Nursery World - Master plans

How to develop long-, medium-and short-term plans that address the needs and interests of children in your setting To plan effectively, early years settings need to plan at three levels: long-term, medium-term and short-term.

How to develop long-, medium-and short-term plans that address the needs and interests of children in your setting

To plan effectively, early years settings need to plan at three levels: long-term, medium-term and short-term.

LONG-TERM PLANS

Long-term plans need to chart the learning that is likely to occur during the time a child is in your setting, and are concerned with the curriculum that you offer. Ask yourself:

* What do you expect the children to learn throughout their time in your setting?

* What experiences and opportunities do you intend to offer?

* What resources will be made available?

* What makes your setting a special place for children?

Long-term plans vary, but they usually include:

* broad learning intentions across the six areas of learning (and each aspect within them)

* the main experiences and activities that are likely to be on offer to children both within and beyond the setting and how these relate to the areas of learning and their aspects

* an indication of progression, to show how opportunities differ for more and less experienced children

* resources that are available to children

* how you tend to use the local and wider community for children's learning

* regular features of the calendar, such as relevant festivals and annual outings.

Curriculum packs.

Writing a long-term plan from scratch is a daunting task, so settings often refer to a published curriculum pack or an LEA guidance pack. Such packs can be good starting points for planning, but should be viewed critically.

* Adopt the bits that suit your team, setting, resources and the community that you serve.

* Adapt the learning and activities that do not fit your needs and remove any that you think are unlikely to take place.

This process may well include writing notes all over and crossing out sections in your nice new curriculum pack!

Developing the long-term plan.

Your observations of the children over time will help you develop your long-term plan and determine what learning behaviours actually tend to occur and what will, therefore, be likely in the future.

Long-term plans tend to be reviewed and developed, rather than discarded and rewritten.

The first three sections for each area of learning (definition with list of priorities, learning, and teaching) in Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage are extremely helpful for reviewing long-term plans.

Even if you have no written plan, look at these sections. Are you providing those opportunities?

National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies.

Both the national literacy and numeracy strategies are incorporated into the Communication, Language and Literacy and Mathematical Development areas of learning.

The long-term plan is the point at which practitioners working with reception classes will want to show how the elements of the strategies will be incorporated into the curriculum. Covering this at the long-term stage may help to ensure the strategies are incorporated as part of a coherent early years approach and do not become add-ons or separate 'lessons'.

Format.

In Wandsworth, the three maintained nursery schools present their long-term plans as a series of 'policies' - large books with photographs of children past and present, resource lists, and descriptions of child-initiated and adult-initiated activities and what the children learn from them. These books are readily available, usually in the entrance area, and include an invitation for parents and children to share them.

A good way of presenting long-term plans is to display them around the setting, especially when the plans relate to the learning opportunities that arise from the provision. For example, the painting area has a plan highlighting the learning that may arise from children painting and exploring colour and media. This approach is especially helpful in informing parents and ensuring practitioners are aware of the potential learning that can take place.

Some settings present their plans quite differently, but whatever the format, it is important that everyone is clear about what children are being encouraged and allowed to do and the educational benefits of all aspects of the provision.

Starting the long-term plan

* Look around the setting and list the resources in each area outside and in.

* As a team, brainstorm the learning that is likely in each area.

* Take each area of learning in turn and consider the activities and experiences that you offer children from age three. Refer to Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage to help you focus.

* Over a long period of time take each aspect from the areas of learning (the coloured double-page spreads in the Curriculum Guidance) and consider what you want children to learn at each stage of the progression, from the stepping stones through to the early learning goals. Published materials can help here.

MEDIUM-TERM PLANS.

Medium-term plans cover what practitioners decide to focus on over the next few weeks - a month to six weeks is normally manageable. The starting point should not be 'a topic', however; observations need to be the starting point. What has happened in the previous few weeks needs to be the main factor in determining what happens next.

Starting the medium-term plan.

As a team, look at observations made over the last few weeks and discuss any trends that arise. Ask yourselves:

* What have the children been especially interested in and keen to do?

* What have the children or groups of children been avoiding or having difficulty with?

