Change of Timetable
A bit of information on our changes since coming back from Christmas break.
We've had a bit of a change up with our timetable. After looking at where the children were with their attainment after the first two terms and their engagement with child led learning, we decided we needed a bit of a change.
We now have a longer morning, this has all of our directed teaching time in it - RWI (phonics), maths, topic (currently Space) and a set 'activity time'. Also within the morning there is 'read & feed' which is fruit and a story, we go outside to the playground for a run around, known as the 'daily mile' and we then have 'chatty snack' where we sit in small groups and chat while we have more snack. As our lunch has moved back half an hour we felt we needed a second snack, we've also know the children like to graze throughout the day!
The activity time is when we do lots of sensory exploratory and encourage development in our personal, social and emotional resilience - playing board games, turn taking etc. The sensory exploration has a particular benefit with developing fine motor skills, we're adding lots of things like paintbrushes, pipettes, glue sticks etc.
Our afternoon is then child-led play, the children are in charge of their play and decide what they do and how they develop their own activities. We've already seen that this child-led play is so much more beneficial and the children are much more engaged and focused since our timetable change.
Thursday remains as PE and music in the afternoons, we will have a child-led play session before lunch on Thursday so the children don't miss out on this.
We also now have lunch in the dance studio, just off the side of the hall. The children then go out to the playground for lunchtime play. They've done so well with this change and again we've seen benefits of this change.
All the pictures attached are from our activity time - hopefully you'll agree that the children are engaged and progressing their development with these activities. Any questions, as always, I'm around in the morning or the end of the day or by email if that's easier.