There are many benefits to setting up a Foundation Stage unit, although practitioners should be aware of the challenges

The Foundation Stage is described as a 'distinct stage with an identity of its own' in the Department for Education and Skills video 'Effective Reception Class Practice'. It begins when a child reaches the age of three and ends when they start Year One of primary school, usually in the September after their fifth birthday. Yet this apparently seamless phase in a child's life will, in reality, be marked by transition, usually from home to an early years setting, and later from that setting to a reception class. In an attempt to limit such disruptions and improve the quality of provision throughout the Foundation Stage, some schools and local authorities are integrating nursery and reception classes.

Various models for this integration exist, ranging from joint planning and shared use of an outdoor area through to total integration of nursery and reception-age children within shared indoor and outdoor areas (see case studies).

Setting up a Foundation Stage unit is not a cheap, or easy option. It requires schools to rethink their staffing, organisation, use of environment, routines and procedures. Most importantly, it demands strict adherence to sound early years principles.

A unit is not a means to introduce more formal schooling at an earlier age. Indeed, the aim is to prolong the benefits of good nursery and pre-school experience and reduce the trauma of change and upheaval for young children.

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Benefits

Reception-age children benefit from the continued provision of a play-based, nursery-style environment and the opportunity to progress through the Foundation Stage at their own pace. But a two-year 'all-through' stage brings significant gains for all children, their families and practitioners:

  • It strengthens the relationships between practitioners and children and enhances their awareness of children's needs and their formative assessment. It also helps settings to establish stronger relationships with parents and carers and to involve them to a greater extent in assessing their children's learning.
  • It reduces the number of transitions a young child experiences. For many children, the transitions from home to nursery to reception class can be traumatic, even when managed well. Allowing children to remain in the same environment, with familiar adults and routines until the start of Year One, reduces stress and helps build confidence and emotional security.
  • Children can work at their experiential level rather than chronological age for longer. This means that there is no ceiling of development for nursery-age children, who may benefit from playing alongside older and more experienced children. Less experienced children particularly benefit when they reach reception age, as they can continue to engage in developmentally appropriate play alongside younger children, can access appropriate resources easily and have the time and space to develop at their own pace.
  • Children can transfer to Year One, and all the routines and procedures of the national curriculum and school life in general, at a later stage and when they are more likely to have the emotional security and confidence to cope with the changes. Even children who have not reached all the early learning goals will be better able to deal with the new experiences in primary school life.
  • Siblings can be accommodated in the same setting. When handled sensitively this can be very beneficial for the children.
  • Reception practitioners have the opportunity to work in a team and to benefit from the expertise of trained nursery nurse and early years staff.
  • Children too benefit from the broader range of skills of a team of practitioners. And providing a keyworker-style system provides greater individual support for children and families.
  • Planning can become more responsive. Separate Foundation Stage guidance gives practitioners some curriculum independence from the national curriculum (and the learning needs of older primary school children). This, in turns, enables practitioners to develop 'responsive' planning, in which children are allowed time and space to follow their own interests, uninterrupted by other demands, such as playtimes and assemblies, that may not best support the particular learning needs of three-, four-and five-year-olds.
  • A Foundation Stage or early years team are likely to have more say in the development of whole school policy than a lone nursery or reception teacher.
  • Linking nursery and reception areas in an open-plan style frees up space.
  • More space makes it easier to provide a 'workshop' style environment, where larger areas can be devoted to, for example, creative, messy or large-scale block play, and means practitioners provide a wider range of resources.
  • Children have greater freedom of movement and more space in which to develop activities - and freedom of choice for children is likely to promote the development of positive learning dispositions.
  • All the Foundation Stage children can have constant access to planned outdoor provision.
  • Incorporating reception children into a smaller 'enclosed' environment within the primary school - for example, one that they need not leave to go to the toilet or dining hall - is beneficial to both their physical and emotional security.

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Challenges

As with any initiative that aims to make the learning experience more meaningful for children, there are practical difficulties that will need to be addressed.

When judging what level of integration may be appropriate for their setting, schools must take account of the specific nature of their accommodation, how a unit may affect their funding and the needs of their children and families.

