Jules

We are born mathematicians yet, early in life, far too many of us come to believe that maths is hard and that we’re no good at it. This has to change. Mathematics teaching is not adequate for life in the twenty-first century if it does not equip learners to feel confident about: · scrutinising statistics, · interpreting data, · challenging algorithms, · being willing and able to check bills and invoices, and · calculating bargains in the supermarket. In a book called Alex through the looking-glass: how life reflects numbers and numbers reflect life, Alex Bellos describes mathematics as the ‘most playful of all disciplines’, arguing that numbers are both toys and tools. Furthermore, he suggests that in our day-to-day life we are assaulted by numbers – as labels on buses, phones, houses, and seats; or indicators of time passing; measures of quantity, weight, speed, distance, price and age. In making sense of this complex world, young children have to gain an understanding of the function and power of numbers. This process requires very firm foundations – and like the foundations of a long-lasting building cannot be rushed or skimped. The McMillan sisters, renowned developers of early childhood education, believed that space and time were what children needed to thrive and learn. Giving space and taking time enable new information to be acquired gradually and thus forgotten slowly. In developing understanding of this ‘most playful’ subject, rich opportunities for play and interaction with people, events and places enable the brain to create neural connections to create a foundation for all future learning. Play allows children to explore and rehearse, to make mistakes and learn from errors, to develop interests and positive attitudes to learning. Rich opportunities are not a short cut but are an essential element in acquiring the deep insights required for the complex mathematical world of today. The importance of spatial reasoning Despite its importance as a prime area of learning, the role of physical development in cognition is sometimes overlooked or downplayed. But the value of spatial reasoning in the process of becoming a confident and competent mathematician has never been clearer*. Amongst academics there is widespread debate about the overlap and differences between terms such as spatial reasoning, visualisation, visual-spatial reasoning, spatial awareness and so on. Whichever term is used, those who develop strong spatial skills tend to be successful at mathematics – as extended periods of playful activity feed the senses and build neural pathways in the brain. Through gross motor movement such as sliding, spinning and balancing, children come to conceive of number as relating to distance, speed and location. Experiences such as large-scale construction or block play contribute to understanding of multiplication and division as amounts grow bigger and smaller, changing scale. Creating diagrams and models, maps and images supports comparison, as well as pattern creation and recognition. Fine motor activity is also important in spatial reasoning – and is developed through handling objects of varying shape, weight, texture and size. Using fingers to represent numbers and finger rhymes to reinforce learning through counting songs and rhymes have long been a familiar part of early years provision – building on the fact that the area of the brain responsible for number is adjacent to the area responsible for the action of our fingers. More recent researchers refer to finger gnosis or finger perception. Their findings suggest that: · the perceived link between musical and mathematical ability may arise out of musicians’ strong finger perception; · scores achieved in calculation tests by college students can be predicted by their level of finger perception; · for children in American Grade 1, levels of finger perception better predict levels of achievement in Grade 2 than tests. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the way in which spatial skill contributes to mathematical understanding is its role in visualisation. Maths is a highly abstract subject, which requires an ability to think about things which are not present to the senses. Imagination, developed through experience and play, demands thinking about things in the same way. Seeing things in the mind’s eye, developing and talking about mental pictures of mathematical ideas is increasingly understood by mathematicians to be vital. Laying mathematical foundations together Firm foundations need the support of other people. A lack of self-confidence or self-belief is the root cause of much failure in mathematics. Strong personal, social and emotional development (PSED) helps children to maintain positive attitudes and interests. It will enable them to see mistakes as a vital part of learning – stimulating and growing the brain. Having a go or even just guessing is important but requires confidence. It is a popular myth that we should discourage guessing (or wild guessing as it is often referred to). In fact, children’s guesses are rarely wild and those that appear to be so can often highlight important misconceptions. If you ask ‘how many?’ you’re unlikely to receive the answer ‘yellow’. The answer ‘nine twenty thousand million’ may simply indicate that children are out of their comfort zone in terms of quantity. Another key aspect of PSED for mathematical cognition is learning to co-operate with others, taking account of the ways in which they do things and coming to recognise and learn from other perspectives and understandings – acquiring theory of mind. Closely related is another prime area of learning, communication and language (C&L). Conversation with adults and peers in a language-rich environment, filled with stories, songs and rhymes feeds cognition. The use of sensitive questioning is particularly important in the development of mathematical thinking. Too often, perhaps because they themselves lack confidence, adults’ questions focus on one right answer. This in turn can lead children to believe that that is all maths is about. Two and two does make four – but getting the answer five can be embraced with the response ‘close’. Whether right or wrong asking ‘why do you think that?’ can promote language and thought. Asking open-ended questions helps children (and adults) to