September
03: Back at
school after the summer break, armed with planning sheets,
assessment grids and a mountain of resource books. All that was
needed was a few medium-term planning meetings, weekly planning
meetings, Sunday evenings spent sorting out resources and
amending planning, and so on…
September
04: Back to
school after yet another summer break, this time secure in the
knowledge that the planning is done, resources at hand and I can
give my energy to teaching.
As one
of two Reception teachers at St Mary’s RC Primary School,
situated in the dock town of Tilbury on the outskirts of London,
I was already convinced of the effectiveness of SFA and
co-operative learning when, in January of last year, we were
given the opportunity to be involved in the early stages of the
introduction of KnderCorner to the UK in January 2004. The whole
school had adopted SFA in September 2002, and I had witnessed
the impressive impact it had had on the standard of reading
throughout the year groups. I was therefore intrigued to
discover whether a similar approach could be applied across the
Foundation Stage curriculum. And so it was with considerable
enthusiasm that I took up the challenge of KinderCorner…
Resources
It was a daunting
prospect: huge amounts of photocopiable resources to be coloured
and laminated; lots of topic-centred items for the
frequently-changing Imaginative Play lab to be collected;
frequently changed displays to reflect the children’s
learning. In short, what we were doing, but done just a little
more frequently. In return, topics had been thoroughly prepared,
resource lists were prepared, planning was done, both on a
fortnightly and a daily basis, and opportunities for assessment
were made explicit. This was to mean that my colleague and I
could concentrate our energies on the children and their
learning, secure in the knowledge that the background
preparation was ‘dealt with’, either by ourselves or our
Learning Support Assistants. It was also reassuring to know
that, as the topics would be used the following year, the
preparation time invested in the first year meant that the
following year should be relatively free of such tasks!
However,
time is not the only investment required by KinderCorner. In
order for the topics to be explored in all their richness, I
believe that the recommended books are almost essential. Where
these have not been available and we have used an alternative,
there has been a feeling that there has been something lost.
There is a considerable list of these books, and many will not
necessarily have been ones that are found in the class library
and will therefore have to be purchased; however, like the
photocopiable resources, once these have been acquired they will
be used year after year.
Topics
The topics used in the KinderCorner curriculum each cover two
weeks. Their focus might be community, art, the body or some
other infinitely extendable subject, but all are interesting,
varied and bring with them ‘real’ knowledge which will
capture the minds of even older visitors to the class. Some
topics, such as Sing a Song, Paint a Picture, are quite
outstanding and through them the children are able to perform at
a high level. Others are rather more routine, dealing with
standard school topics such as the weather, but still the
reaction from the children is extremely good. No topics are
boring, none of the material is worth omitting.
Learning
All learning styles are catered for within the KinderCorner day.
Each part of the day is introduced by movement, rhyme or song,
and there is a balance between passive and active learning.
Throughout the day the children work incredibly hard and
intensely, but at all times they are at the centre of the
teacher’s attention. There is a balance between teacher-centred
time and child-initiated activities, but no time for
‘fill-ins’ or such activities as colouring pictures; every
moment of the KinderCorner day is interesting and fun and has a
purpose.
No
differentiation is built into the planning. However, the day’s
open-ended activities allow each child to work at his or her own
level, and the co-operative paired work encourages peer support
to be introduced at an early stage. The children have learned to
celebrate each others’ successes and to support each other
when success has been elusive.
The
manual’s suggested script incorporates higher order
questioning on a frequent basis, and thus the more able children
are continually being given opportunities to extend their
thinking.
Daily
Schedule
There is a daily routine which the children quickly become
attached to and seem to enjoy for its security and control. We
have found it necessary to alter the suggested format in order
to accommodate the school routine as a whole but have maintained
all the elements of the KinderCorner day, and this has worked
without problem.
Of
course, an added benefit to the routine and extensively
scripted manuals has been that supply teachers can easily keep
the children in their normal routine, use the language and terms
they are used to, and all this with a minimum of explanation!
A
visiting Early Years advisor recently asked me why I was so
enthusiastic about KinderCorner. Naturally I explained the
benefits to the adults, and those I had identified for the
children. However, the following snapshots spoke much more
effectively:
A small
group of 4 children looking at various posters of paintings,
discussing whether they might have been painted by Dégas or Cézanne,
according to typical characteristics of their paintings.
Several
children collecting bugs from the playground, looking at them
carefully under magnifying glasses, then identifying them as
insects or arachnids and recording them as drawings correct in
the number of legs and body parts.
The
class discussing how nerves send messages around the body, when
one child states that this is just like a motorway, in that both
nerves and motorways send messages between important places so
that they can do their work properly.
Two
children discussing whether they prefer jazz or salsa music, and
how each makes them feel.
Thank you, KinderCorner, this is how the Reception Year should
be!
Pauline Main
St Mary's RC Primary School
