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Foundation stage

By Jane Drake, a partnership advisory teacher in Leeds and author of Planning Children's Play and Learning in the Foundation Stage and Organising Play in the Early Years (David Fulton) Settings will vary in their organisational needs and some issues will be specific to individual teams. However, there are basic principles of good practice that should underpin all decisions about how staff and routines are organised. The most important question relating to quality provision for children is, 'Has this decision been made to meet the children's needs or the adults' convenience?'
By Jane Drake, a partnership advisory teacher in Leeds and author of Planning Children's Play and Learning in the Foundation Stage and Organising Play in the Early Years (David Fulton)

Settings will vary in their organisational needs and some issues will be specific to individual teams. However, there are basic principles of good practice that should underpin all decisions about how staff and routines are organised. The most important question relating to quality provision for children is, 'Has this decision been made to meet the children's needs or the adults' convenience?'

Starting with the children Of course, it is in the children's interests that the staff team is cohesive and content. Managers will want to ensure that systems and rotas work for all practitioners.

There will have to be some flexibility within the team and regular reviews of organisational practice. Shift patterns should take into account individuals' circumstances, and cover plans should be in place to deal with any staff absences. But, in the day-to-day running of a Foundation Stage room, it is the children's needs that should drive practice forward.

Children should be involved in decisions about their day. The nature of the consultation will vary according to the child's developmental stage and communication may not always be verbal. Through observation, staff will be able to assess children's responses to new routines. To help them make appropriate decisions, teams should bear in mind features of young children as learners and the factors that influence their well-being. The following key considerations should be included in staff discussions about organisation.

Children need to build up trusting relationships with adults in the setting It is vital that each child is made to feel comfortable and secure within a setting. In most cases, this process will start even before the child enters nursery, probably with a home visit. The setting will designate a keyworker for each new child and plan time for the child's induction.

Organising home visits can be a challenge because it is often difficult to find a mutually convenient time for family and keyworker to meet. But a high-quality setting that recognises the value of this initial contact will find ways to overcome any barriers.

Many settings also identify a second keyworker for each child to guarantee stability for the child. If the first keyworker is absent, the second will be available.

It is important that the child builds up a relationship with both of these adults who, ideally, should visit the child's home together at the outset.

Releasing two practitioners at the same time may be hard to organise, but managers should try to organise the staff team in such a way as to make this possible.

Before a child enters nursery, the manager should also arrange for the family to visit the setting and plan time for the keyworker to support the child and talk with the parent during the visit.

Where a paired keyworker system is in place, it is important that relationships are taken into account when planning staff leave, and rotas.

In the interests of continuity for the child, both keyworkers should not, wherever possible, be absent at the same time.

The beginning and the end of the nursery day are times when children may particularly need support from a keyworker. Settings should have effective 'meeting and greeting' systems that ensure the member of staff designated to this role is able to give their undivided attention to children entering the nursery.

This person may also be responsible for registering children as they arrive. Teams should think carefully about how children's arrivals and departures are monitored at other times of the day and be clear about who is responsible for recording these.

Children need practitioners and parents to work together in partnership Just as home visits are important in the development of the relationship between practitioner and child, they can also offer a foundation for positive relationships with parents. Practitioners will need to be sensitive to individual circumstances, such as work and family commitments, and accommodating when planning appointment times.

It is crucial that a keyworker is allocated time, throughout the child's experience at nursery, to share information about a child with their parent.

Information can often be exchanged during informal, spontaneous, but very valuable, chats when the parent drops off or picks up the child.

However, there may be difficulties when staff shift patterns clash with parents' work patterns, making those contact times infrequent. Such issues should be addressed within the organisation of the team to ensure as much contact time as possible.

When a greater degree of privacy is needed for a more formal or focused meeting, the practitioner should conduct the meeting out of the children's room, and cover should be provided for the time of their absence.

Children need to be able to make links in their learning and time to develop ideas Many daily routines can be disruptive to children's play and learning, so practitioners must look carefully at how the day is structured for children.

Of course, it is important that there is a rhythm to their day and for those children in full daycare, pace and provision will vary at different times. But, with a structure to the day and week, children's opportunities to explore feely and become involved in their learning for extended periods of time should not be inhibited.

