Do you work in a School? Can you help with any of these questions?

I’m looking for Practitioners insights/views/opinions on free play in the classroom: Please give detailed answers.

·         How does free play work in your classroom?

 

·         Have you experienced free play in a setting? If yes what were your views on this concept?

 

·         How does free play benefit the teacher/teaching assistant?

 

·         As a practitioner, do you feel there are any drawbacks to free play? If yes please explain.

 

·         How important is free play to young children between the ages of 3-5 years old?

 

·         How does free play benefit children between the ages of 3-5 years old?

 

·         Chose 5 words that would use to describe play.

 

·         What prevents children taking part in free play? At home and at School?

 

·         Do parents understand free play?

 

·         Do parents question free play? Why/what/when?

 

·         Do any parents have issues with free play? Ie why is my child not bringing home homework? Is my child writing yet? What do you mean they just play in the afternoons?

For nursery only

Some nurseries only have free play. Answer honestly how you feel about this statement.

Some nurseries have free play mixed with adult led focuses. Answer honestly how you feel about this statement.

 

Forums

Just a little update for anyone that is interested... Has anyone started to look at forums to do with their subject area?

A long time ago I joined many teaching websites, this helped me to voice my opinions and find resources/support from other teachers around the world. Never did I think to use it to help my studies. A couple of weeks ago I decided to join the forum and start a conversation. WOW I did not realize I would get the response I did, some extremely positive and others very negative.

Let’s start with the negative; I got absolutely slatted for my spelling, punctuation and grammar (your prob thinking the same right now). I was so shocked at this because I had never really felt that people would get so offended by it! I understand it is important, especially as I would like to become a teacher and I’m on a forum for teachers, but I didn’t realize I would have to start to defend myself. The truth is, the post was written in a rush and without any consideration to its readers. At first I felt really upset by it. I felt like "how dare you judge me when you don’t know me". It was only when I reflected back on this more recently, it made me realise how careless and lazy I have become in regards to writing. Is that me to blame? Or is that society’s influences to blame? I never realised how reliant I have become on computers, I phones, I pads, smart phones to correct everything I write.

On the other hand I had some amazing, really kind people help me with my inquiry. They answered questions fully and questioned some of my questions, which helped me to think more deeply about why I have asked that? Is my question too basic? Have I made it clear enough what my subject area is? Do they understand what I’m asking? Etc. This helped me to start to develop my questions for interview along with the literature I have been studying. I took a step back and thought 'Right, I don’t want to have to do this again because what I am asking is not clear enough'. It actually took me about two weeks to figure what I wanted to ask and develop the questions with a good structure. From putting the work in first hand I know they are good questions and I will get full, quality answers from them. (But part of me has now realised that with every answer is going to get me questioning something else).

Before starting this course I don’t think I would have had that same mentality, it’s made me realise just how much reflection I now do on a daily basis. I am constantly questioning my motives in my professional life and actually my personal life. For that I think I am becoming a better person all round.

I would defiantly recommend joining some forums; it’s really helped me in my inquiry. Plus you can use it to support your evidence.

 

easter holidays

So its the easter holidays for any of you that work in schools!
For once i am not working which means i have two whole weeks to really get stuck into my inquiry.

What i am finding most interesting at the moment is the literature i am finding. Theres so much on the subject that i am looking into- Play in Early years. I have discovered that literature on this subject is world wide. I have been trying to find books that are more cases that are studied in England as i am finding that with the vast amount of literature from around the world is making me question other aspects of play and how it defined in each country.

Is anyone else finding this? is your literature so vast that it is hard to narrow down? Is it making you question other aspects of your subject area?

Long time no blog.......

Sorry guys havent blogged since the last module, hope you all done well. Been a manic term, lots going on and preparing all my evidence for the inquiry.
Iv been doing lots of literacy work, finding articles, books, to help me build questions that are valuable to my inquiry. Its very time consuming but finding some really intersting view points from therists and practitioners which is expanding my knowledge constantly.

Its incredably hard to stay in contact with everyone who is blogging when it is through a computer, but if i can help anyone with their inquiry i am happy to help. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!

Task 6c-literature on the importance of play in childhood

I found this artical on a website for parents, carers and students. Its quite a factual piece about how play effects a childs development in the early years of their life. It talks about play for all living things in their early life which i have never thought about- "...Play is universal throughout the animal kingdom -- whether it's a puppy chasing its tail, or young birds swooping through the air. " Its a very interesting way too look at it. All living things go through the play stage in their early years and it is only through that, that they learn a way of life through their parents and experiances which will then structure the rest of their lives.
It dicusses the importance of how parents influence a childs wellbeing through play. Children are stimulated through our parents taking the time to talk to their child, play with them and open them up to new experiances. It made me realize that some of us only know how to do this through how our parents treated us so we pass it on to our children...so what happens to the children that are treated badly by their parents? how do they get the experiances and lessons that we learnt? what effects does this have on knock on generations?


http://www.child-development-guide.com/importance-of-play.html

I found another artical about the importance of play from somewho who practices in New York, America Anita Gurian, PhD. She states that play is from the ages of 2-6years. Its interesting to see that someone has actually put a time frame on this play stage in a childs life and quite debatible for some practioners. This would be something i could use in my inquiry as personally i feel that we never stop playing, even way into our adult years. It also makes me think about education settings and how they beleive that once passed reception age children are expected to have only short times to actaully have free play where they choose what they want to do. The rest is structured learning. Is this to early for them? what effects does it make on our children being deprived of this play? How old should children be allowed to play up to? are we fausing our children to grow up to quickly?
Again in this article it states how important parents are to the development of our children. But how do we expet our parents to support this if they dont no how to do it themselves? How can we chage this?