understand why mistakes are made and explore how to put them right. Deliberately making mistakes can provide a strong stimulus for discussion. Adults might for example provide too few items of cutlery at one table, or when working with a child on a pattern of beads choose two blue when the pattern demands three yellow. They might sing verses of a counting song in the wrong order or add some illogical detail in a story. When and with whom such tactics are appropriate relies on skilful knowledge of the children but can be very powerful in developing thinking and learning. Building mathematical foundations takes time Because the world is rich in number, and our brains are hard-wired for maths, every area of provision in early years settings has the potential to offer rich mathematical opportunities. Indoors and out, it is vital that the environment offers rich physical, sensory, social and linguistic opportunities. Alongside this we need to ensure that rich experiences are fully explored and represented in many different ways. Concepts explored and stored through language, bodies, fingertips, eyes and ears will all contribute to a strong, cognitive grasp of number. It used to be thought that conceptual development in an abstract subject like maths could only come about through concrete experience. While that is vital, we now understand that concrete and symbolic understanding, imagination and visualisation support each other. Similarly, the opportunities for exploration and rehearsal of ideas offered through play will be enriched and strengthened by modelling. Young children learn through what they see others doing – both children and adults. This requires active adult involvement in children’s play – sometimes offering suggestions, and sometimes questioning. An example of this might be in shop role play – promoting understandings of exchange by asking why you haven’t had any change or challenging the amount you’ve been given. The children’s answers don’t have to be accurate in this case because what you are doing is drawing attention to processes – challenging their current understanding. Introducing ‘provocations’ can also enhance learning. This could simply take the form of adding a cylinder to a collection of balls. It does roll but is it a ball? It could be adding some unusually shaped containers to the mud kitchen and the dough table. Which holds the most? How do you know? Or perhaps planting a giant footstep in the garden. How did it get there? How big is the giant? In conclusion Building strong foundations for the abstract world of number is not a quick process. Giving children (and adults) sufficient confidence and insight to recognise the potential playfulness of an area of learning which is rarely regarded as creative or fun is challenging. First, we must help children to enjoy and understand numbers as both toys and tools, as they make sense, indoors and out, of the complex mathematical world. Secondly, we have a responsibility to convince parents, politicians and colleagues that we are building foundations for society’s future. To do that well takes time, but time and space build firm foundations in the long run. Read another of Linda's articles about Maths - Teaching and learning mathematics in the early years: a cognitive load?

Approaching conversations about diversity, discrimination, and inclusion with young children can seem overwhelming, and there is often backlash claiming that children shouldn't be a part of such conversations. However, diversity exists amongst all age groups. This means that there is no lower age limit on experiencing discrimination, or on recognising the importance of inclusion, so to opt out of such conversations based on age comes from a place of privilege. By making conversations about these topics accessible to children, educators can validate the experiences of children from oppressed groups whilst encouraging others to develop an awareness of identity and the way it shapes our experiences. The idea that conversations about diversity are difficult is ultimately one that is taught. It is an idea that serves to uphold oppressive systems by creating a culture that discourages open dialogue about discrimination, reinforcing a wilful lack of awareness from oppressive groups. This means that in early years we have the opportunity to normalise open conversation and begin to break this cycle. Engaging children in such conversation isn’t necessarily a process of engineering dialogue. Children will talk about their differences, and will share their observations about the world much more freely than adults, so facilitating these discussions is a primary way we encourage open discussions about diversity. If a child starts talking about skin colour and educators become uncomfortable, or change the subject, this introduces the sense of it being a forbidden topic. If educators instead take the opportunity provided to open a dialogue about skin colour, race, heritage, and diversity, then children get the message that the conversation is not only allowed, but actively valued. A part of successful dialogue about inclusion, at any age, is the way in which we reflect on our own views and listen to others. Educators can start to encourage a positive pattern of questioning bias early on. Children often repeat things they hear from others or in the media, and sometimes these repeated ideas will be problematic. When these statements come from children, it's important to talk them through it. Of course, age and stage will mean the right way to go about this varies greatly. Ideally, educators should ask children about why they have said something and direct the conversation through questions that naturally lead to a realisation the statement isn't true. In situations where this isn't possible, it's important to give relevant examples as to why something the child said is wrong, as when we simply shut the statement down we lose the opportunity to meaningfully disprove it. Children change their mind a lot more frequently and freely than adults, and so if educators can normalise this process of new information leading to a shift in opinions, there is the potential for children to carry this pattern into adulthood. Educators must respect children's right to self identify. This can take a range of forms as children play around with and