long term planning.........confused!

[stacey w]

hi
Would anyone be able to give me some advice. We are currently trying to start our planning around EYFS for our toddler room. I am coming up with the medium and short term planning but im having problems with the long term plan. I want to base it around the six areas but im a bit unsure what to put in it for this age group as i would usually work with preschool age.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[tutu]

you don t need any long term planning in fact you dont need medium plans. you need to be reactive to the passions and interests of the toddlers and plan on a weekly basis to meet them. what are they enjoying this week? ow have they reacted to the activities today then stretch them next week keeping 80% familiar and 20 % new. you need to base it on their experiences not on the areas of learning which are only 1/16th of the eyfs almost irrelevant to toddlers. throw it away and focus on tomorrow. pure eyfs and so much more simple and focussed on the children. planning is for the benefit of the adults not the kids. turn your head round and start again you will find it so much more rewarding and exciting and both staff ad children will benefit.

[stacey w]

Thank you for your advice. Its very helpful. I had organised the pre school room in my setting with regards to planning.
the manager then decided she would like the same for the toddler room and wasnt sure how to go about it.

thanx again.

[tutu]

its just the eyfs stacey. good luck!

[Ruthierhyme]

Hi, adapting your long term plan into a buisness plan or to become your Setting's objectives - overall hopes and aims can be one way to reason out not having a learning & development focussed long term plan .. alternatively having the development matters as the guide criteria for the children's 'next steps could also become or supersede the need for long term plans ..

Knowing how you're supposed to comply, be able to explain and what to actually put in place in order to reassure yourself, staff and parents that you can provide outstanding delivery of eyfs is a potential minefield , this is a really good example of what I mean - sincere apologies to Rotherfield Pre-School that I've not been in touch to ask permission to link sorry - Long term plan image

xx

[Ruthierhyme]

Originally Posted by stacey w

Thank you for your advice. Its very helpful. I had organised the pre school room in my setting with regards to planning.
the manager then decided she would like the same for the toddler room and wasnt sure how to go about it.

thanx again.

To add on to this could you identify areas to cover needs rather than learning and then maybe use a form of continuous planning to show your manager how the room adapts for learning & development?

[stacey w]

Thank you so much that was a great help.

[sarahnev707]

If you read some reports on the Ofsted website you will see that you are expected to have a certain amount of long term planning in place.

Confusion seems to be that people think long terms plans have to be themes for each month of the year!

That's not the case as the Eyfs is clearly a document which expects us to plan for individual children's interests.

However, there is still a certain amount of long term planning that we need to do, even if we intend to differentiate everything for the children.

For example, most of us will have Christmas or Kwanzaa on our long term plans for December... we will do something around Valentines day for February... we will have plans to cover Easter or Passover in March / April.

At the same time, you will also plan long term for John's mum's wedding or Jane's birthday.

Long term planning is of course showing how you will meet the Eyfs...

BUT my understanding is it is also about looking at the year ahead and planning your intended activities to cover the requirements of the Eyfs to introduce children to and teach them about global events, festivals and celebrations.

Hope this helps

[stacey w]

Thank you Sarah that is a great help. Im just so confused planninf for toddlers and trying to make sure its age appropriate. Thanks again, thats made it clearer.