A Schema Case Study for the Staff

At the end of the training week, all staff were set an assignment by me. They had to carry out a case study on one of their key children. They had to observe the chosen child  and try to spot and identify any schema/s the child was possibly following.

They then had to use a PLOD to plan for the child's interests and possible lines of development. After five weeks of observation and planning; the staff were to assess the child's learning using the EYFS and produce a learning story. There was a six week deadline.

A colander is a good piece of equipment to help children explore
a scattering, trajectory or going through a
boundary schema

This was well recieved with 100% of staff handing in (on time) a PLOD and Learning Story for the chosen child. The standard and quality of this work across the project was significantly high with all staff (100%) correctly recognising their target child's schema or interest. Well done!

The reports handed in by staff were colourfully visual, pleasing to the eye and full of photos displaying the sequence of the child's learning rather than the end product (which is what we always tend to see).  If I was a parent receiving a report of this quality for my child I would have been over the moon.

For any parent who did recieve a 'Learning Story' it would be great to hear your thoughts on it. We had all manor of schema's taking place in those six weeks; lot's of transporting and enveloping and even one 'On Top' (More about this schema in future posts).

All staff had attempted to evaluate their key child's learning, however, some staff were stronger in this area than others. This exercise has been invaluable in raising awareness of this weakness for some staff and flagged it up as a further training need. As a result, myself and Karen will be visiting staff in their monthly meetings to feedback the journal exercise and to deliver extra evaluation training.

I am looking forward to working with the staff to raise the quality in this area in September. An extra well done to all of you who took part. I can't wait to see more of this kind of stuff.

Incidently, the learning stories will be made into a book marking the launch of 'Schemas in Action at TEYP.'

Trajectory Chairs