develop their own identities. Childcare and educational settings are often the first place children are spending a significant amount of time away from their parents/guardians. This means it’s likely to be children’s first opportunity to explore their own opinions, preferences and feelings outside of their family’s influence, and so it’s important to remember that educators have a responsibility to encourage that exploration. There's no set age at which a child becomes aware of their gender or sexuality, or when they assign language to their race or disabilities, and certainly the identifiers we use can change over time. When it comes to young children establishing their identity, sometimes encouraging them to express themselves might take the form of serious conversations wherein children are confiding something or expressing distress about their own identity. Other times this will take the form of a child insisting you call them their favourite character's name all day. Both are essential opportunities to affirm children's right to define their own identity, and to insist that be respected. There is rapidly increasing awareness of how inappropriate a lot of resources are when it comes to representation. Society treats white, heterosexual, cisgender, abled people as the default state of humanity and this is often reflected in educational settings. Educators must take the time to reflect on their resources and be willing to make changes as and when gaps in representation become apparent, even if that means getting rid of some things to make way for more inclusive alternatives. Every set of dolls, pictures, books, dressing up clothes and everything else needs to be visibly diverse in order to make meaningful changes to educational settings as opposed to tokenistic gestures. For cohorts that aren't particularly diverse it is just as important, if not more so, to actively create a space that recognises, and celebrates, human diversity. It's also essential to consider who makes and sells resources. There is always a lot of anger when people suggest moving away from bigoted authors and creators if their resources have been in educational settings for a long time. Celebrating diverse creators matters, as does where funding goes. The best way for children to see accurate diverse representation is to ensure resources are coming from lots of different creators to benefit from their lived experiences. A range of stories is essential, not only so that children belonging to marginalised groups see themselves reflected, but so that children who don't belong to these groups get used to the idea their experiences cannot and should not always be centred. Creating an inclusive bookshelf means examining not just the range of characters, but the range of stories we see those characters in. For example, if lots of effort and attention has been put into making sure less than half of your books have a white main character, but all of your books about astronauts, firefighters, and superheroes have white main characters, you’re still sending clear messages to children about what race means for their ambitions. Whilst more inclusive resources is an important step, educators must also take the time reflect on how best to use them. This requires an introspective approach to examining the ways we interact with our resources, and what message that might be sending to children. Lovely, diverse resources aren’t going to be of any use if they’re hardly ever out of the cupboard, if they’re not set out as part of exciting, and varied play opportunities, or if educators aren’t treating them with the same care and enthusiasm they show their old resources. Getting a new set of paints to better represent different skin colours is nice, but spending time mixing colours, using mirrors, talking about similarities, differences, heritage and looking at pictures of children and their families for reference is going to have a more meaningful impact. Educators must be able to explore resources that don't look like them and read stories about people whose identities differ from their own with the same enthusiasm and respect they treat resources that represent themselves. The most important resource will always be people, so educators need to recognise that toys and stories can only create meaningful change if they commit to being a part of that change. When conversations about discrimination do take place, it's essential that educators get across that sometimes there is a clear morally right stance, and that hate speech isn't treated as simply a differing opinion. Educators attempting neutrality in these conversations aids the reinforcement of oppressive systems. The idea educators must be apolitical leads to giving oppressive views an equal platform to anti-oppressive views and essentially treating human rights as something that's up for debate. There is no morally sound way to 'both sides' discussions around discrimination. Educators being clear about their own values isn't about imposing views upon children but rather about modelling the need for strong stances. Children can't learn to stand up for what's right if educators give weight and validity to oppressive viewpoints. This doesn't necessarily mean not acknowledging alternate viewpoints at all. In fact, it may be beneficial to bring up 'counter-arguments' as long as they're followed up by explaining, or questioning, why that's wrong. There must always be absolute clarity that discrimination is wrong, and that discriminatory viewpoints don't need to be respected. Whilst these topics are very heavy, there is still lots of room for joy in these conversations. Diversity is a beautiful thing and learning to celebrate that will only add to the depth of conversation when it does need to be more serious. If the default when talking about different communities is to jump straight to dangers and awful experiences then this also serves to reinforce negative perceptions. Children need to learn that identity can also be a huge source of joy and pride, both individually and as communities. There is space for conversations that handle the seriousness of oppression and conversations celebrating identity to coexist. Educators must talk to children about actively embracing differences in order to highlight that discrimination is the problem, not diversity.

