Teacher Resources, Equipment and Tools Letterland Starter Pack
Publisher: Letterland International Ltd Web:
www.letterland.com Price: £189.99 excluding VAT Age range: 3 years +
Description: The Letterland Starter Pack is designed specifically for nursery and pre-school teachers. Each teaching resource has been carefully selected to provide a language-rich introduction to the shapes and sounds of written English and develop phonic knowledge in a fun and creative way. All products come in a bright box for easy storage.
Score: 89.0%
What the testers said: “We love Letterland! They really do “deliver the goods” in a very short period of time. The presentation pack is inviting and offers an interesting selection of resources and definitely supports learning across all areas of development. The super-sized cards are fabulous and we will be continuing to use this in September when school restarts.”
EYFS Magnetic Timetable
Manufacturer: The Pedagogs Ltd Web:
www.thepedagogs.com Price: £19.50 Age range: 2 to 5 years
Description: This EYFS Magnetic Timetable comprises four base magnets that can be placed horizontally or vertically on your white board. Also included are 25 subject cards, enabling you to add your own wording.
Score: 87.6% ISBN: 978-140813-728-4
What the testers said: “This was an excellent visual stimulus for the children in the class who struggle with change or like to know the plans for the day, and would also be extremely helpful for children who need an individual
planner. The only thing
missing was a storage case.”
Silver Award The Enormous Turnip
Publisher: Out of the Ark Music Tel: 020 8481 7200 Web:
www.outoftheark.com Price: £12.95 Age range: 3 to 6 years
Description: This traditional, well-loved story can be read from the book in the form of a script. The simple tale is engagingly narrated on the accompanying CD, together with four bite-sized and easy-to-learn songs which enhance the story. Perfect for story-time, themed weeks/corners and developing listening and musical skills.
Score: 87.5% ISBN: 978-1-906988-34-0 What the testers said:
“The children loved the story; they all sat down quietly and listened. The songs were very catchy, original
and easy to learn. The different
voices on the CD made many of the children laugh. It is great you
can download a script and use it for musicals. We would
recommend this product.”
August 2012 Issue 139
August 2012 Issue 139
Now incorporating Child Care magazine Subscribe today! LEARNING AREAS COVERED best practice An outstanding setting
is always there On a winter’s day, two years ago I visited the early years department of St. Anne’s Catholic Primary in St. Helens, Merseyside. The weather outside was dreary, but inside the setting was brilliant; alive and exciting.
The challenge
This year I found a weather window – a brief glimpse of warm, bright summer – and I also found that even excellent provision can improve. This has been driven forward by two vital strategies; a focus on speech, language and communication and a pastoral intervention to enable this to be effective.
Community The community is everything. School serves a once highly industrial area that now suffers from higher levels of deprivation than the national average. There are 322 children on roll, with 46 in reception and 48 in the nursery. Families tend to stay in the area and there is a very strong tradition of local dialect, many vulnerable families and a high level of free school meals. They have punctuality and attendance problems but bullying within school is quite rare. St. Anne’s early years staff talk and listen to the children, each other, parents and the wider community. The pastoral care strategies are working, and the children there are successful.
Getting them there But there is no development at all if children simply miss school or are continually very late. To address this they have appointed an LEA attendance
6 Practical Pre-School September 2012 060 n outtndin ettin.indd 6 16/08/2012 15: 01-16 CC SEPT
12.indd 2 08/08/2012 17:24
officer but paid for by school. This strategy has opened up communications between school and parents. The attendance officer is alerted by the school’s office as part of their First Response system. She visits the home, speaks to parents, sometimes brings in children and has helped plan morning routines at home. She is a frequent presence on the school driveway, chatting, handing out leaflets, building familiarity and trust. It has been a success, particularly with vulnerable families.
A flag ship setting This early years setting is beyond outstanding, but what do they have that makes it so? Put simply, they have a well respected and very effective leadership, a natural creative talent in all the staff and constant, voluntary self- appraisal. They are eager to learn and improve and have a
genuine interest in all aspects of the world and learning. They also have a genuine love of the children and are dedicated to helping them thrive. It is a fun place to be. Add to this a willingness to work really hard and a newly refurbished environment to state of the art standards, and you have a setting that exceeds expectation.
Deciding to be excellent Two years ago they had already had an ‘Outstanding’ from Ofsted and were actively aiming for the next one, which they now have. Professionals usually reappraise on a daily basis but I have never seen it done with such energy and commitment as at St. Anne’s. Meeting the staff, it is obvious that they simply enjoy their work. They are like Olympic athletes reaching for excellence because only then are they giving the children the best learning
Setting sail on the creative seas
Rhona Whiteford revisits St Anne’s Catholic Primary School in Merseyside to find that their early years setting, now twice rated ‘outstanding’ by Oftsed, has improved even further. She investigates why.
Use the topic of the sea to support children’s learning around expressive arts and design, writes Charlotte Baker. Read on for some ocean-inspired activities.
Drama is not only a fun activity, it also allows children to gain an insight into other people’s roles and emotions, as well as enabling them to express their own thoughts and feelings. It can benefi t children with behavioural, learning and language diffi culties as it allows them to use other ways of expressing themselves. It also allows them to experiment with many roles and responsibilities of other people, increasing empathy and understanding of themselves, each other and their world.
Drama involves a large amount of imagination, not only in spoken form but the sets, the atmosphere created, the costumes, the development and use of props. In order to be creative and imaginative in drama, there are various other skills which are enhanced during the process, such as; an increase in social skills, communication, cooperation, imagination and problem-solving skills.
environment, helping them grow as people in a challenging corner of the country.
