Talk to me about planning.....

[Tabbykat]

I got all the EYFS pack through a few months ago and need to do some planning for the mindees' portfolios, but have no clue where to start. I've heard that I should be doing weekly, monthly and yearly planning for them - does this sound right? How do you all do yours? At the mo we are just working on different areas like practising pen strokes ready to start writing, etc. Not had the proper EYFS training yet as really oversubscribed here, so feel all a bit lost really, but really conscious I should be doing something. Any advice gratfeully received, x

I work in a nursery so slightly I dont know if its the same.

we observe every day then use those observations to set out the medium term plan which is basically picking out thier intrestes and areas we can incorperate them, for example ours at the moment includes dancng so you use that as a starting point for activitys.

The medium term plan changes when ever the observations show the intrests have changed so it might last a week or it might last 6 months,depending on the children.

Then at the end of the day we do the daily planning which is writting on a chart what activitys went on in each area and what the learning outcome was, so your penstroke activity might be handwriting. We also use diffrent colours to indicate if it was adult or child initiated.

I hope that makes sence and helps you, it really is much simpler than it sounds!

monthly spider chart
weekly planning sheet
weekly record sheet (what we actually did)

I use the planning templates I bought on
ebay. OFSTED were suitably impressed!

Cheers for the tips. I know what activities we need to do, just need to get something down on paper in some semblance of order!xx

Go to the EYFS in Practice website here. they have an Evidence File that includes some really good examples of how to put a child's Learning and Development File together, with simple and effective ways to record observations etc, without lots of paperwork. This file also contains example policies and procedures - everything you need for evidence for your Ofsted Inspection. The people who run the site also offer telephone and email support.