Challenges will present themselves, particularly where historical routines and traditional perceptions of the reception class and its place in the primary sector prevail. What is vital is that provision provided in the unit remains rooted in good early years practice. To achieve this, schools will need to consider the following factors:

Size Settings should not be too large in number. Where several classes are to be integrated, it is worth considering creating parallel units.

Admissions It is vital that admissions and settling procedures are flexible and that practitioners can devote ample time, planning and energies to ensuring that children and their families are supported through the transition from home to school.

Children's needs Meeting the needs of three-, four-and five-year-olds is much more demanding than working with just one chronological year group. Practitioners used to working with four-and five-year-olds may need support and training to work effectively with three-year-olds.

Part-time and full-time children Balancing the needs of all children can present particular difficulties.

Ratios Foundation Stage units have high staffing needs, since the legally required adult:child ratio for nursery classes is 1:13.

Staff qualifications and training The quality and experience of unit staff is vitally important, and practitioners continue to need training and opportunities for team building once the unit is up and running.

Management Leading a multi-disciplinary team of teachers, nursery nurses and assistants is demanding and requires skill, experience and a degree of non-contact time. Where this is acknowledged and Foundation Stage co-ordinators are represented in senior management teams, then the needs of the Foundation Stage are less likely to go unnoticed within a primary school.

Routines and procedures Historical school routines and procedures, such as timetabling and planning and assessment pro formas, may need to be challenged and amended. For example, weekly or fortnightly planning cycles are more appropriate for the Foundation Stage than half-termly forecasts. It is not always appropriate for reception-age children to have their concentrated play interrupted by the need, for example, to attend assembly or have a formal PE session.

Planning The need to ensure an appropriate balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities and experiences demands rigorous and creative thought on the part of practitioners. Planning must be responsive and collaborative, emanating from observations of children's needs and interests and a sound understanding of the Foundation Stage curriculum.

Observation Efficient methods of observation, tracking and monitoring need to be in place as practitioners may be interacting with more than their 'own' class of children.

Communication and support The current top-down and results-led approach that prevails in education today can make very unreasonable demands on Foundation Stage practitioners and children. Senior managers, head teachers and governors must, therefore, be made aware of the particular nature of the Foundation Stage, so that they can support early years practitioners in their commitment to the principles of good practice. KS1 and KS2 colleagues, too, need to be informed about the early years curriculum to ensure that Foundation Stage practitioners do not become isolated.

Year One staff This group of staff, in particular, need training and support to acquire an understanding of the principles of the Foundation Stage, to better understand the needs of the children transferring into their class, and to make them aware of how best to capitalise on the children's learning.

While the challenges may appear great, the benefits can far outweigh the difficulties.

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PLANNING

Creating a Foundation Stage unit requires careful thought about what it would involve in several important areas

To achieve a level of integration that is right for their school and to create a unit that is faithful to the principles of the Foundation Stage, there are a number of key areas that early years practitioners need to consider.

The following is an outline of each of the main areas, with accompanying questions and points to help practitioners assess how they can best create a Foundation Stage unit for their school.

Parents and families

It is vital that a school involves children's families to raise their awareness of the Foundation Stage and the ways that young children learn. Supporting parents is particularly important where a unit changes long-standing practice and procedures and parents are used to a more formal approach to reception class teaching. Parents are anxious and often unsure about their children's early learning experiences and are keen to be kept informed.

Winning parents' support is likely to be more successful in schools where their involvement is already a priority. A two-year period enables practitioners to establish good contact with families and enables parents to become involved at a level that suits them.

  • Can you offer home visits to families before children start attending the setting?
  • Can you arrange flexible settling-in routines with parents based on children's individual needs and review them regularly, on a daily basis if necessary?
  • What strategies will there be for dialogue with parents? Will you be able to communicate on a daily basis?
  • Consider allocating keyworkers to children and parents, particularly if you are in a large setting where a child, and their parent, can easily feel bewildered.
  • Encourage parents to become involved in the daily life of the unit, but be flexible about your expectations of parental involvement.