There are some events that will take place at the same time every day or cannot be rearranged, such as lunchtime, children's personal start and finish times, and planned visits or visitors. But other activities can be more flexible.

The practitioner should always question whether it is right to withdraw a child from an experience that is involving them deeply, just to engage in an activity that is either unnecessary or could be postponed. For example, a self-service snack system (supported by an adult, particularly as the system is introduced) will enable children to access snacks at a natural break in their play. This area may be available only for a limited period but will offer children some flexibility. A more rigid group snack time inevitably interrupts many children's play at an inappropriate time.

In striving to provide continuity for children, it is important to look at how staff can support children's developing interests. A staff member who spends a whole week supporting outdoor learning is more likely to identify patterns and enthusiasms than someone who works in a different area of the nursery every day. Weekly rotas should take into account this need for continuity of support, and 'zoning' the nursery will help in the organisation of staff.

In a high-quality setting, there will be extended periods of time within the day when children are able to move freely between the indoor and outdoor areas, making choices and links in their learning.

During these periods, the numbers of children in each of the areas will inevitably vary. Staff need to be responsive to fluctuating numbers.

In response, a setting could, for example, plan for two members of staff to be indoors, two outdoors and one monitoring numbers moving between the indoor and outdoor areas, according to need.

Rotas may merely specify areas for supervision, but plans should clarify the practitioners' role in supporting learning. Some larger settings operate a 'partner' system linking pairs of practitioners who assess need within their allocated zone and respond accordingly. For example, two adults working in the 'messy zone' may decide that one should focus on a planned activity in the water area, while the other supports child-initiated learning in the sand and paint areas.

Children need space; movement is a vital part of their play Children need to be active in their learning and should not be expected to sit down for long periods of time. A review of routines should highlight any inappropriate practice. Although inactive times may be brief in isolation, it is sometimes the case that one such session flows into another. For example, a group story session (15 minutes) followed by circle time (15 minutes) amounts to 30 minutes of sitting down - an unreasonable expectation for young children.

The outdoor area offers an ideal place for children to move freely and explore larger spaces. Staff must be committed to providing this opportunity daily and plan time for setting up the outdoor area on the weekly rota.

Individual needs and interests Teams will also need to look at the needs of individuals or groups of children when organising staff, and must make arrangements to meet the requirements of any children with special educational needs.

Plans to support a child's observed interest may also impact on the organisation of staff. For example, if a child is involved in a trajectory schema, their keyworker may decide to take them, along with a small group of children and another staff member, to the park to look at conkers and leaves falling from the trees.

Here, staff need to plan a suitable time for the visit to cause as little disruption as possible to the rest of the group. It may be that additional adults are needed (either in the setting or on the visit) to exceed minimum staffing levels for the group going to the park while maintaining the required 1:8 ratio in the setting.

Communication Effective communication is crucial in the smooth running of any nursery.

Teams will find systems that suit them, but a nursery diary or calendar is essential for centralising information.

All staff need to be aware of colleagues' commitments, such as courses, meetings with parents, appointments with other agencies and non-contact time. In a larger nursery there may be a diary for each room and some information will be co-ordinated in a central diary, particularly where there is the issue of booking room space for meetings or providing staff cover.

Shifts and rotas should be planned well in advance and displayed clearly for staff. Plans that outline learning objectives and adult roles in supporting children's learning should also be referenced clearly. Some settings find a whiteboard a useful tool for recording any alterations or additions to plans as the week progresses and for communicating important information quickly.

Observation and non-contact time In recognition of the important role observation has to play in understanding and planning for children's learning, a high-quality setting will plan observation time into the week. This time will involve adults in observing individual children's play and learning and also in looking at the effectiveness of particular areas of provision within the learning environment.

Staff will also need time to compile children's individual profiles and assess their learning. Usually it is the keyworkers who are responsible for this task for their group of children, although all adults will have contributed observations. A weekly time slot of non-contact time will ensure that records and assessments are kept up to date and can then be fed into the planning process.

It is essential that teams are able to meet regularly to discuss and evaluate practice and to plan for the children's learning. Staff also need a forum for feeding back information from meetings and sharing course material. It can be difficult to organise these times, particularly in full daycare settings. Management may have to be creative in their thinking.

