The Classroom Environment- September

The classroom environment is one of the most important aspects in the EYFS. I try to keep the classroom fresh and interesting by changing the room linked to our topics and will post about this in more detail on my other blog 'The Role Play Corner'.

It's not always easy and sometimes I end up 'popping in' to school on a Saturday afternoon to set everything up for the new topic on a Monday but lots of things make it worthwhile. The children walking in to the newly decorated classroom and saying "Wow! This is amazing!" and then running outside to find their friends and parents to bring them in and show them what they have seen, children refusing to have time off school when they are ill because they don't want to miss out on what we might be doing and older children in the school saying "It's not fair, your classroom is so much better than ours!".

The only exception to this exciting space is September.

When you walk in to my classroom on the first day of term, it looks awful. But it's meant to.

I put up nothing.

I want the children to understand WHY everything is there so I don't 'decorate' my classroom with mountains of printing and laminating from Sparklebox or Twinkl- what's the point of it all? When they first walk in, the classroom walls are empty and then it becomes their classroom. 

• The children make their own peg labels for the cloakroom and then choose where in the cloakroom they would like their peg to be.
• I take a photograph of each child and they choose their favourite colour from a selection of paper that will go on the wall, with their photo, to be their own personal display space. Over the year, they get to add photos, drawings and other things special to them, to their space.
• We have an initial circle time session where we talk about favourite colours and favourite things to get to know each other and so I can create a themed nameplate for each of the children's wall displays.
• We assess the children's number recognition and then take funny photos of that number of children to create a number line display- it's personal and the children understand WHY it is then hanging in the classroom.
• We talk about the classroom rules and hang them from the ceiling as we know them (I use pedagogs ones from the PTS sticker catalogue).
• After talking about the classroom rules, we introduce Golden Time and set up our golden time wall display.
• We talk about needing to know what we will do each day and set up the display for calendar and visual timetable.
• When we start to take home wordless ORT reading books, we display pictures and name labels of the main characters.
• This year, as we introduce the children to each of the areas of the classroom, I intend to display 'We are...' captions from Twinkl, saying things like 'We are Artists', 'We are Explorers' or 'We are Actors' in the appropriate areas. I want the children (and any adults that come into my room) to see WHY the things are there. I saw this idea on Pinterest ages ago and think it's great but haven't got round to it yet, this is a starter for it.

By the end of the first week or two, it looks like most other EYFS classrooms but the children OWN everything that is there.

Transition into the EYFS

I thought I'd start with my top tips for a smooth transition

1- get the children into school as much as you can before they are due to start-

Sounds obvious but there are different ways this can be done of course. Much is dependent on the number of children and feeder settings you take from but this is what we do:
December- pre-school children are invited to watch the dress rehearsal of our nativity play- they come with the pre-school staff or parents.
February- in the last week before half term we run an activity morning where pre-school children and staff visit us for a themed activity morning (usually Chinese New Year based).
March/April- another activity morning, Easter themed, in the week before the holidays.
May- another activity morning before half term- theme varies.
June/July- I visit all of the children in their pre-school/nursery setting.
July- children visit on their own for a transition morning when all of the children move up to their new class/school for the day.
July- pre-school children and str join us for the dress rehearsal of the end of year KS2 play.

Because our main feeder pre-school has children from the age of 3, who join us for all of the activity mornings and nativity play, some of the children have visited us up to 9 times before they come in on their own.


2- get as much information as you can from any pre-school/nursery settings-

Many of our children go to more than one pre-school/nursery setting. We try to get as much information as we can from all of them to get a good idea of exactly what the children are capable of and the ages & stages they are working at. We keep simple records of that data and then analyse it based on the child's actual age in months.

We don't take this as gospel and do our own on-entry assessments but it helps to give an idea of where the children are.


3- try to find out what the children like-

On our transition morning, we usually read a story called 'Things I Like' by Anthony Browne. It's quick, simple and a great conversation starter. I then use what I learn from that simple story to resource my classroom with things that I know the children will want to use. For example I found out that lots of my children last year liked to dress up and take part in role-play so I made sure that we had some nice new dressing up clothes for both the boys and girls. Next years group are boy heavy and love superheroes so that will form the basis of some of my classroom set-up for September. I won't go completely superhero themed, just make sure that there are some resources they will definitely want to use. The more you can learn about them early on, the easy the transition process will be for everyone.


4- get to know the parents-

After the children have been in for their transition day, we invite parents to come in for their own transition evening. I'll write about it in detail in a separate post but it basically gives us a chance to meet the parents and share all the key information we need them to know about their child's first year with us in school.


5- be prepared-

Make sure that you get as much ready as you can before September arrives. Don't spend all of your holidays working as you'll need the break but spend a few days in school, if you can, getting yourself organised. It will give you less things to worry about in September and mean that you can concentrate on the children. I like to clear out cupboards, organise the layout of the room (more later), sort out resources and label the room to within an inch of its life! The more organised I am, the more ready I feel.

Hi...

Welcome to my blog.

I plan to share lots of great ideas to help your EYFS become Outstanding.

There will be no mention of what Oftsed are looking for, just simple hints and tips that we have used to help us move to Outstanding with our practice (July 2016 Ofsted judgement).

So keep checking back and hopefully you'll find something that helps to improve your practice too.

Vikki