Some of you may have read my article 'Motivational Planning', which appeared on the Early Years Foundation Stage Forum in December 2006. As a setting we were excited with our new approach (developed with input from training sessions provided by our local Early Years Team) and very happy with the way things were progressing. We had high hopes for the future, although we felt a little anxious about how Ofsted might view this, to us, radical move. Remember, this was way before the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)! So, it's three years on - what sort of a difference has this approach made to one urban day-care setting? One of the first points I feel I should make is the importance of having faith in oneself. The ethos and beliefs of practitioners in early years settings are crucial to the optimal development of children entrusted to our care; we should all have the courage of our beliefs and be prepared to 'stick our necks out' in support of what we believe. This was the case for us and we have, I consider, been exonerated time and time again, not least with the success of our last Inspection, in January 2008, and the ease with which we were able to make the transition to the EYFS in September of that year. I am put in mind of a comment made recently on this Forum, by DaddyDayCare: "Just hold on to this moment and never forget that whatever the future holds, if you stand firm and fight for what you truly believe in then, sooner or later, you will get what you wish for." Our relationships with other professionals, parents and families have gone from strength to strength and means we are able to provide examples of such fundamentals of the EYFS as 'Parents and practitioners work[ing] together [for] a positive impact on children's development and learning' (DfES, 2007; Principles into Practice card 2.2) with ease. Our commitment to multi-agency working is transparent, again reflecting the principles of the EYFS (DfES, 2007; Principles into Practice card 3.4) and the views and voices of the children themselves are well represented in our everyday practice, reflecting the Cards 4.1 to 4.3. The children's interest and engagement with activities is a joy to behold; parents continue to report that they no longer have to prise information from their children about their day as they are bubbling over with what has been going on. This has led to an increase in dialogue between setting and home with such initiatives as workshops sharing our approach, practice and resources so the children can be more fully supported in all areas of their lives. This has, of course, improved staff/parent relations, with the result that we are getting lots of enquiries regarding vacancies from personal recommendation. For a business-based setting, what can be better than that? Alongside this, our growing reputation amongst other professionals has led to us being selected as 'Preferred Nursery' for the local Sure Start Children's Centre. The skills-based approach we adopted when we embarked on this system also continues to be really effective in enabling the children to begin, or continue to work towards, achieving the early learning goals (elgs). There has long been division as to the value of teaching children to 'closed' learning objectives in decontextualised activities; in our experience, presenting these activities within children's own interests has meant that the delivery of the skills necessary to achieve the elgs is much easier. The children are immediately more engaged, more eager to become involved and to offer, share and discuss ideas and avenues of exploration. In short, they display 'Positive dispositions and attitudes' which lead to increased skills regarding 'Behaviour and self-control' with a resulting "'elf-confidence and self-esteem' as well as a 'Sense of Community' (DfES, 2007; Principles into Practice card 4.4 Personal, Social and Emotional Development [PSE]) This is before we consider the implications for Communication, Language and Literacy (CLL); Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy (PSRN); Knowledge and Understanding of the World (KUW); Physical (P) and Creative ©. It becomes easy to follow children's interests when this skills-based approach is used. Planning is able to be much more informal so that staff can respond immediately to interests, taking activities in whatever direction the children indicate. Indeed, our planning and paperwork have been greatly reduced, which is always good news. We maintain a weekly sheet with proposed activities and focus activities indicated in the different areas, but both staff and children know that this is subject to change at a moment's notice. The Focus activity is indicated by the skill to be developed, so that, although an activity may be planned, it can be abandoned in favour of something more appropriate to the context of the current interests being explored. Because of this, there is no pressure on staff to show concrete results on a daily basis, leading to a far more relaxed environment where real, quality interactions are possible. The key to success here is to provide an environment that is rich in learning opportunities and resources to support them, an ethos supported by Lindon (Featherstone, 2008). This is something that features in Juliet Mickelburgh's excellent article on Child-initiated Learning; I would urge you all to have a look at this, and the others in the series (if you haven't already) as they make for very interesting reading. Observation using this system, we have found, becomes quite easy to handle. Obviously, all the 'post-it' moments still happen, and should do - after all, the team makes the successful setting and without good teamwork where would we be? During Focus activities the more formal observations that are part of assessment are easily made by use of sheets designed to accompany the focussed planning. The real changes, that have made a difference to our observations, are in the detailed observations. When we began this approach, we had a rota that made each child the 'Special Person' for a session, with everyone keeping an eye on them, adding to the day's observation in their book. This has developed in a way that has really paid off in terms of keyperson