* What learning needs and priorities in each area of learning do these observations suggest?

Note any special events or relevant festivals that will be occurring.

As a result of these discussions, start mapping out for each area of learning the broad learning intentions that you are going to prioritise.

Record only what you are going to concentrate on - not everything that might happen. Your long-term plan should already have dealt with this.

Themes, topics, starting points.

There appears to be a common misconception across early years settings that you have to have a topic or theme. This is not true. Yet it is rare to find a setting that does not have a topic in progress.

Key Stage 2 classes often need repeating topic cycles because of the nature of the National Curriculum programmes of study and schemes of work, but this is not the case for the Foundation Stage.

Topics or themes can be a useful way of bringing together related knowledge, understanding and skills, but they should not necessarily be the first consideration in medium-term planning.

You may want to choose a theme or topic, but check what your early plans suggest. Topics are more successful if there is evidence to suggest that the children will be genuinely interested in them, and if they avoid lots of whole-class discussion - this is not what young children's learning is about!

As an alternative to a topic, choose several books that will act as starting points for discussion and activities throughout the duration of the plan. Or use key developments to the provision, for example starting a vegetable patch, as starting points - a focus from which other activities, experiences and learning can arise.

Main activities and experiences.

There will be plenty of opportunity to plan activities over the coming weeks, so at the medium-term stage, document just the main activities - especially those that need special preparation:

* particular stories, books and computer programmes that you want children to become familiar with

* places that you will visit

* artefacts and new resources that you will bring in

* special projects that may need careful preparation

* songs and rhymes that the children will have the opportunity to learn

* Key language that you will be focusing upon.

The medium-term plan is a forecast; it is not written in stone. As time progresses, it will become increasingly important to check the plan for its breadth and balance across the six areas of learning and across the aspects within.

Format.

Conventionally, settings tend to draw up medium-term plans on a large sheet of six text boxes - one for each area of learning. Each box then includes broad learning intentions, starting points, key activities and experiences.

Once a plan goes live, it can still be added to, highlighting where the plan has been addressed and adding ideas and spontaneous and child-initiated learning.

SHORT-TERM PLANS.

Short-term plans cover what adults and children will be encouraged to do over the next few days. The medium-term plan provides a structure and direction to the short-term plans, but at this stage the ongoing observations of children are crucial. Successful plans have a limited number of learning intentions and are based upon observations of the children.

Starting the short-term plan.

Bring together observations made of children over the day or week and consider what these suggest in terms of children's needs.

Refer to the broad learning intentions in the medium-term plan and decide which of these feel relevant for that particular week.

List a few learning intentions - one or two for most of the areas of learning -and aim to cover all six areas in a fortnight. Ask yourselves:

* What do you want children to be able to do?

* What do you want them to begin to understand?

* What attitudes and dispositions do you want to foster?

* What aspects will adults focus on in observations?

From these learning intentions, plan a variety of experiences and activities both inside and outdoors.

Differentiation.

Differentiation, to meet children's differing needs, should be a particular focus of short-term planning. For every learning intention, it should be possible to plan a range of experiences and activities to take into account different learning styles.

For any learning intention, consider opportunities for experiences and activities that:

* are rich in language, for example listening to a story, scribing children's words and encouraging them to write

* are physical and involve movement and work on a big scale, such as an outside maths games and acting out a story

* are imaginative and creative, for example, exploring media and imaginative play

* involve an element of challenge or competition, for example a treasure hunt or disassembling to find out how something works

* are multisensory and involve exploration, for example, sand play, water play, food tasting.

In the early years, any activity or experience could support a wide range of learning intentions over many areas of learning. In terms of the adults'

focus, however, it is probably better to focus on the learning intentions written in the plans.

Format.

A rigid timetable listing what will happen in every area in the setting over a week is not so much a plan as an organisation chart. If you work with these, consider making them less rigid and leaving opportunities for child-initiated learning and spontaneity.

