Inspection due soon

[Bex1]

I am still waiting for my first inspection.....was contacted in August and still heard nothing so I have chased Ofsted up crazy I know but I think they have forgotten about me!

Anyway I think I have all paperwork in place and the only area I am really concerned about is my planning! I have the same toys out each session as the children only come to me one day a week and they are all under 2 1/2 and like familiarity! So my planning sheet shows all the toys I have out and available for children and put into the relevant 6 areas of learning so I know each area is being covered! Also I write if any special activities we are doing or if we are attending 'gyme joeys' or park etc on the sheet and evaluate after each session i.e. what children played with most, if we didnt get to park why etc! I also link any obs to my planning so I introduced some new animal toys and chose to do a month of animal themes as observed children really getting into animals and shouting out "dogs" etc when they saw them!

Is this correct or am I doing it wrong?

[Bex1]

Just bumping up...i know I dont post very much but please can someone have a look at my thread

[Ripeberry]

[Hi Bex, sounds like you are doing it right. I'm stuck on planning as well. I could write down next steps, but how do you plan it? On a calendar, just as info on a sheet?
I've only been minding for 7 weeks and yesterday Ofsted rang to check if I was minding and I said yes. I asked the lady if they come straight away or do I get a week at least to write my SEF? She just laughed and said it could take up to two months or could be sooner
Hopefully, someone more experience than ourselves will come along

[sarah707]

It can be difficult to think of planning in terms of the toys you have out each session.

Try and think instead of the needs of the children there during the sessions.

You are aiming to provide play opportunities that follow each chidl's interests.

So individual planning would show...

John - interested in cars, trains and things that move - planning to include getting out car jigsaws, trains and track...

Janet - interested in dolls, dolls house - planning to include making new furniture for the dolls house out of clay, using the play house outside for a dolls tea party...

Work from the child first to show the inspector you know what he likes, how he learns and how you feed home interests into his days with you.

Does that make sense?

[Bex1]

Thanks for your replies. Sarah, I did a few activities with the kids about animals, where we had lots of books (touch and feel and sounds and stories) about animals because the children had shown interest in animals and were learning the names of animals etc. We sat at lunch table and had a lovely animal table cloth and the children liked pointing out the animals on there and stuff like that so I do try to focus on areas the children like but then most of the time they simply like to play with the toys they like ie one little boy only likes the train set so he plays constantly with that, I try to introduce diff vehicles but he doesnt play with them, just concentrates on train and to be honest he is with me one day per week and is still very shy!

I am worried I am not showing my planning well enough! I have the sheet with the toys I provide and any activities I plan I write "what we do today" and say "today we have various picture books and stories about different animals" etc....does that sound right?

[mama2three]

it does sound right , but to get the individual needs in i think ( someone may correct me! ) you need to be jotting why you are doing that activity / providing that toy. So observation - X plays with the train set and shows interest in wheeling it around the track --> planning - CLL loop the track under the furniture as I want to introduce new vocabulary such as under , through etc. Or Creative play , using the train to make paint train tracks , etc

[Bex1]

Hi thanks, yes forgot to add that on my planning sheet, if I am doing an activity linked to an obs, I do put, linked to obeservation dated ***** etc.