Early adopters

[Josephine Evanson]

Hi, 

Does anyone know if the early adopters is still going ahead in September or has it been postponed? 

[catma]

Hi - see section 21 here https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-school-closures/guidance-for-schools-about-temporarily-closing#exams-and-assessments

"We are planning to proceed with the reforms to the early years foundation stage, and are considering when to publish the government response to the consultation on the reforms.

The reforms include plans for an early adopter year which will allow schools to voluntarily implement the new learning and development requirements (including the new early learning goals and educational programmes) as well as assessment and moderation arrangements from this September (2020), if they wish to. Arrangements for the early adopter year are being kept under review, given the coronavirus outbreak. National roll-out of the reforms is planned for the academic year 2021 to 2022.

We will provide all schools who signed up as early adopters (and local authorities) with further information on this in due course."

[avetongiffordpreschool]

Hi - We are going to experiment this term with the Early Adopters Development Matters and try to re train ourselves into not ticking boxes , and work with our own knowledge of our children and where they are. However we are struggling with progression.

Before, we could look at our un ticked boxes and use these to plan activities to stretch the children further. Now however, with the new Development Matters 3-4, the majority of our children are already exceeding these new suggestions. For instance- where is the mention of being able to count to 10 ? Where is being able to add one more or subtract one less ? Also the guidance for 3-4 for fine motor skills is very basic eg makes snips with scissors . 

Is any one else struggling in this way? Tapestry team - Are you going to be developing the Early Adopters further ? eg with Tracking?

[Helen]

Hi there,

We won't be adding extra steps to the DMs in Tapestry- we're very keen to honour the ethos of the document and not create another ticklist for assessment purposes. However, we are creating some monitoring screens, so you can record whether children are on track, or whether you have any concerns about their learning and development.

I wonder if you've come across any of the video recordings and podcasts we've made with Julian Grenier and Gill Jones and Wendy Ratcliff from Ofsted? Or if you've read Dr Grenier's additional guidance and blogs? He has recently explained how his nursery has created a curriculum which focuses on skills progression. This might be really helpful to you and your staff; you are free to decide what you want your children to learn and you can decide what resources and activities you will provide to help them get there.

It's a very different approach to looking at what's next in the list to teach, but it's a great way of working with our youngest children and is far less time consuming that the ticklist approach.

[Jules]

I was just looking for something else and was on our podcast page, so thought I'd add a couple of links here that might be helpful:

In this podcast the education team chat about the new development matters on Tapestry. 

This one is with Julian Grenier and Ofsted's Gill Jones and Wendy Ratcliff talking about the new DMs and busting some data myths.

And this is Julian's blog. 

😊