Any early years or KS1 teacher will have heard the term ‘continuous provision’. However, what this actually means and looks like in practice may look very different dependant on experience and/or training. We like to shorten it to ‘provision’ to cover all aspects of child-led, adult-led and non-negotiable learning you have set up in your classroom for children to access.
We’ve all seen the posts from teachers asking for advice on how to plan your continuous provision, requests for continuous provision ideas for different topics and so on, which is always followed by wonderful teachers spending their time sharing gorgeous setups. Don’t worry, we’re not about to tell you that you’re doing anything wrong. The wording is important here. These setups that you see are enhanced provision with an outcome in mind. They may have a learning intention or a ‘Can you…’ statement written near it. By definition, these are not continuous provision and this is an important differentiation.
The easiest way to think about this is like a supermarket. Your continuous provision are the ‘staples’ in the aisles that you always grab every week. Your milk, eggs, bread – they’re always in the same aisles, you know where to go, it’s familiar and you keep going back to it. These are your areas of the classroom with the fundamental resources. These areas may include: writing, maths, creative, junk modelling, sand, water, malleable, outdoor, investigation, fine motor, role play, construction, small world, reading corner. Some teachers may name these differently or have a larger or smaller amount of areas. If you have a smaller classroom space, these may be combined or rotated.
Continuous provision is child-led. There is no set outcome in mind and this stays the same all year. You may add resources once children have learnt how to use them during adult-led inputs or tasks, for example weighing scales after learning mass in maths. Here, the adult interaction is vital and it takes some learning and reflecting when to get involved. Observation is powerful and the eye of the observer is paramount. To the untrained eye, this can look ‘low level’ or ‘chaotic’ or ‘loud’, whereas champions of play know that this is where the real work is done. The rich learning that happens during continuous provision are all essential life skills such as problem solving, confidence building, communication and language, gross and fine motor – the list is endless!
Next, let’s think about enhanced provision. Here is where we guide, inspire and promote engagement with ‘enhancements’. Don’t worry, we’ve not forgotten about the supermarket analogy. Think about Halloween, Christmas etc. Your favourite snacks will have an added twist or pizzazz to make it themed which really entices you to buy it, right?! Exactly the same as an enhancement in provision. In fact, provision in itself is a bit of a sales pitch to children. Enhancements might be book-themed, topic-themed or to guide children towards a particular area or focus. For example, adding photos of physical and human features in the small world and block area to encourage children to build them. The continuous provision will provide rich learning opportunities, however to ensure we have a well-rounded offer with levels of varying challenge, maintaining interest and curriculum coverage, enhancements are vital. Learn more about what provision is and isn’t here.
Now let’s think about ‘challenges’. Many settings use the idea of challenges, which are non-negotiable, mandatory tasks that children must complete during their provision time. You may have heard of challenge passports or rainbow challenges. Particularly in a KS1 classroom, setting challenges will be a key part of your provision to ensure you have curriculum coverage and also to up the expectations, although still not mandatory.
The ‘planning’ for continuous provision comes from the carefully-chosen resources that you place in your classroom areas, enhancements, challenges and anything that an adult has set up with a set learning outcome in mind. Continuous provision is planned in a different way, more thinking about the skills and development children will be able to gain from each resource in zoned areas of the environment. This research-backed video by Katie on gap & strength analysis might be useful to watch if you’re wondering how to set this up.
Play is foundational for bonding relationships and fostering tolerance. It’s where we learn to trust and where we learn about the rules of the game. – Isabel Behncke
