It is important that children have opportunities for art, design and creativity outdoors as well as indoors. Ideally in your indoor space you will have provision for children to make, model and paint. If you put one of your easels outside with some pots of paint and a couple of aprons then you are just recreating the same indoor opportunities without the ceiling. Although some children might really enjoy painting outside, a key question for me is ‘what unique creative experience can outdoors offer them?’ There will be more about outdoor painting later in the week! We want children to be able to transfer their indoor skills and apply them to different resources and experiences that are strongly linked to … Read More
A Learning Journey Approach to Display.
This week I am revisiting a blog post from way back in 2013 that focussed on a method of taking children’s learning journeys into display. It was a really popular post and since then I have seen the display replicated in many different ways on my travels all over the world. Thanks to Ladybrook Primary for being the initial inspiration! At Ladybrook they had a version of this in both Nursery and Reception This is Reception. A large display board has been divided up so that each child gets a large(ish) square. The whole thing was really well thought out from the backing paper to the mounts that the photographs were on. The display starts with a photo of the … Read More
Self Service Dough Area!
Every Tuesday on my Instagram account (abcdoes) I invite an Early Years Practitioner or setting to take over my page for #TakeOverTuesday. I have had takeovers from all over the World that have shown a huge range of Early Years provision. Pop over any Tuesday and have a look for a bit of interest and inspiration! This week on #TakeOverTuesday, it was the turn of Laura and her team from Yarm School in the North East of England. As part of her takeover she posted some photos of their self service dough station, which she had made after reading one of my blog post. Her takeover photos got a lot of likes and interest, so I thought I would share … Read More
Good Level of Development – A National Picture.
This week I launched a project that I am doing in the North West of England in conjunction with our Ofsted Big Conversation steering committee. The idea for the project came about after Ofsted released their findings in relation to the number of children who achieve a Good Level of Development (GLD) at the end of the Reception year. This is their Good Level of Development by Local Authority map for 2017/18. You can find it here The North West region, where I live and worked for my entire teaching career, has a high number of Local Authorities where the attainment of GLD is in the lowest National band. The idea of the project is to provide some really cost … Read More