The tagline on my website is “With the right knowledge and a little creativity inexpensive items can become effective tools for inclusion”. I wonder if perhaps there should be a reflection of this, that without the right knowledge it does not matter how much you spend on amazing sensory resources they are unlikely to have much effect. A good parallel to draw would be with mathematics, if we bought oodles of gorgeous maths resources and handed them to children how much would they learn? It’s likely that they would learn a bit. Perhaps if we had a bit of knowledge as we chose the resources, and the resources were especially well chosen, they’d learn a bit more. But ultimately there would be a limit on the understanding they could develop simply by being handed objects. And yet this is often what happens for children who have been identified as having sensory needs. Gorgeous sensory resources are purchased from glossy catalogues, perhaps they are identified in these catalogues as being for children with learning disabilities, or for autistic children, so we know we have bought the right stuff. The advertising promises that the resource will help the child calm down. We give it to the child. They like it. But a week down the line, two weeks down the line, could we really say it made a difference. In my work I constantly challenge people to reflect and question the given knowledge around them. So, let’s do that here. With just one simple sensory resource. Let’s explore how much there is to know about something so apparently simple. My resource of choice for this article is the settle jar. You will have seen these in one form or another, like an old-fashioned snow globe these jars are full of glittering particles that swirl around when agitated and then gradually settle to the bottom. They are beautiful! We buy one. We pay a bit extra for a particularly beautiful one. We give it to the child. They shake it and pause to watch the particles settle. Is that the calm we were sold? For starters if we model behaviour the effect will be more pronounced. Come alongside the child. Fix your gaze on the particles. Take a deep breath in through your nose and slowly steadily release it through your mouth. You may want to prompt the child to copy you but often there is no need. Our bodies are designed to fall into sync with the bodies of those around us, so you being calm will support someone who is trying to be calm. (For an insight into an opposite approach watch fly on the wall ‘documentaries’ following traffic police to witness very excited police officers yelling CALM DOWN at very agitated suspects – I’m not sure there is anything less calming!) Repeat the breath cycle seven times. Aim to be so calm yourself that the child cannot help but be overwhelmed by the calmness you are exuding. This alone can make a big difference in many settings, but there is more we can consider. For example: Why was it in the catalogue in the section ‘toys for autistics’ after all what is so autistic about glitter in a jar? Well perhaps it is a reference to the heightened visual processing many autistic people experience, perhaps the autistic child is better able to perceive the glitter? But surely that wouldn’t merit placing it in this section. I wonder what would happen if you rang up the catalogue producers? My guess would be they say that in their experience these products get used with children who are autistic. That’s a bit of a loop isn’t it? They’re sold to autistics, so they get used by autistics. But! There is a reason why resources like this can be especially pertinent to autistic children, and indeed to other neurodivergent people. And that is that often people who are diagnosed with a neurodivergent condition, for example autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, often have problems with their executive functioning and with their interoception. Interoception is your ability to perceive your internal sensations. And it is these internal sensations that inform us of how we are feeling. If I know I am feeling stressed I can walk away from the situation that is causing me to feel stressed and avoid conflict. If I am getting stressed but I do not know I am getting stressed I am likely to remain in the situation and stumble into that conflict. A simple settle jar can be a great way to help someone externalise and habituate their emotional regulation. The need to externalise and habituate coping strategies is something I talk about in greater detail in my online course Exploring the Impact of the Senses on Behaviour. But in essence if you cannot do it instinctually internally, as is likely for people who face difficulties with their executive function and their interoception then you have to learn how to do it externally (externalise it) and you have to remember to actually do it (habituate)! This often gets likened to driving a car with a faulty fuel gauge. If you drive a car with a working fuel gauge you are unlikely to run out of fuel as you’ll notice and fill up when the gauge indicates you’re running low. However, if the fuel gauge is not working in order to avoid running out of fuel you’ll develop strategies such as counting how many miles you’ve driven or trying to remember to use a dipstick in the fuel tank before you set off. The better you get at applying these strategies the less likely you are to run out of fuel. Here is how I would use a settle jar to support a child to regulate their emotions and feel calm: I would show them the jar at a point in time when they are able to focus and engage and would link it to emotions. “When you get angry you feel all agitated inside” I would show the feeling of anger and frustration on my face and shake the jar. “And you want to calm down.” I would place the jar on the desk breathing out a big breath as I did so. Incidentally the linking of the downward motion of the particles to the instruction to calm down can be helpful to autistic children who are more prone than others to taking language literally (why is calm down? Why isn’t it in another direction? Calm left, calm diagonally, calm up?) I would complete some cycles of calm breathing (in through the nose for a count of 3 or 4, out through the mouth for a count of 5 or 6). If the child understood Makaton, I would