Notebooks can be useful for short-term plans, but column-planners are becoming increasingly popular as they tend to be open-ended and show clearly how observations, learning intentions, activities and experiences will link. Ideally, they will also give a space for brief comments to evaluate the week (see box). Do note that not all columns will be full - for every learning intention there should be a range of activities and experiences.

Making it work.

Consider the organisation of activities. Is an activity targeted at a particular child or group? This doesn't necessarily mean that only targeted children are allowed to take part. Which activities will work well for small groups? Which ones will work best if groups are slightly larger? Which adults will be responsible for setting up, leading activities and organising resources?

Making it manageable

* Decide if the team needs to organise a weekly planning meeting, a short daily meeting or chat or a combination of the two.

* Agree a starting and end time for the meeting and do as much as you can together.

* Begin each planning meeting by looking at observations. This should not be seen as a distraction. Sharing observations and evaluations, whether written or remembered, is time well spent.

* Ensure that everyone has a copy of the medium-term plans, or make a very large copy that can be seen by all.

* Plan the learning intentions first. You can add more activities and experiences as the week progresses and as you have more ideas.

* Write down only as much as you need for everyone to be clear about what they are doing and why, and what sort of learning behaviours will be encouraged.

Making it flexible.

Draw up plans for you and for your children, and they should work for you and your children. Adapt them if necessary, but try to stick to the original learning intentions unless it becomes clear that they were not matched to the children's needs.

If you plan to have a range of experiences and activities against the learning intention, then there will be no need to make sure all the children do every activity. Use evaluation spaces in your plans or our notebook (see box, p21) to record the child-initiated learning - this is the children's contribution and just as valid as what the adults have planned.

CONCLUSION

If you can involve everyone in planning, in ways that are appropriate and relevant to them, you should find that the team becomes more confident and takes more ownership of the plans and the curriculum. As they become more confident, they will become more flexible and responsive. This will help ensure you are offering a first-class early years curriculum.

PLANNING FOR OUTDOOR LEARNING.

There are three common approaches taken to planning for outdoor activities: 1 Drawing up a separate plan with separate learning intentions and activities.

2 Incorporating outdoor play in the long-, medium-and short-term plans for the indoors.

3 Disregarding planning and simply grabbing some resources from the shed!

Option one is a common approach, but one that creates a lot of extra work and only works well if there is a dedicated team operating outside - unless it is well co-ordinated, it might not link with the planned indoor play.

Option two can suit most settings, as it needs only one planning format and has the added benefit of ensuring that outside activities complement indoor activities and vice versa. (It is useful to mark outdoor activities with a highlighter pen to show the balance between outdoor and indoor learning.) Option three is used by settings that see outdoor play like a primary school playtime and is very much at odds with the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage.

SHORT TERM PLANNING.

LEARNING INTENTIONS

What do we want children to learn?

List:

The main knowledge and understanding you want the children to acquire:

* To know that...

* To be aware of...

* To understand...

The skills you want them to develop

* To be able to...

* To...

The attitudes you plan to foster in them

* To become...

* To be...

Don't list everything. Record only the main learning intentions for the day or week. Make clear the early learning goals that you are working towards.

ACTIVITIES, EXPERIENCES AND LANGUAGE

What do we want children to do?

List:

* adult-led and child-initiated activities that may achieve your learning intentions

* opportunities for play, experience and exploration that you will provide for children to initiate their own activities

* stories, songs, rhymes, etc that you will use with the children.

Think about:

* possible visits, visitors to the setting and items of interest that could be brought into the setting

* how you can adapt activities and experiences for children with special educational needs, disabilities or for whom English is not their first language.

* how to adapt and extend learning for more able children.

RESOURCES

List:

* equipment, books, areas that will be used.

LINKS

List:

* other relevant early learning goals - not your main ones

CHILDREN

Note down:

* how the children will be organised and which children the activities are planned for. It could be everyone, groups or individuals.

COMMENTS

What have they learnt? What next?

* Make brief notes about how the children's work and play developed and whether they promoted the learning intentions.

* Think about whether the children need to repeat anything, whether ideas need to be developed and extended or if it is time to move on to something new.

* Use your record-keeping systems for comments on individual children's learning.

* Use these comments to inform future planning.