2-5's in same room

2-5's in same room

by: Mia - 13-01-10 20:07

Hi our nursery is thinking of having our 2 to 5's together, doing free flow across the nursery, Does anyone do this and is it a good idea? How does it work with ratios and keyworkers?

Thanks

by: tilly

we have 2 years 6 months upto 5 years sharing three rooms and they have free access to all activites in the rooms.  I asked the same question to my local early years team, as long as you meet your ratios overall e.g you have 12, 2-3 years olds so have 4 staff and 16, 3 to 4 year olds so have two staff Ofsted will be happy.  They had the view that if moving the children to different rooms to be with staff purely in order to meet ratios would be detrimental to their learning then they were happy to leave them so long as staff wher enearby if needed.  I had a scenario where we had the majority of children all 1 room interested in an activity, they said as long staff moved themselves into place to provide the best support they were happy with that.  Hope I have explained this properly... 

by: me

google family groupings in nurseries they work extremely well if the staff are skilled

by: Liz

 Here's a couple of articles from Nursery World on mixed age settings.

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/727125/Mixed-ages-Big-little/

http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/inDepth/830456/Learning---Development-Mixed-age-Settings/

by: delitots

hi,

we have mixed ages from 2 yrs to 5 yrs, this has been running for three years now and works really well. it was difficult at first, but once our continuous provision was established and planning according to individual needs etc the sessions run smoothly.  ratios are maintained according to age range and key staff are responsible for planning appropriate child initiated actitivities for their key children.

i really enjoy seeing the older children 'looking after' the younger ones.

by: Mia

thank you for the replies, is there anyone else who has experienced this?

by: purepurple

A few years ago, I worked in a nursery that started moving children up into the pre-school room at 2. They spent 2 years in thepre-school room before they left for school.We did this because we had a waiting list for babies and needed to create more spaces within the nursery.

It worked quite well. It was harder to do the planning as we were still doing birth to three for the 2 year olds and foundation stage for the pre-schoolers. You shouldn't have that problem with the EYFS.

I split the group into 2 different groups for planning and profiles. The younger group were the Caterpillars and the pre-schoolers were the Butterflies.

I found that the smaller ones were capable of a lot more than we had realised. Such as serving their own dinners, pouring drinks, eating with a knife and fork, writing their names etc.

The drawbacks were changing nappies ( we just were not used to it!)

and we did get some bad behaviour from some of the boys who had been in the same room for 2 years. It was just too long for them!

It can be done.

by: scarlett

We have this and to be honest it doesnt work for us.

I am looking at options of trying to provide another room solely for 2 year olds.

It was ok when we didnt have many 2 year olds ie 3 or 4 or 5 but when you have 9 or 12! it is chaos especially with the mix we seem to have.  We have 2 boys who are an absolute menace to society and they disrupt the whole room.

Yes I hear what you are saying about having really good staff, unfortunately every member of staff cannot be really good!

Some parents also do not like the general mix and want to see their 3 and 4 year olds in a calm atmospheare. ?

by: Jen Jen

i went to pen green centre in london last month and the 2-5 free flowed it was amazing how calm it was, but that is with staff knowing exactly where  and wat there job was theres an were they should be. i think its a very good idea were going to do ours soon and knock down the wall

by: Tiggy

I've found it does limit what you can have out. Have a look on toys and see how many say "Not suitable for under 36 months".

Good for social reasons, but older children can get really annoyed at little ones "messing up" what they're doing.

I'd go for birth to 18 months, 18 months to 3 years, then 3+.

Ideally 2 years 11 months onwards. That way my room would get the 3 year olds' birthday cakes!

by: L.O

We have all the children in the same room, it has pros and cons. Its nice for siblings to be able to play and mix together, also a really nice side comes out in children when speaking or playing with the little ones, and for staff its nice to get to work with all ages as its always different.

However , the older ones do need more challenging activities and space to learn without a younger child running around or pulling things off them. Therefore we do certain activities for a portion of the morning and afternoon away from main room so older children get free flow and focused activities with age their age group. Since doing this I have found children that preferred to run from area to area at full speed really enjoy the adult lead activity and loved to listen and learn about new things.

by: Mia

we are thinking of having a dedicated time in the morning and the afternoon for keyworker group activities only, these will be where the keyworker leads adult activities only, incorparating there invidual planning into the process, the only thing is will oftsed like this? it does say in the eyfs, "with some adult lead activities" so would this be acceptable do you think?

by: Tiggy

Mia:

Do you have children who only do mornings or afternoons?

by: Mia

yes, thats why we thought to set aside a time in the morning and the afternoon to include all.

by: L.O

Yes thats why we do both so morning children and afternoon children get a go. Its not a long period of time and if children enjoy it- I think its worth a go.