partner this with the sign for calm which is beautifully reflective of the process and involves the signer placing their hands in front of their body with their palms facing down, one at chest height one at hip height, and then rotating them in a downward motion. So, it is as if the one at chest height presses down until it is at hip height and the one at hip height is lifted to become the one at chest height. Ongoing I would make reference to the jar as I informed the child of their emotional landscape. It can seem counter intuitive to tell someone how they are feeling, but many children are not aware of their emotions until they are super big. So, I might make a point when I see the child sitting reading a book of saying “I can see you are really calm and still, like the settle jar is calm and still” and indicating the undisturbed jar. On another occasion when the child is becoming agitated, I might tell them “I can see you are getting a bit upset and annoyed” and shake the jar to draw the parallel between their internal state and the external representation of that in the jar. I might also tell them how I knew what they were feeling. “I knew you were calm because you were still, your breathing was slow and deep, your shoulders were dropped” Letting them know the external markers you used to understand their emotional landscape gives them the option of using them too if their internal sensing isn’t working too well (if their fuel gauge is playing up). Moving forwards, I might offer the child the jar at moments when they needed to calm down. Or I might ask them to tell me how they feel by manipulating the jar to indicate their emotional state. Ultimately what I would hope to gift the child in doing this is a way out of distress. So that when they felt the unpleasant sensation of anger, they could go to the jar, shake it and take a pause to watch the glitter settle, breathing deeply as they did so, and reach that place of calm where a resolution to whatever the problem was might be easier to get to. It’s a skill many adults could use too. I might also find that the child is able to use the jar to express their emotion to me. Where before rage might have been expressed through behaviour, if they can come to me and shake the jar hard and hand it to me, that can be extraordinarily powerful. Then that simple jar becomes a way of them saying “please help me”. With the right knowledge and a little creativity inexpensive items can become effective sensory tools for inclusion! To make your own settle jar select a container with a watertight lid. Depending on who you are sharing this resource with you may opt to choose plastic over glass, and to superglue the lid closed rather than just screwing it on tight. Add a few tablespoons of clear glue to the jar and fill with warm water. The glue thickens the water so that your particles do not fall too rapidly, and the warmth of the water will help to mix the two together. Add in some glittery particles. Fix the lid in place. Shake and away you go. Tip: Use glitter glue tubes, squeezing one or two into a jar load of water gives you both the clear glue and the glittery particles in one fell swoop. You can find Joanna on Facebook , Twitter and Linkedin where you can ask questions about your own situation. Joanna also has a website www.thesensoryprojects.co.uk where she is currently curating free resources for lockdown.

The last year has been an exceptionally challenging one as we all attempt in our own way to cope with the extraordinary impact of the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. The ripple effect of this has been massive with virtually every single person impacted in some way, even if they did not contract the virus themselves. In my 30+ years working in the early years sector, I have never known such unprecedented times. Issues such as the long-term closures of schools, interruptions to routine health services, isolation from family and friendship networks, and disruptions to everyday living have rarely been seen since the outbreak of the second world war over 80 years ago. But, true to form, the early years workforce, headteachers and school staff have soldiered on. Leaders have worked relentlessly to adapt their settings to ensure high quality provision remains in place for the children of key workers and vulnerable families. Despite public safety concerns, early years professionals and school staff have prioritised the care of children over their own anxieties about their personal health and well-being. Never has highly effective leadership been so important to navigate our way through these turbulent times. The effectiveness of a setting relies heavily on the influence of leadership and those responsible for making key decisions. Schools and early years providers have had to make significant changes to their provisions over the last year. Some of these may only be temporary, but others may remain. So, in these unpredictable times, how will leaders make the right decisions about what needs to change? In this article, I use the term ‘teachers’ to cover all forms of practitioner working with children in the Early Years Foundation Stage, whether they are based at home, or in a school or setting. Review and reflection have never been more important. What is working well? Why is this? What impact is it having on both children and staff? Some of the changes which have been made to the organisation of a setting may never have been considered necessary prior to Covid. For example, how children are grouped into ‘bubbles’. It is so unusual for year groups not to routinely mix together within the school timetable and is a structure which would not normally be planned for. But how is it working? Are there any positives to this? Or do the negatives outweigh these? Leaders have the ongoing demanding task of monitoring their provision and deciphering where change is needed. Scrupulous monitoring, review and evaluation contribute towards working out what is working well. Key to this, is ensuring children’s care, learning and development needs are consistently met. There is great coverage in the media about teachers needing to ensure children ‘catch up’ in their learning. Yes, there is some truth in this, but let us remember that not all children will