http://www.aboutourkids.org/articles/play_important_or_waste_time

A literature review written by Josie Gleave in june 2009. In this review she discusses the importance of play but how it is being effected. Alot of schools now go by the EYFS but are starting to use it as a learning structure for the children where as josie is saying we should just let them play. She addresses issues themed as:
Play has become more organised and structured
Play has become ‘institutionalised’
Children are spending less time in outdoor space
Children’s time could be ‘over-scheduled’
Differences in children’s time to play
Modern technology
The family
Schools
Within these themes Josie discusses how simple things like walking to school with out an adult is important to a childs development. She has looked at historic changes in education and early years of childrens life. Its interesting to see how much it has changes, Only 6 % of children walk to school on their own these days. Not many children even experiance playing in a public space with out suppervision from an adult. Even i can remember being allowed to play out on my road and given boundies but now i very rarely see children playing out and i definatly wouldnt allow my niece or nephew to play out. All these ideas link in with my ideas for my inquiry about play development.

http://www.playday.org.uk/pdf/Childrens-time-to-play-a-literature-review.pdf


Looking at different peoples view points on Play development has really opened my eyes to how i can go about my inquiry and some of the themes i can lead it to. As a practioner i enjoy looking into different peoples view points and i feel that it helps to brauden my knowledge on this subject area.

Tash 6b

Critical Reflection on the 4 tools i carried out.....

Observation
The obsrvation i carried out was on the teacher and a child. I found the observation to not be very useful to me at this time as i was not specific with it enough. Reasons being as i just done it observing day to day activities in the nursery. I feel that if i were to use this tool in the future i need to look more closely at something specific for example 'a childs behaviour during activities or how long a child stays at something'. The kind of observation i carried out would be more useful to analize rather than use as a solid piece of literature.

Interview
I found the interview a really useful tool overall. The implications with this tool is that it can be time consuming and actually getting round to doing it during school time is hard. Part of me felt i was using someones time up when they could be doing something within the classroom. However what i got from it has been really useful to me. It was very informal and felt more like a conversation between two professionals. The teacher was able to give me an insight into to her views on the question in hand and what she has descussed with other professionals in meetings regarding this matter. This helped me to gather knowledge on who else would be a realable source to gather information from.

Survey
The survey was one of my most successful. I feel this is because people dont feel presured into filling them in and can take there own time. Also i think that when they are written anonomusly you get peoples real views on certain subjects. Working in a school environment can lead people to not expressing there own feelings because they are worried about being judged. I left the Questions in the staffroom with a heading of who i was, where i worked and what they were for. I think its important for people to feel comfortable in why these questions are being asked and what for. The answers dip into different areas that are also effect by the question in hand. This has helped me to look at a wider view. Plus it gives me an oppotunity to get answers from people i dont work with on a day to day basic and different professions.

Focus Group
This is the hardest type of tool to conduct. However you get some great research material from it. Trying to gather a number of individuals that are all working to different time scales and deadlines is such a hard task. Again i felt like i was presurising people to take part when they didnt really want to. I think using this tool for things like interviews is a great tool as you get to notice people who are confident in the knowledge that they have and shine as leaders. However this can cause conflict between individuals and create a fosty atmosphere especially when we are all professionals in the same area but have different views. The positives is that it creates a small debate that lots of information and view points are thrown into. If i were to do it again i would conduct it with different groups of people ie all school teachers, all T.A's and compart the two notes i gather.

Carring out all these different tools has got me excited about my research laying ahead. It has helped me to identify what works best in certain situations and what doesnt, what information and knowledge i get best from and so forth. Its also helped towards my inquiry plan and how i plan on carring it out.

Task 6a

So here we go, the last leg of module 2....

At first when looking at other peoples blogs, i though oh my god, this is going to be one loooonnnggggg process but actually after reading the reader i feel quietly comfident as some of these tools i use on a day to day basis or have used in the past during my work and higher education experiances.
First i will tell you how i intent to carry out each of these 'pilot' tools based around my lines of inquiry then i will evaluate how each of them worked and what information i got from them.

Observation
The observation method i will use for this is called a narrative, well thats what we call it in a school environment. It will be written at the time and exactly what is happening. For this type of observation no assumtions are allowed to be made for example "billy is happy" it will be exact "billy is smiling and laughing with a group of children". I plan to observe the teacher during story time then i will observe the child during story time so that i analyse both parts of the event.

Interview
I plan to have an face to face interview with the teacher that i work with. I intend to use the semi-structured method with the theme of summer born boys. This will ensure that the interview is not to structured and the teacher feels she can talk about other things that link into this subject.

Survey
For my pilot survey i intend to do a quesionaire. Having done a few questionaires in the past, i feel that i am condifent in using them as a source to provide evidence and findings. It also enables me to ask a collection of different people with different experiances. I intend to ask "what effect do you think it has on a boys learning when he is born in the summer months of the year and is the youngest to start an academic year?" "Do you think girls are genually more mature than boys, explain why you agree or disagree" "how do you think it can effect a boys learning if they are labelled as being less academic than girls"

Focus Group
I plan to conduct a focus group with a few students about a particular issue that arises in a school environment. I will start the conversation by making a strong statement and allow the discussion to take its own course.