Some settings close each room early on one night a week to enable that staff team to meet together. Others ask staff to stay after the children have gone home and allow time in lieu or pay them for additional hours.

Further reading

* Most literature about keyworkers relates to working with under-threes and includes: Goldschmied, Elinor and Jackson, Sonia (1994) People Under Three: Young children and day care, Routledge

* Grenier, Julian, 'All about... developing positive relations with children' (Nursery World, 2 June 2005)

CASE STUDY NETHERTON CHILDREN'S CENTRE, DUDLEY

Netherton Children's Centre operates a keyworker system that ensures continuity of care and places the children's needs and interests at the heart of staff routines and organisation.

'Our keyworker system is particularly strong,' says head teacher LesleyRowlands-Roberts.

The former nursery school, designated a children's centre in December 2004, offers 50 daycare places, 53 full-time equivalent nursery school places, after-school provision and play schemes. Every child is allocated a keyworker, who becomes the child's main carer in the centre and the parents' first point of contact.

After a nursery visit by the child's parents or carers and a home visit by a keyworker and manager, the keyworker then supervises the child's induction.

Keyworkers have responsibility for their key children's well-being, development observations, assessments, reports and learning stories, which are prepared with nursery teachers' support.

They greet their key children in the morning, pass information to parents at the end of the day and contact parents if their child is poorly. Parents have scheduled meetings with their child's keyworker once a term and are free to contact them at any time under the centre's open-door policy.

Where a child is identified as having additional needs, the keyworker attends case conferences and reviews and liaises with the other professionals involved in the child's care.

'They have a close relationship with the family and are best able to highlight any concerns about a child,' says Mrs Rowlands-Roberts.

Keyworkers also carry out a quick daily evaluation of a session and record on notepads any points of interest in a child's learning or behaviour.

At weekly planning meetings, with nursery teachers, keyworkers' feedback about their children's interests and development is incorporated into the planning. Plans are tweaked daily, depending on the children's interests and progress in their learning.

When a keyworker is absent, their role is supported by other staff who are familiar to all the children.

'Staff work as a team to ensure continuity of care and learning for all children. Senior managers hold the responsibility and ensure that parents are fully informed of their child's well-being and of staff rotas and commitment to training and meetings,' says Mrs Rowlands-Roberts.

'Generally, we get very positive feedback about our keyworker system. "They know our children" is a phrase we often hear from parents.'

Investment in training in large part accounts for the success of the system, she believes. 'We invest in our staff and are more than rewarded in the quality of work delivered to our children and families.'

SERIES GUIDE

* This 12-part series aims to support practitioners in achieving and maintaining high-quality provision in the Foundation Stage.

* The series is underpinned by the principles for early years education as identified in Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage and takes into account the national daycare standards and the 'outcomes' for children as set out in Every Child Matters and laid down in the Children Act 2004.

* Each part of the series will focus on a different aspect of practice, highlight key elements of good practice and offer a benchmark for self-evaluation.

* The series encourages practitioners to be reflective in their practice and to see the quest for quality as a developmental process.

* The elements of quality in early years practice are often interdependent and there will be points of cross-referencing between parts of the series.

ORGANISING STAFF AND ROUTINES

10 steps to quality

1. Are decisions made about daily routines based on a sound understanding of young children and observation within the setting?

2. Is there an effective keyworker system in place?

3. Are staff rotas and shift patterns flexible enough to meet the needs of parents when planning times for meetings?

4. Are there clear communication systems for passing on information about the organisation of the setting within the Foundation Stage team and the whole setting?

5. Are all practitioners fully aware of their roles and responsibilities on a daily, weekly and long-term basis?

6. What flexibility is there within the team to allow for a quick response to children's interests or needs?

7. Is there an agreement about any particular tasks that should only be undertaken outside core hours?

8. Are staff breaks managed effectively to cause as little disruption to the child's day as possible?

9. Is the area of organisation and routines reviewed and evaluated regularly to ensure good-quality practice?

10. In full daycare settings, has careful thought been given to how children's needs are met at the beginning and end of the day?.