have had negative experiences and fallen far behind in their learning during the pandemic. Let us not put even more pressure on our children who have experienced such a disruptive year. Overall, parents have played a key part in helping to ensure children continue to learn and make progress during lockdown. Obviously, home schooling will not have been able to cover all aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage in full, but, for some children, significant learning has taken place. We must not lose sight of this. So, now teachers must carefully assess what each child can still do and what they need to learn next. We must not be drawn into the media’s hype about ‘gaps’ and the need to accelerate children’s learning. Remember the saying, ‘We cannot run until we can walk…’ This applies to children’s learning too. Trying to plan a term’s worth of ‘missed learning’ into a fortnight will not work. We must focus our efforts on planning for children’s individual learning needs and styles, as we always do. Once this is established, the curriculum can be delivered accordingly. What we must consider, however, is the life experiences children have had during lockdown. In assessing their individual needs, we must fully understand their emotional well-being. We all recognise that for children to learn effectively, they must feel safe and secure. Returning to settings and school following a long period of absence is going to be unsettling. Every family will have had different experiences and Covid may have directly affected them, or those close to them. Social isolation will have been challenging for many parents without the support of close friends and family. Some families may have been directly affected with unemployment, poverty, long term sickness, domestic violence and other aspects of crisis. The impact of these factors on children will be great but may not be directly obvious. Teachers need to work with parents and carers, within the constraints of social distancing, to identify every child’s unique learning and development needs. These may be very different now, from those identified prior to March 2020. Leaders need to have a clear overview of what the information gained through assessment is reflecting. What is the priority learning need of each cohort of children? How do these differ from the curriculum that would normally be planned for at this time of the year? How will teaching need to be adapted to take account of this? Once these changes are made, how will teachers know children are making progress? These aspects link directly to Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework – the ‘intention’, the ‘implementation’ and the ‘impact’ of the curriculum. During the summer term, settings are routinely preparing children for the transition from early years settings into Reception, or the move to Year 1. So, assessment needs to be especially rigorous to assess how ready children are for this next phase of their learning. Focus is highly likely to be needed in supporting children’s social and emotional skills; their language and communication; and their abilities to solve problems and work things out for themselves. Previous long-term plans need to be thoroughly reviewed. Teachers need to focus on where children are at now. This is highly likely to be variable amongst all the children, and teaching will need to be even more precisely focused than ever before. There may be some training needs for teachers. For example, we know lockdown arrangements have had an adverse impact on some children’s emotional needs. Schools and settings are now being encouraged to train staff in mental health awareness. This is an aspect I fully support. We need to recognise that children may have silently witnessed, or directly experienced, trauma within the home. They may have not always felt safe at home and with settings being closed, have not been able to reach out to adults they trust to help them. This means some children may return to settings with significant emotional trauma. Other children may find the separation from their parents and carers particularly challenging having been at home with them for such an extended period. Conversely, some parents may find it hard to separate from their children and feel anxious about them returning to settings and be worried about their health and welfare. The complexities involved in reopening settings and welcoming all children back following lockdown are significant. Leaders need to work closely with their staff to continually review their provision. Teachers need to be fully involved in this. They need to be actively responding to what assessment information is showing. Is there a need for greater emphasis on the promotion of children’s language skills? Which aspects of children’s learning are they making less progress in than others? Why is this? Have younger children returned to settings and ‘forgotten’ how to play and explore? They may not have had such rich, stimulating learning experiences provided for them at home. Their perseverance, determination and curiosity may not have been fostered as well, as well-meaning parents and carers may have inadvertently inhibited children’s opportunities to do things by themselves, or with their own desired outcome. When reflecting on your provision, re-visit the characteristics of effective learning. As we know, these are the traits children need to learn effectively. Encourage teachers to observe children carefully. How well are children deeply engaged in their play and exploration? How long can they concentrate for without being distracted? How much patience do children have to achieve their own goal? Observation, assessment, and evaluation are crucial here. Teachers need to be continually monitoring the weekly changes in children as they return to settings and settle back into routines they were familiar with prior to lockdown. Some children may not be able to achieve as much as they could before. But what other skills do they now have? Are these contributing towards the progress they make, or could they be hindering their learning in some way? Never has a holistic approach to reflection been so important. These are challenging times and I do not underestimate the time involved for teachers to accurately identify