Case study: Loose parts with 1- to 4-year-olds
The loose parts are used with a range of ages – the younger and older will explore together with the younger children listening to the older children’s language and observing how they are using the loose parts.
1-2 year-olds would fill and empty the basket with the loose parts as well as pretend to count so pointing and showing counting-like behaviour.
2-3 year-olds would use them to count with, in and out of containers.
3- 4 year-olds would recognise the numerals and begin to match the loose parts to the specific number as well as subitising, working on the cardinal principle and simple addition.
Sam Goldsworthy is a childminder
Case study: Mari Palmer and her R/Y1 team
As a leader of a small, but expanding, school we had to make a decision, as we moved from three classes to four, about which year group would be the only year group in school to be a single-aged class.
As a head who has only ever led small schools, mixed year-group classes are the norm for me and it seems very strange to have a year group by themselves (this was necessary as one classroom is significantly smaller than the others). Many assumed that we would have a single year reception class, but we decided to keep reception and Year One in a mixed year-group. As a staff we feel that the transition between these two year-groups is often tricky and this not only enables the reception aged children to have some amazing role models in the Year One children to help develop their play. It also means that the Year One children have access to free flow provision. This does however, mean that the Class One staff need to plan a range of activities for the children that meet a variety of starting points.
Kate Hind and Charlotte Hardwick who teach the mixed Year 1 / Reception class here share ideas of how they have approached this and the benefits for the mixed-year groups, including different objectives and peer tutoring:
- Different objectives with the same activity
‘Reception have been recently introduced to odd and even numbers and doubles. Y1 have been revisiting these with larger numbers. Having the dominoes in provision allowed the Y1s to lead the game while retrieving their prior learning and giving YR an opportunity to embed their learning.’
2 Same activity, peer tutoring
YR have been counting to 20 using Numberblocks in Mastering Number. A Y1 pupil wanted to play with our Numberblocks set. A Reception child joined her. The Reception child confidently made Numberblocks to 10, then could not remember what came next. The Y1 child encouraged her to keep counting out loud. They then counted out the Numberblocks together. (The Y1 child had been struggling with the numbers herself, but rehearsing with a younger child helped her confidence).
Case Study Hannah Shepherd and her Nursery and Reception children
Although nursery and reception have different ‘curriculum objectives’ we look at our early years unit as a whole and adapt the teaching accordingly regardless of who is a nursery child and who is in reception. We create experiences, opportunities and problems in everyday play that link to the maths curriculum objectives. The benefits of this are that:
- the learning is pitched appropriately to where the child is working at rather than their ‘age range’,
- it gives nursery children who are more experienced exposure to the next steps and more challenging activities
- it similarly gives the reception children needing more consolidation and support the opportunities to access the maths at a different level.
- the more confident children (of whatever age) can support peers through the play and the less confident children can feel safe in their learning without the fear of it being too hard.
We foster an ‘every child can’ approach and adapt the activities accordingly through a range of ways – practical, learning through play, everyday maths, focused activities, independent exploration all supported by adults or peers. The wide range of opportunities ensure every child can access the maths learning.
Case Study Kim Woolham and her Y1/Y2 mixed class
Our mixed-age planning starts with the objectives from our school’s long-term plan roughly matched up, to make it easier for teachers to teach coherently. This means that sometimes we can teach the class together but sometimes Y1 and Y2 groups have different topics. The curriculum is spiral, so teacher planning will highlight in yellow what has been covered and understood well and in green those objectives that need additional time when taught again.
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