Professional Development of the Third Teacher. 4

This last week we have started to collect data on how our space is being used.
The information will then be analysed in many different ways to support us in our development of the third teacher...

Of course this is a little extra... and we have not bee totally efficient at collecting the data... we are not in the habit of doing it...

So instead of two weeks, we will collect for three weeks... and see this incomplete first week as a test run...
Only two complete days were completed. Two partial day and one day without any data collection. But it has been a week with staff illness... so this could have affected the outcome of data collection efficiency. The children should always come first.

This is a floor plan of the preschool - it also includes a small amount of space that is not ours for play, but an entrance hall for us AND the boxing club that is above us...
But basically the idea is that four times a day... at specific times (times we have talked about as "problem" times... as in what are the children doing where are the staff kind of thing) - so writing up our times is of no benefit for anyone else... they are specific to our context...
If you are to do something similar then it is important to evaluate what times of the day do we need to learn more about?

At each time one person goes around the preschool and writes up where the children and teachers are - it takes about 5 minutes to complete.

The idea is that we can then analyse where the children and teachers are... by age, by gender by group... as all the times chosen are times when all the children in the preschool have access to the whole setting (and not times when we are working/playing in our groups - which is between 9 and 12).

We can see if any areas are frequented by certain children... is it because it is too noisy, or not interesting enough... or maybe we are not present there as teachers enough.

We want to be able to provide experiences for all the children in all areas, regardless of gender, age or personality type etc.

We can also see if any area is more popular than another... are there enough educators in that area?

Since we have not yet finished collecting the data yet, I cannot make a comment about how I think it will go... as I want to remain as open as possible to the results. Although of course that is almost impossible to do. I do not feel like we have a problem with the fact that boys or girls dominate a specific area, or that the youngest children do not have access to the whole preschool... but I do want to be open to the fact that this data collection could tell me there is a problem...

So by the end of September we will be able to start analysing the data... I am very much looking forward to that.

it might be that this is not the best way to collect data... but that is something we will learn in the process. We might learn that the time span is too short... and that we need to do a longer study. Thisis all part of OUR learning journey as educators - so that we can become better at adapting the indoor environment to meet the needs of the children... their need to play, their need to learn, their need to explore, their need to interact with the setting, each other, themselves and the world... as well as with us...