the learning stage of every child in their setting. We need to focus on what information from today’s assessment is showing, rather than getting distracted with what a child needs to do by September. Yes, this is the long-term goal, but a child is not going to make rapid progress and be fast-tracked through to Reception or Year 1 without time being spent on re-visiting the fundamental foundations for learning. As teachers, we need to celebrate every child’s unique qualities. We need to acknowledge and respect their individual characters and praise them for being who they are. After such a disruptive period of time, we need to foster children’s confidence and emotional well-being. Put aside, for now, what children cannot do and celebrate what they can do. Through careful tracking and monitoring, leaders can make sure that the unique learning styles, interests and preferences of every child are accurately planned for. Identified training for teachers must focus on the here and now. What are the priorities? Is more emphasis needed on supporting one aspect of learning? How can teachers adapt their practice to include greater support for this through play and continuous provision? How will the impact on any training be measured? What success criteria will be seen when this is successful? Effective reflection and evaluation means monitoring takes place at every level. Teachers, and those working directly with children, continually review the learning and progress they see. They systematically evaluate the impact of provision and plan for the next stage. This process needs to continue with relevant oversight from leaders to ensure relevant changes are made when needed and new ways of working are fully embraced and embedded across a setting. Changes might not bring about instant improvement. Adaptations and modifications may need to be made before it feels ‘right’. Remember these are unprecedented times. Children who have not remained in schools and settings during lockdown have suffered significant absence from their typical learning routines. It will take time for some children to settle back in and pick up where they were previously. An analogy which often comes into my mind when thinking about children returning to schools and settings is a little like a field full of new spring lambs; all eager to explore and do their own thing. We are experts in early years. We know how children learn through play and exploration. We must not be put off by the challenges ahead. Teachers are the ‘shepherds’ which will gently guide the children and place them back on track so they are ready and fully prepared for the next stage in learning. The task is not always a simple one, but it’s one we can achieve if we plan for it carefully.

At Maslaha, on our Schools with Roots project, we’ve been working closely with teachers and families to help primary schools develop sustainable anti-racist practice to better engage with their families and local communities. We believe, and indeed research has shown[1], that improving community engagement in schools, and linking pupil’s heritage and lived experienced to their learning, will have a positive impact on children’s outcomes at school and help them to become confident, reflective learners and engaged active citizens. Racism is deeply ingrained in all levels of society, including within the school system, and it takes active work from all of us not to be complicit. Inevitably, structural racism exists in schools, regardless of the intentions of individual teachers. As the 2020 Runnymede report on Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools [2] noted, there are many ways that racism manifests in secondary schools, from uniform and exclusion policies, to teachers having low expectations of pupils based on their cultural or class backgrounds, to a Eurocentric curriculum that doesn’t reflect (and therefore devalues) the lives and cultures of students of colour. We also know low levels of trust exist between schools and local families and communities. The government’s counter extremism Prevent policy, to give an example, has created a sense of fear and alienation among Muslim communities. Muslim families are aware that consciously or unconsciously they are seen under a veil of suspicion at school because of Prevent, under which 1000’s of Muslim children have been wrongfully referred. In terms of staffing, at least in inner city areas, teaching bodies and senior leadership are often not representative of the local communities the schools serve. According to the Department for Education in 2018 nearly 92% of teachers in England’s state- funded schools were white and only 3% of head teachers were from ‘ethnic minority’ backgrounds.[3] This is a trend exacerbated by fast-track teacher training programmes which often bring newly trained teachers in to cities such as Manchester, London and Birmingham from smaller cities, towns or rural areas - perhaps having never had contact with the communities they are working with. It is vital, then, that schools take action to become anti-racist spaces. Teachers need to recognise the power they hold in perpetuating institutional oppression and make the classroom a place where student’s cultural differences, languages, stories, and histories are not erased, but valued. Teachers can play a vital role in creating environments where children have the opportunity to thrive and feel safe and thinking about how to engage with families and the local community is a vital starting point. A big difference between primary and secondary schools is that parents are a lot more present in primary schools - there is daily family contact with school usually twice a day. How schools engage with families, then, has a huge sway on the experience of a child in primary school. Indeed, research shows that parents’ interest and involvement in their children’s learning is consistently associated with positive outcomes for children of all age groups and there is an established link between the home learning environment at all ages and children’s performance at school. However - most schools say that they do not have an explicit plan for how they work with parents, and fewer than 10% of teachers have undertaken training on parental engagement.