Practical tips for teachers

Communicating with parents: meetings and presentations

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:08 +0100

We have probably all at some time sat in a meeting, attended a presentation or taken part in a workshop and wished we were elsewhere! For busy parents, there is little worse than the feeling that you are wasting your time. However, with careful preparation, group communication can work very well and parents can get the right messages in the right ways.

Purpose and outcome

Communicating with parents: one to one

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:07 +0100

In early years settings, there will be many occasions when one-to-one communication with parents is both desirable and necessary, not simply to give or receive information, but also to build up effective relationships. Skilled communication on a personal level can do much to build up trust and ensure that settings are well-regarded in their local community.

First contact

The benefits of behaviour tracking

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:07 +0100

The first requirement for any programme of school improvement is the gathering of detailed information about what’s going on. One of the best statements regarding this was made by American executive Louis Gerstner, who took over, and eventually transformed, IBM when it was on its knees in the early 1990s.

‘Good strategies,’ he said, ‘start with massive amounts of quantitative analysis, hard, difficult analysis that is blended with wisdom, insight and risk taking.’

Making change work

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:06 +0100

Change can be met with fear and resistance even though most changes bring positive benefits and improvement.

The psychology of change

We can all think of changes that have brought benefits: washing machines, computers, cars etc are all changes that have significantly affected the way in which we lead our lives. It may, therefore, seem illogical to be fearful of change.

Bringing theatre to the early years

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:06 +0100

Over the last few years, I have been asked more and more to work with early years, to the extent that now it occupies most of my time. This seems to reflect an increasing amount of work being done in this field. I work with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 90 days a year, developing their early years work, often working in settings, with parents present, in the context of family learning, ‘doing drama’ with children – making up stories, acting out, playing together creatively.

Developing emotional vocabulary

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:03 +0100

The ‘draw and talk’ activity

Hotseating in the early years

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:20:01 +0100

In the world of the theatre, ‘hotseating’ is a well known technique used to deepen an actor’s understanding of a role; the actor sits in the hotseat and is asked questions by other members of the cast. Questions might cover their feelings about certain aspects of the storyline in the play or what their relationship is with other characters. The actor answers as the character they are playing. It is a powerful technique that really helps actors immerse themselves in a role.

Developing your team

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:59 +0100

Leadership qualities are something that successful schools enable everyone to practise and develop over time, in different situations. As a leader in the foundation stage you may have much experience in this area or be leading a team for the first time.

Drama in the early years

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:59 +0100

Role-play occurs in all early years settings and forms an obvious route to the achievement of the early learning goal, ‘Use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences’ (Communication, language and literacy).

Within Key Stage 1 there is an expectation that children will have opportunities to take part in drama activities as part of their development in the speaking and listening element of the curriculum for English.

Make the most of your marketing

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:58 +0100

Starting out

Setting up a nursery, hoping that places will fill quickly, is a very risky business, as the levels of investment required are high. Marketing means finding out what the customers’ requirements are because if your provision doesn’t satisfy the needs of parents and their children, this will have a negative effect on occupancy. To do this accurately, you need to undertake market research.

Market research

Security advice for nurseries with outdoor play equipment

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:58 +0100

Security and vandalism are concerns to all sections of the community in some shape or form. The operators of nursery and playgroups are no different to other groups. The advice I am about to give is generic and each location would have to be assessed on an individual basis, to identify the correct measures to use.

Questioning national stereotypes

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:56 +0100

The circumstances of young people in Palestine provide a valuable case study to challenge national stereotypes, not least because a better understanding can redress misconceptions about British Muslims. The familiar images are of stone-throwing flag-burning youths and suicide bombers, or of an oppressed minority. Young Palestinians are presented as proto-terrorists, or helpless victims.

Global poverty as a citizenship issue

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:56 +0100

The ‘Crick Report’ on Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools advocated learning to:

know about the world as a global community, and that people around the world live in communities as we do; understand that there are similarities and differences between communities in terms of social, economic, cultural, political and environmental circumstances; also understand the meaning of terms such as poverty, famine, disease, charity, aid, human rights (QCA, 1998, 48).

Building a class library

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:53 +0100

Books have a special place in introducing a child to his/her first experiences with language. Whether that introduction is the reading of a poem, the sharing of a story, or the introduction of simple concepts, books play an especially valid role in shaping children’s perceptions and skills during the early years. This article seeks to investigate how you can select a range of books that will be ideal for your needs, whether you are seeking to start or improve a ‘class library’.

Taking risks and taking care

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:51 +0100

Twelve years of igniting a 5 November bonfire and firework display seem to prove that risk taking is a personal strength or weakness, depending on your own perspective. The wary would castigate me, or profess admiration from afar, whilst risk-takers might understand this annual expedition into the dark.

Valuing and developing creativity

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:51 +0100

Creativity and creative teaching are becoming part of the educational psyche but let’s set the concept of creativity within some kind of context. The government is beginning to recognise that young people need to develop the creative skills that will be necessary in the workplace of the future. Fast-moving technology and the increasing demands for flexibility and imagination mean that all our pupils need to be able to pose questions such as ‘what if …?’, ‘why?’ and ‘why not?’

Supply teaching: from the outside looking in

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:51 +0100

Retirement for me has meant several sea changes; some of them, like an Eccles cake in the morning and listening to Humphrey Lyttleton shows on internet radio, seem utterly decadent; some have been about earning money to top up the pension. The chief earner is supply teaching, which seems, incidentally, to net about £110 daily.

Citizenship education and curriculum planning – Norfolk LEA

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:48 +0100

Step 1. Meeting with the Headteacher to plan the overall delivery of citizenship in your school

Plan ahead and be ready to negotiate the following:

Funding

Both yours (management responsibility points) and the school citizenship budget. It may be useful to have a draft project plan drawn up which costs events/books/visiting speakers etc.

Timetabling

Managing writing in the early years

jlee — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:46 +0100

Managing children's writing is dependent on high-quality planning, assessment and evaluation. It is also about the way that young children learn. Theirs is still a world where practical experiences outweight theoretical thinking and they respond with the whole body as well as the mind. The life experiences of some may be limited, and their vocabulary and grammar under-developed. We need to keep this very much in mind.

What is writing?

It is a representational way of:

Bringing history to life

admin — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:19:14 +0100

Within the Foundation Stage guidance and in the National Curriculum programme of study for history at Key Stage 1 there are many challenges. How do we teach young children to understand the passage of time and identify the way in which things have changed over the years? How do we help young children to interpret what happened in the past and why? What are the best ways of studying the people who lived in their area in the past?