Last week had a bit of everything in it for me. I did some work in settings, writing and a conference delivery and the common thread to the whole week was making judgements about progress in Foundation Stage (amongst other things). I started my week in The Friars Primary in Salford. The Friars is about 20 mins away from home so I have done a fair bit of work with them over the past couple of years. Pat (the Head) and the Early Years Team (Sarah and Emma) are also very accommodating and let me ‘try out’ lots of ideas an initiatives on them and their children. At the moment the school have a vacancy for a Reception teacher (all details here) … Read More
PSRN Activity and so much more… Witch’s Soup!
Was back at The Friars Primary School in Salford last week to see how our EYFS plan was coming along and also start our next cunning plan for developing the outdoors (more of that later). I was supposed to be saying 'hello' to the staff and then getting straight outside, but…I was drawn to a PSRN focus that was going on at the back of the room. It wasn't just the hat that caught my attention (although she does look VERY fetching in it!) it was the level of engagement and the amount of information that the children were volunteering. In essence this had been planned as a PSRN activity, but it was SO much more than that. The 'witch' was … Read More
Teaching Key Words? Tattoo them on, then they won’t forget!
Do you know what? I am only half joking! This week I have discovered that there is such a thing as temporary tattoo paper! You print out images on it from your computer and then they peel off and stick on just like the ones my boys come home covered in from the school disco! (TIP: If you are going to use text remeber to reverse it BEFORE you print. You can do this in most word processing programmes now). I know that you would have to have a discussion with your team and the senior leaders about whether they would promote the use of temporary tattoos in your setting, but just think of the possibilities… Lots of children would be very motivated by the thought of … Read More
Moderating Profile Points – A Portfolio
Grrr! I have already written this post once and then with the click of a button…it disappeared. How does that happen? Where do they go? Anyway, for the second time… I had planned to do my short term planning blog today but got an email about moderation of Profile Points that I thought you might like to share. I know this is the time of year when you all gather up your evidence and go off to moderation meetings, panicking that you haven't got enough! There is still an 'urban myth' going around that you still need to have 3 examples of evidence for every profile point for every child. When I talk to practitioners they often quote this at me,when … Read More