[4] On our Schools with Roots project at Maslaha, we work with schools to recognise the learning and knowledge that lives outside of the classroom, in the community, and value the day-to- day experiences of students as an important part of the learning process. This includes teachers understanding the contexts of where students come from, taking time to get to know the local communities in which they teach. If they don’t know and understand the local community, how can they make learning relevant to pupils' lives and build trust with families? Our pedagogy is centred around three key areas: context, family involvement and community engagement. Context – learning should resonate with and reflect the realities of pupils’ local context, heritage and home life. Family involvement – parents and carers should have the opportunity to meaningfully input into classroom learning. Communities feel valued, with a greater sense of belonging for pupils and parents, and a co-creation of knowledge that is socially, culturally relevant to pupil’s lives. Community engagement – local communities are a rich resource that can bring learning to life for pupils. Schools and teachers should work to engage with local community assets as much as possible. In order to put this pedagogy into practice, schools first need to address the issue of why some parents or families might feel intimidated or not confident engaging with school. Through our work with families and communities on Schools with Roots we know that for some parents their own negative experiences of school as children can impact this, as can harmful or negative experiences of other institutions such as local councils or the police. For many parents, language is a huge barrier to engaging with school. Some parents feel judged or patronized by staff and, in particular, we have heard from families who, due to precarious work, insecure housing, immigration status, or complications with physical and mental health, aren’t able to engage with school in the way they would like, but who at the same time don’t feel able to talk to their school about this, due to a lack of trust. No two schools or local communities will be the same, and we work with schools to actively get to know their parents, carers and families and to engage with them in genuinely non-judgemental ways. This includes asking some important questions about communication between schools and families. It is also important to have a number of ways that parents can engage with school and not just one point of contact. We’ve often seen how having limited points of contact, for example, the front office, or a parent liaison worker, can shut down communication for parents and lead to ‘gatekeeping’. We ask schools to consider how they communicate information to families, ideally through simple text and graphics as opposed to long letters or emails that parents who don’t speak English will not understand. We work with schools to develop multi-lingual resources that that are accessible and engaging. We also work with schools to embed practices and strategies into the classroom that help teachers engage parents and families with learning. One of these strategies is Community Mapping. Community mapping involves local communities building up a multi-layered picture of what it is like to live in their area. It can be a useful way of helping schools understand more about the everyday lives, interests and routines of the families of pupils, and to mobilise parents to get more involved at school, share expertise, meet new people and potentially be introduced to new things in their local area. This could be exploring using a traditional map format, but also through all sorts of other creative mediums. For example we created a zine Our Forest Gate Stories as part of a community mapping project with families and a school in Newham, this provided a platform for parents from marginalised communities to tell their life stories and journeys in their own terms. Another Schools with Roots strategy is Topics Together. This is an approach to curriculum that engages parents in the planning of topics and provides an entry point for their continued involvement during the course of a topic. This involves family ‘think-in’ sessions where parents come in to meet with their child’s teacher before each topic begins, with a focus on creating a peer-peer environment that isn’t hierarchical or intimidating – the idea is to have a knowledge exchange as opposed to the teacher telling parents what the pupils will be learning. Topics Together has allowed families who have never engaged with school to have a say in their child’s learning and to have a greater voice in schools. Finally, our approach incorporates anti-racism training with teachers, going beyond talking about diversity in the representational sense, but rather focusing on systemic change. We believe that if teachers cannot discard individual narratives and understand racism as a structure - then they will continue to see racism as an act from an ‘immoral’ individual and will be unable to critically reflect to see themselves or their schools as racist. In our anti-racism work with teachers, we look at the ways in which racism, power, and privilege operate systemically in society and in schools. We have seen over the last year the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on black and brown communities, highlighting longstanding inequalities in health, housing, education and employment, and shining a damning light on structural racism in the UK. We know that school closures have widened the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers. Effective parental engagement will be more important than ever in mitigating the extent to which the gap widens and to compensate for lost learning – this means schools really grappling with what an anti-racist approach to family engagement looks like. In a time when many vital community spaces and resources such as parks, community centres and libraries have been lost due to austerity, disproportionately impacting marginalised communities, primary schools remain a place where parents regularly interact and have the potential to play an important role as a space of community care. In this context, how schools communicate with families matters more than ever.