Planning - Lost and Confused any advice appreciated

[MAWI]

Hi everyone

I am wondering how long do people take to Cover the whole Six Areas with Planned activites. And do you cover each and every aspect or just the Main Area i.e PD.
Ive been planning a certain way for the last few months but feel totally lost at the moment. Please can someone tell me if its wrong or where I am going right/wrong direction with it. desperate to get to grips with it.
At the moment my planning /OBS goes something like this:
Mindee starts: Baseline OBS at settling in period.
OBS/notes and pics taken over 3 months, then I write up the Observations for the last three months and next steps for the following 3 months.
I am only writing about 2/3 paragraphs about each area of learning on these 3 monthly OBS. I do however at the side state at what stage of developement they are at.

Planning: I am currently planning ideas/activities based on 2 or 3 Aspects a week and focusing on those 2 aspects that week. ( I understand that they are actually learning and developing all areas all the time). I then log that we covered that Aspect.

Overall this takes about a term to cover. Is this right????? should I be planning differently or maybe using and focusing on more Areas/Aspects in a weeK??? I get the impression from a lot of posts on here that most people plan for all areas for the whole month.
Any help appreciated:confused: :confused:

[sarah707]

There are lots of ways of doing it and you have to find one you are comfortable with!

First of all, there are 2 different types planning -

Individual planning - which is fed from observations

Group planning - which can run for as long as the children are interested

Individual planning needs to be updated regularly, because children's interests change so often.

I would say if you are doing weekly observations then you should be looking at weekly individual planning. so you spot a child's interest in building towers and you get some boxes for him to make a junk model tower next session.

group planning usually follows things like children's interests, celebrations, special occasions, multicultural events etc. you would then look back at what the children's interests are and make sure it is relevant for them all.

I'm a little concerned you saying your observations of 3 monthly because during that time so much changes in the world in the child and you might be missing really good play cues and ideas of things they want to follow up.

I think Ofsted will be looking for more immediate next steps based on what children are doing now iyswim.

Hth :D

[MAWI]

Many Thanks Sarah

That does make more sense.

Do you mean that I need to be doing the 3 monthly summary OBS more frequently???
I did forget to say that those OBS are a summary of the last 3 months. ( A comilation of All my daily /weekly notes on that child ( On these notes I write down what I am going to do for next steps) So for e.g If H took a few steps for the first time I would then write down how I am going to help him develop. But this is only a small note with what happened and next steps on. I use all these little notes to actually write my 3 monthly OBS. ( Hope that makes sense)
I suppose what I was trying to ask is 'Is there a set time for covering the whole of the Six Areas also.

Im new to this and Im very sorry if I am not conveying my message very well.

Thansk for your support. Im so glad Ive found this website

[sarah707]

There is no set time to do anything and there is no set way of doing it!

We all do our best from evidence of what Ofsted are looking for and what people who have been inspected recently tell us.

even stories from different inspectors vary greatly so it's a guessing game to try and get it as right as possible.

I aim for a range of activities through the week that cover the 6 areas of L & D. I do not get hung up if I miss one, because I know it's covered in something else I am doing.

So much is there just by following your routines without even trying.

hope this reassures you :D

[mum2two]

You sound like you do it like me.

I keep all obs, normally very short quick obs, and next steps linked to this.

Every 4 months, I then write them up as like an end of term report, for the parents, with a sheet for next steps.

I plan montly themes, and all activities i plan under this theme I link to each area of L & D. I then link it to chilld's current L & D, and see where I need to be focusing obs in each activity for each child.

Hope that made some sense...

Of course we have lots of child lead play & outings too!

xx