The mind-set The early years staff are hooked on learning! Continual reappraisal is the mind-set; ‘what does each child need now and how can we achieve this for them?’ ‘Are we doing our best?’ They problem-solve their way to improvement and are rewarded by the children’s learning ethic and achievements. Of course, this kind of group dynamic is great, but it happens more effectively with a good leader who leads by example.
Real leadership Rachel Crolla is the EYFS manager who inspires this ethos. She has an impressive respect for her staff and says they have a, ‘Collective talent that keeps growing. We’ve had a lot of changes but they’ve just made the quality of the
The chance to fully explore other’s roles, emotions, thought processes and possibly various life choices are other attributes which are conjoined with this area of development. Another positive aspect is that imaginative play provides the growth of spirituality, creativity and morality. In role-play, it enables particular behaviours to be reinforced, or not as the case may be; if a ‘robber’ was to steal some money from the ‘shop’ scene, some children would call the ‘police’ who would arrest the ‘robber’.
This reinforces the moral behaviour and highlights the anti-social behaviour, ensuring children begin to develop an idea of good social and moral behaviour and what poor moral behaviour consists of, and more importantly the understanding behind these two concepts.
For the Early Years Foundation Stage
Pop goes the weasel EYFS, EA&D: Exploring and using media and materials: n 22-36 months: Show interest in play with songs and rhymes.
n 22-36 months: Listen with interest to the noises adults make when they read stories.
Children from a young age will make particular noises to communicate, a common feature of this is ‘blowing raspberries’. As the children get older, the sounds they make hold more meaning. ‘Woof’, for example, can be representative of a dog. Explore the idea of how children use the sounds they make to represent other ideas, and provide examples.
In this activity, the topic is the sea; a wave type movement of the hand and
a verbal whistle could represent the sea and the crashing waves. The popping or
squeaking sound could
suggest the animals which live under the sea, such as fi sh.
Allow the children to explore other meanings of words through actions, dance, sounds and facial expressions. It is possible to pair the children up, and whisper a word or song that one child has to use dramatic techniques for in order that the other child can guess what it is. Ring a ring a roses, Twinkle twinkle little star and Wind the bobbin up are easily acted out and can be guessed even if the children do not use words.
It is possible to enhance the children’s knowledge and creative experience of
September 2012 Issue 140 9 © MA Education Ltd 2012
T PRACTITIONER
EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND DESIGN
Child Care
Sarah Neville takes an in depth look at the seven areas of learning and development in the revised EYFS, and offers advice on resources and activities.
Development matters
he EYFS (2008) features six areas of learning and development (L&D). Practitioners who have
been working with these six areas will be confident in their use, linking children’s observations and individual planning to them and noting how the good practice advice that runs alongside them can be used to support ongoing learning and development when assessing children’s knowledge and prior experiences. Now there is a revised EYFS to challenge practitioners and the L&D requirements have been reviewed. In the revised EYFS (2012) we will be using seven areas of L&D. Three are known as ‘prime’ areas and four are known as ‘specific’ areas.
For younger children (usually under- threes), activities will always be focused on the three prime areas because these will provide children with the building blocks for life-long learning. The specific areas will not be ignored – children will still read books, make pictures, explore
the world around them, find out about numbers, shapes and so on – however, the prime areas are considered the most important. For older children (around age three
upwards, depending on the individual needs of each child) we will need to start planning activities that incorporate all seven areas of L&D equally (as we have been doing with the six areas) to ensure children are prepared for school. However, the EYFS (2012) states that if progress in any of the three prime areas causes concern, we must continue to focus on the prime areas, so that the child is more likely to be able to cope in a school environment.
Prime areas Personal, Social and Emotional
Development (PSED) There are three areas of PSED in the revised EYFS, rather than six. ‘Dispositions and Attitudes’ is now part of the Characteristics of Effective Learning which focus on how children learn; ‘Self Care’ has moved into Physical Development and ‘Sense of Community’ has been sensibly re-located to specific area Understanding the World.
Making Relationships Department for Education minister Sarah Teather noted in a recent speech that one of the skills children need when starting school is the ability to make friends. This area of L&D focuses on children’s developing social skills and how they take turns and share, whether they can be caring towards others, and how they form positive relationships with children and adults. To support children with making
relationships, your continuous provision PPS pull out colour September
2012.indd 9 15/08/2012 10:06 2 September 2012
resources might include cosy corners and dens where children can play together, peer supported activities and games that promote sharing and taking turns.
Self-confidence and Self-awareness To embrace the world of learning when children start school, they need to be able to try new things, be confident sharing ideas with others, make appropriate choices, manage danger, and know when and who to ask for help. To support children with developing
self-confidence and self-awareness you might provide resources such as mirrors, all-about-me themed activities, puppets, stories about children from around the world and display boards featuring the children’s pictures and photos.
Managing Feelings and Behaviour In order to cope in a school environment, children need to understand their often strong feelings and emotions and learn how to manage them. Before they can make friends, they need to have some understanding of empathy and know that some actions hurt others. Part of learning about managing feelings and behaviour involves children talking about and understanding acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and consequences, following rules and coping with changes to their routine. To support children with managing
their feelings and behaviour you might resource your provision with emotions puppets, books about feelings, planned activities for children to express themselves, circle times, visual timetables, and so on.
Physical Development Physical skills have been closely linked to brain development in young children
Now incorporating Child Care magazine
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Exploring the roots of outdoor learning
Activities that celebrate colour
Jean Piaget’s developmental theory
The revised EYFS:What it means for parents The monthly for Early Years Foundation Stage
practitioners, childminders, nannies and childcarers 01 PPS uut
2012.indd 1 12/0/2012 12:01 To subscribe: Call FREEPHONE 0800 137201 orOrder online at
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Teacher Resources, Equipment and Tools
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