Continuous Provision: The Skills: Enhancing Children's Development Through Skills-Based Learning(Practitioners' Guides)

In the original book – Continuous Provision, Alistair Bryce-Clegg covered what effective continuous provision should look like and how practitioners could achieve it by linking their provision directly to assessment. This new title: The Skills, demonstrates that in every area of continuous provision (like sand, water, role play, small world etc) there are 'pure' skills that children can only learn in that area and there are 'facilitative' skills that children can learn through that area. Each of these 'pure' and 'facilitative' skills needs to be acknowledged, assessed and taught and this is the premise of this new title. In The Skill of Continuous Provision Alistair: Revisits (briefly) the principles of effective continuous provision Looks at each area of continuous provision in turn and identifies a range of 'pure' and 'facilitative' skills Shows how the provision itself (resources) should be leveled 'top', 'middle' and 'emergent' to meet the development needs of all children irrespective of how old they are. Gives some comprehensive examples of how to break those skills down into top, middle, emergent e.g. in 'Paint' he identifies skills that children need to learn when using paint like texturising, application, printing etc. He then takes each of those skills individually and show how a skill like printing could be broken down into three broad stages. Asks and answers questions like: What would really basic, lower level printing look like? What sort of resources would facilitate effective learning in this area of development? By the end of the book the practitioner should have a really practical guide to differentiated skill development in continuous provision.

About the Author :
Alistair was head teacher of a very successful three form entry infant school and Early Years Unit for 10 years. Alongside his headship he worked as an EYFS consultant working with a diverse range of settings to help them to enhance their EYFS practice. In 2009 Alistair left headship and went into full time consultancy. Alistair's expertise has meant that he has been invited to work with individuals, settings and both Nationally and Internationally. He has written on the subject of EYFS for a wide variety of publications. In September 2010 he set up a blog where he posts examples of the work that he does alongside activity ideas, planning formats and policies. The blog is constantly updated with new ideas and initiatives. You can find out more at: abcdoes.com