Space/environment

Setting up a unit will involve schools having to refurbish, extend or redevelop their existing teaching spaces. Use the opportunity to assess how best to use available space.

  • How many children will be in the unit? Consider setting up parallel units if large numbers of children are involved.
  • Can you adapt your building to create a large open space, or ideally, a series of linked rooms, to which children have free access?
  • Are resources accessible to children? Can the space be organised into workshop areas - offering construction, role play and so on - where children can choose resources and initiate tasks and activities?
  • Can you provide toilets and dining areas within the unit, so that children do not need to leave it? Is the unit secure, so that children cannot run out or find themselves in unfamiliar places without adult supervision? Is this respected by other staff, visitors and parents? Will the environment promote emotional security?
  • Can you provide a quiet area where individual or small groups of children can rest, take 'time out' or work with an adult on a task or activity such as a shared writing or a scientific experiment? Such an area can reassure parents that their more experienced reception child has the space and means to work at an extended or challenging level without distraction from younger children.
  • Can you create an area where parents settling their children can spend short periods of time away from their children but still be close at hand?
  • Will there be a telephone link to the rest of the school and access to an outside line, so that families can be contacted when needed?
  • Is the outdoor area manageable? Has it adequate storage and a variety of surfaces such as grass and safety surface? The area should be ample enough to provide empty spaces and a mix of static and adaptable resources, but not so big that it is difficult to supervise. Create smaller areas within any large area, so that children do not feel threatened. Can you create shade and shelter, so that children can make optimum use of the outdoors in most weather conditions? Fit a safe external electricity point so that tape recorders and cassette players can be used outside. An external water tap is also useful.

fsu6Structure of day

In primary schools, the day is usually planned around traditional timetables and rarely takes account of the needs of reception children, despite exceptions being made for nursery classes. Establishing routines and procedures that are appropriate but different to those for the rest of the school may, at first, be difficult. However, the changes are valid and it is important that practitioners clearly understand why.

  • * Where nursery and reception-age children are integrated, consider a later start time for nursery children (for example, 9am for reception, 9.30am for nursery). The initial period can be a special time for older children, and means that younger children come to an already active setting.
  • Concentration skills and positive dispositions to learning develop best when children are allowed to follow their motivations and interests over extended periods of time. Are you able to provide long sessions of uninterrupted free-flow play, or are children forced to break from an activity to go to, say, a computer suite? View the organisation of the day from a child's perspective to help you decide what to change.
  • Can you provide access to supervised outdoor play all day? Ensure that your planning for outdoors is given high status, and that stimulating activities and play experiences are available to engage the enthusiasm of children and practitioners alike. Encourage team members to be supportive of each other and flexible, particularly when the weather is poor.
  • Can you provide space within the setting for children to eat lunch (if provided) in informal, family-style groups? Can the children set the tables, serve and clear away? Consider setting up a snack area, where such things as water, fruit and leftovers (say, from a breakfast club) can be made available for children to help themselves during the day. Practitioners will need to attend regularly to such an area, but it can be an excellent way to help children to make healthy decisions about what and when to eat.
  • The Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage states clearly the importance of planning a balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities. How will your planning and observation reflect this balance and give equal status to both kinds of activity?

Teamwork

  • A Foundation Stage unit will incorporate practitioners with varying qualifications and experience, so it is essential that a team leader or co-ordinator is appointed, ideally with some managerial experience.
  • Plan for and spend time on team building. Provide opportunities for staff to meet and share their concerns and enthusiasms as well as just planning.
  • A flexibility of roles will develop where there is a positive approach to teamwork, and children benefit most when all practitioners are enthusiastic about all aspects of children's development - physical, emotional and academic. Teachers must remember, however, that they probably earn more than other team members and that ultimate accountability rests with them.
  • What strategies and procedures will you have in place to maintain good communication and healthy team relationships?
  • While teachers may leave the Foundation Stage unit to teach other primary classes, the nursery nurses and teaching assistants are likely to remain more constant team members and have a vital role to play in supporting new teachers, particularly those with little early years training or experience. How will senior management and governors acknowledge this vital role? And how will they promote support staff's personal and professional development?

