I began my placement at 08.15 10/11/17, (thankfully I arrived early) however the nursery opens at 9am. During this time staff hold a briefing which I attended whereby the deputy head ran through what the day entailed. This was all written on a whiteboard; the whiteboard showed what happened on the preceding days of the week. Under Friday, my name was written on the whiteboard: ‘Aziza starting placement’. I was briefly introduced by the deputy head then welcomed from the staff/practitioners around me. Having my name on the board gave me a real sense of inclusion that the nursery advocates as I felt recognised and already part of the nursery.

I asked one of the key workers about the structure of the day to which she told me that there is free-flow play continuously throughout the day and play is child initiated; if they choose to play indoors or outdoors, it is entirely decided by the children. The times where there is some structure to the day is group time (: where each key worker reads, sings and interacts with small groups) before lunch at 11:30 and at 3 before they are to be collected at 3:15. I learned that some children send full days at the setting, while some just do mornings or afternoons. Even lunch is flexible – lunch finishes depending on whether children are still eating or not, after which they continue to play freely.

I spent a lot of time at the lego table during the morning where children, mostly boys, participated in pretend play and construction. A few often approached me seeming intrigued by a new face. It was interesting to see more children playing indoors during the morning compared to after lunch where more would play outdoors in the sand area and on the climbing frames. While one child was climbing down the climbing frame, he fell on his side and began to cry. I quickly picked him up, reassuring him, asking if he was okay and instructed the two other boys to climb down for their safety. A key worker outside had guarded the climbing frame as I carried the boy inside where I filled in an accident form. Although this was a very unfortunate incident, it gave me a small insight of the nursery’s safe-guarding policy and what actually happens to children if they injure themselves. I filled out the form, detailing what happened, and the action taken (applied ice pack).

During the day, I had noticed there were a couple of humorous references from the staff regarding it being Friday which I found interesting as they would place blame on a minor mistake they made as it was the ‘last’ day of a long week. This made me feel they tried to make light of a situation to maintain morale.

Overall, I feel comfortable in the setting I am in, I enjoy seeing what I have learnt at university regarding children’s development in action for example, seeing how children in nursery cope with friendships, sharing, tantrums etc). Lastly, I feel proud of how I interacted with the staff in quite a pressured situation when the child was hurt as I believe it showed professionalism during a hard time.

Themes: Structure of the day, Free-flow Play, Safe-guarding, Fridays.