in the fifties.

I dont think it's tables in the room as such (although in a small classroom would mean less free flow play space so I'd prefer all that set up instead.)

However if you see Arts post she's talking of perhaps topic related toys put on their desk but no other areas in the room!

I'm not sure why anyone is sat about the school because it has desks?

They still learn through play. As some said they do letter writing on the floor with a board, a desk is no different.

Ds2 has his desk. With a few others on his table. They started the day writing their names and letters in sand in a tray each at each desk. For maths followed they were likely to still be at desks sure, but counting with small model animals and an abacus.
They might then go to the art room, put art smock on, and bubble paint canvas. After they play outside in a playground with water and sand play, games, toy cars etc. After back in class for story on floor, then at desks to write about the characters or story and draw them. History is then a walk to local museum or attraction.

A desk doesn't limit what else they do and doesn't mean they are in Victorian lines writing all day in silence.

Most schools have just once large room for everything in reception. Their school has around 10 smaller rooms so things are just split to each thing. It makes sense tbh as you wouldn't want a child spray painting next to one reading, and one reading couldn't hear is someone was playing music loudly. They have 20 children. 1 teacher and 3 teaching assistants. So groups of 5 can be taken to various places seperatly. 5 might be doing maths at their demeaning desks! But the other 5 might be banging drums elsewhere.

That sounds less harsh than it sounded initially!

Presumably less child initiated play if they have to leave the room to do something else but the adult/child ratio is lovely!

Art what makes me sad is the children's day being so structured. My dd is in reception and she is free to wander from one activity to another and mix them together. She isn't told know it's time for art , now it's water play etc she is free to choose.

• now

Ours large tables with chairs but not desks. Also areas for paint, a home/shop play corner and a soft quiet reading area with cushions and books.
They have doughnut cushions to sit on for carpet time.
I was looking for very much play based which it is although they do literacy and numeracy, phonics, reading etc every morning. It's an independent school. I looked round our local school and it was much less play based which I didn't like.

Well maybe, they do have some choice though ie free time could be Lego, drawing, reading or whatever.

School is only a small % of learning anyway imo. They are not at school the majority of the town anyway. They have long school holidays, roughly 5 months off a year. Weekends and 4pm-9pm daily to have free play and do what they want also.

The schools I visited really did vary. Local state was very much lots of different activities around the room, colourful, play based and another had a nod to a "home corner" but the focus seemed to be being sat at tables.

The independent a friends kids went to was definitely sat at tables doing phonics/complaining about handwriting etc.

If I was very wealthy I'd do the independent with lots of tree climbing / outdoorsy looking ome but not in budget!

And now- but some children need that structure! My dd did. We viewed a lot of schools with that set-up, one of which had 120 children in one enormous area! She howled and wailed in all of them, despite having been to nursery full time since 12mo. She likes knowing what time each activity is at, when she can expect things, when she needs to tidy away etc. She had a very strong sense of time from a very early age.

My DD's school had sit down formal lessons from 2. It was a model of education that worked really well for her and certainly hasn't stifled any creativity in terms of writing etc now she is aged 9.

I do think though that there should be more flexibility in the education system to really focus on different methods for different children

From 2?! Gosh. Mine was outdoors playing at that age. That's really small to be learning formally. So much can be learnt through play!

They did both - doesn't have to be an either/or for me. More importantly they still do both now. Teachers think nothing of downing tools and heading out with them all for the afternoon - this happens on a regular basis

I agree lots can be learned through play but some children thrive on more structure too

I am on the Isle of Man and even in Year 2 they don't have their own desks (I haven't been to higher year classrooms). They have "stations" a couple of stations have desks put together to write, draw, etc, then another corner with a pretend shop or travel agency, at the moment its the enrolling office for the Olympic games! in reception and Year 1 they had messy play corner...
I am surprised by this because it is not at all how I was brought up. My DD seems to play a lot but she also loves reading and writing her own stories and has learnt maths, science, etc. So I trust them. She also LOVES going to school.
This is a state school, all state schools on the island work exactly the same, there is only 1 private one which doesn't even have the same school years or even school calendar so no idea how they work.

Art, quite unusual to be a private school and OFSTED inspected.....?

Private schools have a dual inspection system - OFSTED do EYFS and Boarding and ISI do 5+ education and compliance

Our private Receptions classes have tables and a chair for each child but they also have book corner, home corner etc and the children do forest school and outside play (sand, water etc) every day. They leave the classroom and go to specialist teachers for sport and music but art takes place in the classroom. It's fairly structured I suppose but a lot of children like structure. Plus there's only 10-12 in a class at that age so plenty of room for flexibility and freedom.