Planning Question

[mumofone]

Sorry if this has been discussed before. I'm getting in a bit of a state about planning and which bits need to be written down.

This is what I have (written/recorded down) so far -
Yearly planning - calendar for the year of what I plan to do/acknowledge etc
A Typical term time routine
A typical school holiday routine
Individual weekly plan for my current mindee based on her interests

What else do I Have to have in writing?

[Evie125]

I had my ofsted inspection recently and the inspector praised my planning, she also commented " you do realise you don't have to do all this written planning".... I'm not sure how I could show that I do planning if I didn't write it down. Basically my " long term planning" is a box folder of ideas/ activities that have worked in the past sorted into months or seasons. It a folder I dip in for inspiration. I then have an A4 book, I do one page for the month - I have a section for important events/ planned outings ,this would be birthdays or celebrations like Valentine's Day , Easter etc or events going on in the community. I have a box for children's interest / parent suggestions. Then one for learning objectives for the month and another for next steps. I don't do daily planning because I often plan on the spot linking things to the children's interests I just have a page for each week of the month. I set it out into the areas of learning so I can see at a glance that I'm covering them . If we are following a particular theme I note this with ideas. I don't write every activity down because some things are alway out, I do record activities that are linked to the children's next steps and I note things like what our role play is / what's in the sensory tray. I have a section at the bottom of the page for follow on ideas/ next steps. My planning is a work in progress, I add to it and change it through the week - to be honest I expected the inspector to say what a mess!! But she liked the fact it was flexible. My inspector was looking for evidence that I knew what the children could do and that the activities I had out supported their development, she also wanted evidence of what I was planning next to build on these skills. I hope this makes sense and helps!

[mumofone]

I had my ofsted inspection recently and the inspector praised my planning, she also commented " you do realise you don't have to do all this written planning".... I'm not sure how I could show that I do planning if I didn't write it down. Basically my " long term planning" is a box folder of ideas/ activities that have worked in the past sorted into months or seasons. It a folder I dip in for inspiration. I then have an A4 book, I do one page for the month - I have a section for important events/ planned outings ,this would be birthdays or celebrations like Valentine's Day , Easter etc or events going on in the community. I have a box for children's interest / parent suggestions. Then one for learning objectives for the month and another for next steps. I don't do daily planning because I often plan on the spot linking things to the children's interests I just have a page for each week of the month. I set it out into the areas of learning so I can see at a glance that I'm covering them . If we are following a particular theme I note this with ideas. I don't write every activity down because some things are alway out, I do record activities that are linked to the children's next steps and I note things like what our role play is / what's in the sensory tray. I have a section at the bottom of the page for follow on ideas/ next steps. My planning is a work in progress, I add to it and change it through the week - to be honest I expected the inspector to say what a mess!! But she liked the fact it was flexible. My inspector was looking for evidence that I knew what the children could do and that the activities I had out supported their development, she also wanted evidence of what I was planning next to build on these skills. I hope this makes sense and helps!

Thanks Evie :-) that's really helpful. Sorry so to clarify, Do you do any written weekly planning?

[Evie125]

Yes , sorry we had a school uniform crisis half way through my typing my reply to you and I got distracted! My weekly planning initially has anything I want to carry forward from the previous week as a "next step" or if I knew a child were doing something with parents over the weekend I would plan something to follow up / support learning. I would also have a note of the role play area which I have set up when children arrive. I try to link this to the season or something children have experienced or a comment from parents eg this week we have an animal rescue centre - set this up after one of children jumped on their pet dog and hurt it! My objective was to teach children about caring for others , and be gentle) but without making an issue of what had happened to the dog.. It's all just written in note form or bullet points not lots of writing but that's what works for me. If we were focussing on a particular book I would make a note of that and we would make up a story tray to use with it but the rest I add as the week goes on depending what direct the play goes in. For times like Christmas I would perhaps have more written down but definitely not for summer when we could just go out at the drop of a hat. A couple of pages the inspector looked at were nearly blank while other weeks had notes all over and she said that was fine The inspector spent more time looking at the children's learning journeys than my planning ,looking at starting points and progress made

[Lal]

Evie- thank-you for posting this. I've been trying to sort out how to record my planning. I think something like this might work for me.