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“Strive to make everyday the best day of your life, because there is no good reason not to.” Hal Elrod

Reducing My Provision

Sep 07, 2020

If I have to limit my provision what areas should I prioritise?

Remember here that one of the best resources we have is YOU! Any learning can happen when we have an interested adult, who knows the child and has a good understanding of child development knowledge.

Also children learn holistically and therefore we can offer opportunities for mark making, maths, language development throughout our provision. No longer requiring separate maths areas.

If due to Covid you’re having to limit the number of areas you have to have here are some of my thoughts on areas to include;

Block play

Some of the best learning I’ve seen has happened here. Create a huge block area and make small world and loose parts available. I once worked with Miss 3 who showed sustained interest in using the blocks to make a representation of the airport she had visited on her way to Poland. I watched how she liner the blocks up to make a runway then made a plane using wooden pegs and

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Nicola Hacking: What's Next?

Apr 23, 2020

What happens next?

I was delighted to be part of a zoom conference on Sunday entitled ‘Which Way Now? Creating a Better Education System after Lockdown’. The panel consisted of speakers including EYFS, Primary, Secondary and Union Leaders; although they apologised for the lack of diversity within the panel and promised to be back with representatives from SEND and Post 16 amongst others. I listened with great interest to Elaine Bennett’s truly impassioned speech about the value and importance of the Early Years in education, and how we can use this horrendous experience to prompt big changes to our current system.

Elaine spoke at length about how the Early Years is at the forefront of education, but why? What is it we do so well? Well I think the Lockdown has highlighted a few key factors:

We already value parents as playing a key role in children’s learning and have effective working partnerships with them. We understand that parents are experts in their child and are th