CASE STUDY Yarrow's story Changing the way we do things at my centre began with a centre-wide inquiry about what our real values are, rather than just the few things that have made it into policy documents over the years! This has meant long discussions at staff meetings, and soon we will open this process up to parents for them to give their comment. From this has come our aims for the children, although ideas about how best to achieve these aims will differ from staff mrmber to staff member. This will be due to the different ages of children they are working with and how they interpret the centre-wide document. In my own planning work I attempt to take into account the values of critical curriculum, which tries to include all participants in the early childhood service in the curriculum process, I want to use methods that increase the involvement of other staff, the children and their parents. Partly this is pragmatic, because I have to acknowledge that some of the best things we have experienced together in the room, in my time at the centre, have been the product of a child's suggestion, and not of my skills as a teacher. So how does this all come together? The observations of children, when written down, are designed to reflect as much as possible the verbal discussions we have as staff about those children. These
on two separate elements clements our knowledge of that child(from all sources) and and they seek to combine those two forms of knowledge into ideas that together will form a plan of action for that child. The planning of activities in early childhood settings can never be something that happens once and for all in a planning time, once a week or once a fortnigh Any plan, however well designed, will need altering once we see how the children respond to the activities outlined. And, whether this is as simpl a response as doing more of the most popular activities or removing one that holds no interest, a good plan will be able to reflect that in some way A planning board that allows frequent activities to be stuck on or removed with velcro tabs is a method 1 am experimenting with to reflect the moment by moment and day by day changes in the programme This also helps to include, n formal processes, those activities generated by staff who do not ordinarily participate in the planning process, including any relief staff. A daily journal outlining some of the most compelling activities in the day is one method I use to document spontaneous activities and activities that actually happen, rather than being in the plan. I also try to have a calendar of upcoming events that parents receive as part of a rewsletter. While it is impossible to predict what the children will be interested n so far in advance, this docs enable excursions, or other events that require planning or coordination, to be scheduled. It also gives parents a different way to see the sorts of things that are happening in our programme and some chance to parucipate in them, or perhaps challenge or question them. someone who job shares, the evaluation of what has happened in the room usually takes place at a weekly mecting As we are always discussing what has gone on during the week and how we could develop or improve it, we are trying to tape all of those discussions as a record of our evaluative process. Something that I see as an important part of the children's lives is for them to learn to solve their own problems. One of the ways we do this together is to have a circle time where we bring to the group problems we have had during the day in negotiating or gettng along with others. For me this is a time when the children are participating actively in the programme by finding solutions to their own or each other s dilemmas. I have found that concrete questions work best in this situation, such as, "Has anyone else been in this situation? What did you do? While this is a summary of the things that happen in my room that nught fit under the heading of planning, am always on the lookout for other ways of adding to this process, which will fit in with what is already happening Our conclusioni continuing the journey It is vital that we, as early childhood practitioners, validate what we are doing ourselves und argue strongly for the ways we want to plan. We are being asked to document a complex and ever-changing phenomenon This a difficult task it is far easier to relate to children in complex and chanengin ways than it is to wrire about it. Traditional, more basic, programming scems to provide an inadequate response to the challenge of this task