Links with rest of school

Raising awareness of good early years practice among primary practitioners has always been a struggle. An all-through Foundation Stage unit requires a degree of independence from KS1 and KS2, but equally it is vital that unit practitioners should not become isolated from the rest of the school.

  • Consider what links will remain useful, and ways in which older children can benefit from the facilities and resources available to Foundation Stage children.
  • Think creatively about ways to inform other staff about early years practice. Perhaps a 'bottom-up' approach needs to be developed, whereby the principles of early years education can be applied to the rest of the primary stage.

Observation

The Foundation Stage Profile has now replaced baseline assessment for assessing reception class children (see 'Further reading'). Practitioners familiar with children throughout the Foundation Stage will be well placed to make assessments, based on their knowledge of children over two years.

  • Although it is important to be aware of children's chronological age within the Foundation Stage, encourage practitioners to focus on children's levels of experience rather than their age or level of ability.
  • Share responsibility for observations throughout the team to provide different observational perspectives on the children. How will you support practitioners who lack confidence in their writing skills when recording observations?
  • Children's observations can be collected in a scrapbook, which will support formative assessments and can be presented to the child and their family when they leave the unit.

Planning

Planning activities suitable for both nursery and reception age children need not be difficult. Directed tasks should be flexible so that children can make sense of them for themselves, and practitioners should use their observations of how children respond to resources and their knowledge of individual children to adapt tasks accordingly.

  • Keep in mind possible learning outcomes as well as planned learning intentions in activities.
  • Be responsive. Act on observations and plan tasks and themes that respond to children's motivations and interests and support their learning needs.
  • Provide resources to stimulate and support child-initiated experiences and activities. Make action plans for individuals and groups of children in response to observations.
  • A short planning cycle, such as weekly or fortnightly, enables responsive planning. Half-termly forecasts generally don't.
  • Topics can be useful, but it is often more relevant to have several themes running concurrently (for varying periods of time) to cater for all children's interests.
  • How will you arrange your planning meetings? Head teachers will have to find ways to ensure all team members can contribute and are kept in formed of planning decisions. This may mean paying non-teaching staff to attend planning meetings.

Transferring on

Children who have experienced little disruption during the Foundation Stage are more likely to be emotionally ready for the transition to Year One.

  • How will you prepare the children (and their parents) for the transition? Encourage Year One staff to spend time in the Foundation Stage to get to know the children and become familiar with their learning styles and dispositions. You could mark the end of a child's time in the Foundation Stage with a party or special assembly.

Meeting children's needs

Try looking at your setting from the perspective of:

  • a three-year-old leaving their parent for the first time
  • a four-year-old who has had experience of daycare since shortly after birth
  • a child with learning difficulties
  • a sibling pair with a 13-month age gap
  • a child with reduced mobility
  • a five-year-old with no experience of nursery or pre-school
  • an experienced five-year-old with high level literacy and numeracy skills
  • a hyperactive five-year-old with emotional difficulties.

 What do you need to do to help each child feel secure, active, stimulated and supported by the learning environment you have provided?

It is essential that organisational innovations do not take place at the expense of children's needs and entitlements. There are many unique aspects to nursery education, and it is only by building on the good practice that already exists in pre-school and nursery settings, and by extending and developing this to include reception-age children, that we can hope to develop Foundation Stage settings that provide the best possible start to education.

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CASE STUDIES

Wimbledon Park First School, West London

Wimbledon Park First School in west London has had a Foundation Stage unit for the past two years and is now seeing the real value of such a set-up, with the unit's first intake of children progressing undaunted into Year One.

Head teacher Dee Russell says, 'It's an impressive system and we're now seeing the benefits of it. It helps make the children very confident, independent and secure. 'The children's emotional intelligence has been enhanced dramatically by this process, and it's going to have a big impact on standards across the school.'

The unit, comprising 60 reception children and 40 children in each of the two nursery sessions, is staffed by three teachers, three nursery nurses, nearly always three student nursery nurses, and parents, who drop in occasionally.

