Click here to see the Reception daily schedule.
Reception (4- to 5-years-old) Daily Schedule Explained
We subscribe to a play-based, child-centered, constructivist philosophy for our Reception program. Therefore, we have done our best to create large blocks of time for the children to play, create, inquire and explore with minimum interruptions.
We are part of an independent international school so the hours we work are the same as every full-time teacher employed by the school.
The Reception class size is up to thirty children aged 4- to 5-years-old. Some years when enrollment is particularly low, we admit up to six 3-year-old children. The 3-year-old children remain in the Reception program for two years.
Up to five adults are employed to work with thirty children. There can be two indoor Reception teachers and one indoor assistant or one indoor Reception teacher and two assistants. There is one outdoor Reception teacher (that’s me) and one assistant. Sometimes, when enrollment is low, only one indoor teacher and one indoor assistant are employed. As enrollment rises during the school year, as often occurs in international schools, an additional indoor assistant might be employed.
Our contractual work day begins at 8:30. The school day for the children begins at 8:40.
All teachers and assistants arrive by 8:30 AM. One adult works independently on administrative tasks, for example, planning, reflection, blog writing or student portfolios. The other indoor teacher and assistant set up the indoor learning environment (ILE). The outdoor teacher and assistant set up the outdoor learning environment (OLE). We create a rota so each adult in Reception has one day of the week to work independently for an hour. This is the “ideal”, of course. Some days “all hands on deck” are needed due to meetings, student needs or other issues so the independent work-hour isn’t always possible.
When the children arrive they do self-registration. This consists of each child taking their own name card (name recognition experience) and placing it in the corresponding pocket chart (matching experience). The children play indoors. They freely go to any area of the indoor learning environment of their choice. The adults are on-hand to comfort, encourage, assist, play with and supervise the children.
The students are thoughtfully divided into two groups. One group is called “Hedgehogs” and one group “Squirrels”. The group names are arbitrary. The groupings are flexible for educational, social and emotional reasons. A child can be a Squirrel for a period of time and then switch over to the Hedgehog group. For example, best friends may be placed in the same group to facilitate feelings of comfort and well-being at the beginning of the school year. Later, if the friendship becomes too possessive or oppressive, a child might be moved away from their best friend to encourage both children to develop a wider circle of social connections.
Since we are outside every day in every kind of weather – and it’s often cold and wet in our part of Germany, we appreciate a bit of time indoors to drink a hot tea while doing administrative tasks. Both in the ILE and OLE, we use Evernote to record our observational notes. We video the children’s play to show baseline skills and for evidence of learning. We take photographs of the children’s play for their portfolios and our weekly classroom blog.
If the Squirrels were out first, now the Hedgehogs go out. The next day, the Hedgehogs would go out first and the Squirrels would go out second.
The children eat lunch in the classroom. One adult supervises lunch. We have two tables seating six children each. While up to twelve children are eating lunch, the remaining children are doing “Quiet Time” activities. One adult supervises “Quiet Time”. We have found it helpful at the beginning of the school year to offer a reduced number of activities during lunch so the children will leave their play when invited to lunch. At “Quiet Time” the children have access to a smaller area of the classroom. In this area, there are a range of activities such as books, drawing, coloring, puzzles, some construction toys and a train set, to name a few.
A group of up to six children accompanies a teacher to the Multipurpose Room for a mini lesson in drama, movement or social skills. These groupings are flexible depending upon the skill or knowledge being taught.
The rest of the children come to the MPR for rest, stories, songs, movement and/or yoga. Two adults supervise the children and facilitate these activities. The adults who were supervising the children’s lunch and quiet time now have their lunch.
The group that went outdoors first, goes out again. So if on Monday the Squirrels went out at 9:30, they would go out at 14:00. On Tuesday, the Hedgehogs would go out at 9:30 and 14:00. If the whole group goes out in the afternoon, then the ILE teachers and assistant come outsisw so there is sufficient supervision of the whole class. It is extremely rare that the whole group would stay inside. That would only happen in the case of very bad weather such as thunder, lightening or high winds. If the whole class stays indoors, the OLE teacher and assistant are indoors, of course.
Alas, the children’s day is done.
But the teachers’ day is not. We have a protocol for our collaborative planning time that you can see here.