effectiveness and individualised curricula. The system now revolves around the keypersons and their groups rather than an artificial rota system. Observations are now planned on a four weekly cycle, with each keygroup having a week. The Keyperson plans the observations for each child based on what she knows of them from information gained in previous observations. This way, observations happen when the child is actually in the setting, rather than being planned and perhaps missed because they haven't turned up on that particular day. They can also be tailored to interests at the time or respond to the child's state of mind - they may be tired or crotchety, so observations can be abandoned or adapted to suit. This was a way of observation utilised in the Baby and Toddler Rooms under the Birth to Three regime; with the advent of the EYFS it seemed appropriate to extend it throughout the setting. The observations are linked to 'Development matters', with recommendations for next steps both in activities and next observations. These recommendations feed into planning through regular staff meetings so all the team are made aware of individual children's specific needs and targets. A sample Observation sheet is included in the resource library here. In day to day interaction with the children, we observe their interests as they develop, so our interaction and scaffolding are very much on an ad hoc basis. We tend to rely on what we know of the individual children involved in activities. For example, if we see an activity developing which involves a group of children including some that we know as confident learners, we will usually remain in the background, observing, probably only intervening to scaffold if individuals appear to be struggling. However, should a group or an individual be accessing something new or unfamiliar we might join them to become a 'learning partner' to help support the exploration. Following on from this, having been involved in their exploration, it has become easier to feedback in productive and meaningful ways to the children regarding their activities, encouraging them to become reflective about their activities in the process. As part of our practice we use signing and the widget characters around the nursery in all rooms. When introducing focus activities we use these widgets to explain the learning outcomes and give success criteria. The signs are displayed near the activity to refer back to so children can discuss their projects in an informed way and keep them 'on task' - these then form a way of involving children in evaluating and reflecting on their performance later. Obviously, the level will vary according to a child's developmental stage, but it begins the acquisition of reflection as a tool of learning at an early stage and the children largely respond well. This sounds somewhat ambitious, but I can assure you that some of our pre-school children are able to talk about previous projects in a similar vein, applying learning from that experience to their current one, or suggesting how this prior experience might be applied 'next time'. In doing so, they are providing good peer models for their friends, who begin to adopt these techniques quite naturally. This goes a long way toward the encouragement of the 'sustained shared thinking' emphasised on the Principles into Practice Card 4.3 'Creativity and Critical Thinking'. When children become involved in longer term projects, such as an ambitious model or Lego construction, we encourage the use of photographs (which the children take themselves) to record their progress, so that if it is necessary to disassemble it, it can be quickly rebuilt for continuation another day. This isn't ideal, we realise, but space in our setting is at a premium! It does, however, allow the children to apply this critical thinking to each new version of the project. Hopefully I have enabled you to see that adapting this more child-centred approach to practice as fully as we have has made huge changes and improvements to our practice. I'm not just saying that: these improvements can be shown. It isn't just in the ease of our transition to the Early Years Foundation Stage; we have performed very well in both ITERS and ECERS; we have been nominated Preferred Nursery for the local Children's Centre; we are consistently invited to participate in high profile projects by the local Early Years Team; we also enjoy a very good reputation amongst professionals in other fields in the City. So, what next? I am currently introducing into the setting the ideas from the Mosaic Approach developed by Alison Clark and Peter Moss. I have been undertaking setting tours with some of the older pre-school children following the principles of 'participatory learning in action' (Clarke and Moss, 2001:1). I hope to extend this to parents through a workshop later this year. I am also developing our focus activities further by working on retrospective planning with regard to this. My intention is to interact with the children, joining their play and taking natural opportunities offered by this to support the development of skills rather than plan specific activities which, however much we might try to contextualise meaningfully for the children, will always be an 'intrusion'. These will then be written up and evaluated for future consideration. I recognise that this requires a level of expertise and confidence that mean it will be a slow business, but strongly feel that this is the way forward for this style of practice. Maybe I'll be able to give you an update in another couple of years! References Clark, Alison and Moss, Peter Listening to Young Children: The Mosaic Approach, National Children's Bureau and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, London, 2001 Department for Education and Skills (DfES) (2007), Principles into Practice Cards, Nottingham, DfES Lindon, Jennie, 'Child-initiated learning: what does it mean, where does it fit and why is it important for young children? Key messages from the Early Years Foundation Stage.', in Like Bees not Butterflies: child-initiated learning in the early years, eds Sally and Phil Featherstone, A & C Black, UK, 2008
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