The unit is spread across two reception classes, two outdoor areas and four nursery areas - one huge, three small. The nursery areas are resourced to provide the essentials of nursery provision - role play, art, construction and so on - to create a 'workshop environment'. The daily routine takes account of children's attention spans and involves the reception class children alternating half-hour literacy and mathematics sessions in their own classrooms with shared activities with the nursery children.

'It enables the children to learn at their experiential level rather than at their chronological age,' says Ms Russell.

Running a successful team, she believes, is dependent on 'non-contact time for planning', a 'very cohesive, multi-disciplinary team' (team members have all worked across the ages), and 'constant communication'.

An added advantage for the Wimbledon team is that both the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 co-ordinators work in reception, so easing the task of giving the unit its distinct identity while still integrating it into the rest of the school.

Ms Russell suggests that schools hoping to set up a unit should team up with a school that already has one and so gain advice and help with practical problems.

 

Linthwaite Clough Junior and Infant Early Years Schools, Huddersfield

Part of Linthwaite Clough Junior and Infant Early Years Schools, Huddersfield, was built on stilts and the open space underneath was 'filled in' to create a fully integrated Foundation Stage unit.

The unit, which started five years ago in two separate classrooms, is set up in a workshop style, with quiet areas for activities such as writing at either end, and offers direct access to the outdoor play area.

The unit was set up to give nursery and reception children greater access to the outdoors and learning through play and provide more equitable staffing ratios (reception had only one staff member).

The school has two intakes a year, with numbers rising to 40 children in reception and 20 in each nursery session. The unit has two teachers, a nursery nurse and two teaching assistants, with other SEN support staff and students regularly joining the team.

The children spend most of their day together on focused activities. The only time they are apart is when reception has a 40-minute literacy session at the end of the morning and a 20-minute mathematics session before the afternoon nursery children arrive.

Head teacher Gail Newton says, 'We feel it is the most appropriate way to meet the needs of young children. The children gain in many ways and they become curious learners, which is what we aim for.

'We've had to establish good planning, observation and assessment procedures to makes sure it works properly,' she adds. 'Staff need to know why activities are being provided and the expectations of them. If there isn't a focus for the activities, it can all fall down.'

Long-term planning is done on a two-year cycle and around broad half-termly themes. Medium-term planning focuses on the half-termly themes and what they can deliver in each of the six areas of learning.

Short-term plans are set out on one large sheet covering discrete literacy and numeracy activities, theme activities and those arising from child-initiated work. Planned learning intentions, key questions and vocabulary are listed next to each focused activity.

Running a totally integrated unit depends on a shared philosophy, says Gail Newton. Removing the physical barriers 'makes it easier to see how the unit is being used and accessed by the children, but it's not the environment that's the issue. It's the philosophy that's important. If people had come at it from different perspectives and points of view, it would never have worked. The thing we found we had to do at the start was spend a long time discussing the philosophy of early years education and come to a common understanding of our vision for the unit.'

Adamsrill Primary School, Lewisham, South London

There has been an early years unit at Adamsrill Primary School, Lewisham, for over 20 years. The unit comprises two reception classes of 30 children each and a nursery class, with 25 children in each of the morning and afternoon sessions.

The children are in adjoining classrooms, with two of the rooms having direct access to the outdoors and a teacher and nursery nurse in each room.

The nursery children's day starts with their helping staff to set up the outdoor area, and children can access the outdoors or any classroom in the unit throughout the day.

Lynn Hand, early years co-ordinator at the unit for the past 15 years, feels this free flow of children is 'invaluable'. Reception children provide good role models to apprehensive newcomers, and they can revisit the familiar nursery classroom which enhances their confidence and so promotes their learning skills. Once settled, nursery children can visit the reception class to take advantage of fresh challenges. This arrangement makes children feel secure and minimises behaviour problems.

Staff plan outdoor activities together, reception staff plan indoor activities together for their classrooms, and nursery staff plan for their classroom. Staff then liaise over indoor plans to avoid duplicating the resources available.

