Early years teachers- hello!

[rainbowfudgee]

I've just applied for a year R post in a small school, 4 days a week. I would have 10-12 children in my class. I've covered ppa in year R but never had my own class. Have been teaching for 8 years though mainly in ks1. Any tips for interview should I be lucky enough to get one? What do you love most about early years? What's hardest? Thank you.

I love the flexibility of play based learning, the child led element and watching them progress but I can't say I'm thrilled about the amount of time I spend cleaning up wee and poo and I find it quite noisy and exhausting. Physically it's a demanding job but it's really rewarding and fun too .

Hi moonmaker. How long have you been teaching in early years?

Tips for interview-be very clear about safeguarding practises, the differences in provision (continuous and enhanced etc) and the importance of the core areas.

Follow some pages on Facebook for ideas-there are some brilliant practitioners out there with amazing ideas!

Best thing-the rapid progress, learning through play and in a small class being able to really target each child’s needs.

Worst thing-it’s more tiring physically, can at times feel too unstructured if you’re coming from ks1 or 2 and the journals can take ages. Tapestry is brilliant though!

Experienced Early Years Teacher here. Familiarise yourself with the Early Years Framework. Read the Ofsted descriptors for Early Years. Look up Characteristics of Effective learning and Development Matters. Get an idea of the balance between formal teaching and continuous provision and the kind of enhancements that can help progress learning. This would make a good question for interview about the SLT's expectation of how much whole class formal learning they like to see. A key word phrase at the moment is sustained progress in the Early Years.

The best thing about Early Years is how enthusiastic the children are and how you can really engage children with active learning through discovery and play. The hardest thing is pleasing everybody while sticking to your principles!

Thanks, I have studied EYFS development matters and the statutory framework carefully...will look at Ofsted descriptors and characteristics of effective learning. I think I have my own ethos for early years learning which is child centred and about a balance between teacher led and child initiated learning. .. thinking about exploration, choice, independence.

Are enhancements teacher interventions to guide learning?

So continuous provision is available all the time for children to choose. Enhancements might be themed to go with the topic/story to support learning or offer a particular challenge. Of course whatever you hope they might learn might not relate at all to how they actually use it.

Ah brilliant, thanks piglet!

7 years.
Do your research on the learning environment . It is absolutely key in early years .

I’ve been teaching in a nursery school since I qualified in 2014! This age is magical- you really get to see the learning process.

For me a bug important part for interview would be talking about an enabling environment which is safe and welcoming but also accessible and challenging (ideally children would have access to any resources they wanted to enable them to follow their interest)

I love this age- the things children come out with are brilliant!!

Good relationships with other professionals and the parents are very important too. This helps to tune in to any changes in the child’s circumstances and may help you to plan a child’s progression (interests and attitudes change daily with these little humans!)