Over the past 2 terms in our New Entrant space we have been focussing a lot on how we can get our ever-expanding (space and children) area to work the most effectively it can. In the last holidays we opened up the wall between Rooms 14 and 15 so we now have 3 classrooms joined through openings. We also employed a new teacher Viola Masen to be the teacher for the new new entrants.
We have endeavoured to keep having time set aside for children to play while also continuing to juggle small group literacy teaching and DMIC teaching in maths.
Initially we had planned for quite a lot of mixing up of the 3 classes. We found however that the organisation of reorganising the children took up too much time. Having a new beginning teacher trying to get their head around a more complex organisational structure also meant that for the time being we felt it was better to stay in our set classes more. As time goes on we hope to change this up a bit more as it is really good to for children to have to identify with more than one teacher so they adjust better to change.
On the whole the space works well. It is good having the support of other teachers. Especially as there are often those unexpected occurrence when you might need to focus on one or two children. It is also great that the children are able to interact with a wider range of children and are able to play with them in the classroom.
As we go forward we need to continue to try share our children across the 3 teachers more often. We need to keep working on developing good protocols for behaviour in our space i.e. noise level, tidying up after themselves, and continuing reinforcing a culture of being kind and sharing.