Mrs Hand feels that having children flowing between different classes (and so accessing different topics and resources) does not impede the observation and assessment of children. Staff have weekly meetings, which include feedback on children's visits. Children tend to make only short visits to other classrooms and often at regular times and return to their own room at the end of each session for storytime.

'It doesn't complicate planning, and I think there can be too much emphasis on observation. I don't like the idea that you have to know what the children are doing all the time. As long as they are accessing quality provision, and accessing it at the right level, then that is all that matters.'

Photographic displays illustrating children's learning, setting aside the first half hour of the day to talk to parents, and family reading workshops have all helped secure parents' support for the unit. Most effective of all has been the school's open-door policy.

'Everybody in the team has to have the same ethos so everyone gives the same message to parents,' adds Ms Hand.

That shared ethos is essential for the smooth running of the unit, in both planning and supporting children's learning.

New team members with limited early years experience or training attend LEA training courses and are given time to observe the planning process and how children learn. Here, Mrs Hand says, 'It is the nursery nurses who can open new staff members' eyes to the learning opportunities within the unit.'

Annesley Primary School, Nottingham

A Foundation Stage unit at Annesley Primary School has eased the termly flow of children from nursery into reception class and brought benefits to children, parents and staff.

The school has three intakes a year to both nursery and reception, with children making the transition from one to the other in the term in which they turn five. Child numbers build throughout the year to up to 30 in the reception class (with one teacher) and 26 in each of the morning and afternoon nursery sessions (with one teacher and a nursery nurse).

The reception and nursery classes are housed in different buildings, so limiting the extent to which the two can be integrated. However, the school has extended the nursery outdoor area as far as the reception area (two huge open-plan classrooms) and added an outside door to give the reception children easy access to the nursery play area.

The reception children share only one playtime with the nursery children - other playtimes are spent with the rest of the school - but there are also regular visits between the two.

Reception and nursery staff do long-and medium-term planning together and do only their short-term planning in isolation. They also liaise regularly.

Shared planning means the classes can share resources. 'That is very valuable,' says nursery teacher Denise Bailey, citing how the classes bought giant construction equipment, which singly they could not have afforded.

The biggest benefit, however, comes through improved communication. Ms Bailey recalls that when she was a reception teacher in other schools, there was often 'an absolute break' between reception and nursery (even when in the same school), and she was presented with 'a lump of children's records that didn't mean much'.

Now, under the current system, she finds the children and parents know what to expect in reception class and staff have a far clearer picture of individual children.

'It provides a valuable stepping stone,' she says.

FURTHER READING

Involving parents

Home-School Policies: A Practical Guide by Titus Alexander, Emma Beresford and John Bastiani (Jet Publications, 15)

Working with Parents by Margy Whalley (The Pen Green Family Centre Team, Pounds 12.99)

Planning, observation and assessment

The Nursery Teacher in Action by Margaret Edgington (Paul Chapman Publishing)

Starting From The Child by Julie Fisher (Open University Press)

'To the point', a guide to the Foundation Stage Profile (Nursery World, 12 September 2002, p23)

'Well observed', the new Foundation Stage Profile (Nursery World, 26 September 2002, p10)

Outdoor play

Exercising Muscles and Minds - outdoor play and the early years curriculum by Marjorie Ouvry (National Early Years Network)

The Great Outdoors - Developing children's learning through outdoor provision by Margaret Edgington (Early Education)

Outdoor Play in the Early Years by Helen Bilton (David Fulton Publishers).

Recent research

'SPEEL - Study of Pedagogical Effectiveness in Early Learning' by Janet Moyles, Sian Adams and Alison Musgrove, see www.dfes.gov.uk/research'Researching effective pedagogy in the early years' by Iram Siraj-Blatchford, Kathy Sylva, Stella Muttock, Rose Gilden and Danny Bell, see www.dfes.gov.uk/researchThe Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project, see www.ioe.ac.uk/cdl/eppe/

By Anne O'Connor, an early years consultant who set up and ran a fully integrated early teachers unit while teaching in Tower Hamlets, London. Case studies by Ruth Thomson