Jules Posted March 29, 2019 Posted March 29, 2019 Ofsted’s Big Conversation On Monday 18th March I attended the London open meeting of the Ofsted Big Conversation. For anyone who isn’t aware of the Big Conversation, it is a voluntary organisation run by representatives from the Early Years sector. The purpose is simple: ‘To provide a communication forum where providers, who deliver Early Years care and education, can collectively bring shared areas of concern or common themes they seek further clarification on, to a representative from Ofsted, and receive a timely response,’ and ‘to provide Ofsted an opportunity to give updates on changes and direction of travel and to help dispel Ofsted ‘myths’.’ The London meeting was chaired by LEYF’s June O’Sullivan MBE and presented by Ofsted’s Early Education Deputy Director, Gill Jones. The atmosphere was animated and supportive while we discussed the new inspection framework. If you haven’t been to a Big Conversation meeting before, they are well worth participating in. Gill Jones talked us through some of the changes. She reminded us that when the EYFS first came about, one of its big aims was about reporting back to parents about how their children were doing – it was not meant to be about lots of data for Ofsted. A number of factors have led to the expectation to provide more and more data and Gill said that Ofsted was ‘a bit responsible for this’. The discussion moved on to the new judgements: Quality of Education, Behaviour and Attitudes, Personal Development, Leadership and Management. Gill explained the differences between these and the current set of criteria. She began with Personal Development and Behaviour and Welfare, which has now been split into two separate judgments. She said Personal Development is at the core of what early years educators do. It includes the Key Person system within a setting and all the emotional support and attachment provided for the young children in our care. Behaviour and Attitudes will be about what the children do, how they behave – it shows the impact of Personal Development. Leadership and Management will cover a number of aspects: Ethics, Vision and Ethos; Staff Development; Work load and well being; Off Rolling; Governance and Oversight; Safeguarding. The focus in the room turned to ‘Off Rolling’. Gill explained this is a term used in schools to refer to the practice of children not attending at key moments in the school year, such as during assessment periods. In my own research on this, I found a recent House of Commons briefing paper on ‘off-rolling’ that noted: ‘It has been suggested that increased ‘off-rolling’ is taking place because of the impact of pupils who are likely to perform relatively poorly in their examinations on school performance measures, and because schools may be struggling to support children who need high levels of support, for example pupils with special educational needs. Off-rolling of this kind might involve children being excluded for reasons that are not legitimate, or parents being encouraged to home educate a child where they would not otherwise have chosen to do so.’ Gill explained that it’s appearance in the new EYFS inspection framework was because Ofsted wish to collect data to show why settings may not be taking on particular children. She said, for example, if it is due to funding, then Ofsted want to know this. She pointed out that Amanda Speilman (Ofsted Chief Inspector) will take on this battle for Early Years if it is required, but she needs the evidence first. Gill put it succinctly: ‘off-rolling’ is about ‘information to collect rather than to penalise’. That being said, she added that if a setting has never taken any funded children then Inspectors would want to know why, and equality of provision and ethical questions could be raised. We moved on to discussing the Quality of Education judgment. Gill emphasised that the curriculum is at the heart of this new framework and she summarised the sections here as follows: INTENT – what do you want children to learn? This is the curriculum – and the EYFS is your curriculum. IMPLEMENTATION – how will you help children to learn it? This is your teaching. IMPACT – what have children learned? This is your assessment. It was clear that the choices we make about what and how to teach the children in our settings is vital. For a moment of reflection, Gill presented us with this quote: ‘Learning is defined as an alteration in the long-term memory. If nothing has altered in long-term memory, nothing has been learned.’ (Sweller J, Ayres P, Kalyuga S, 2011, Cognitive Load theory Vol 1 Springer Science and Business Media). This was alongside a picture of a child putting 3D shaped blocks into correspondingly shaped holes. We discussed how the little girl went from not being able to do this to being able to do it so well that she was ready to move on – for example, she was given the toy to play with in the first place, an adult modelled it, she had the opportunity to practise repeatedly, she was praised, she responded to this praise and wanted to repeat again and again. Now she can do it so well either she will have tired of it and find something new to do or an adult may offer her a new challenge. We were also shown a clip of children at Sheringham Nursery in Newham, London and Head Teacher Julian Grenier talking about the balance between following the children’s interests, an educator taking learning to the next level with them and the moments when direct teaching is needed. Gill was clear that early years educators will need to have knowledge of the age expectations and stages of child development. Inspectors will be spending more time observing practice and asking adults what they are doing with the children and why. They will be asking ‘what is the learning for this child in this moment?’ June O’Sullivan linked this back to ‘Staff development’ and the important role this will play in supporting educators working with young children in being able to answer these kinds of questions. The conversation turned to a new term in the Quality of Education section: ‘cultural capital’. This generated the liveliest debate of the afternoon, facilitated by June and listened to attentively by Gill. The Ofsted statements related to this term were displayed for us to reflect on: • Cultural capital is the essential knowledge that children need to be educated citizens. (This is footnote 16 on p. 31 of EYs draft Handbook). • Some children arrive at early years settings with poorer experiences than others, in their learning and play. • What a setting does, through its curriculum and interactions with practitioners, potentially makes all the difference for children. • It is the role of the setting to ensure that children experience the awe and wonder of the world in which they live, through the seven areas of learning. (These 3 statements are from p. 31, under Quality of Education, Cultural Capital). Gill explained cultural capital as ‘the experiences and confidence that children need in order to become citizens of the future’. She said its appearance in the new framework is something Amanda Speilman is passionate about. Links were made here to closing the attainment gap. Gill referred to differences in children’s experiences in their family and home life. Parenting skills/styles were mentioned, for example children who know not to cross the road when cars are coming or put their hand in a fire because they have been taught this by their parents. June said ‘some children have a better edge than others.’ The words ‘resilience’ and citizens’ were repeated by both Gill and June and are clearly key aspects of Ofsted’s use of this term. They were keen to emphasise that cultural capital as it appears in the inspection framework is not about class or income. Children from well-off backgrounds can be poor in experiences that would increase their cultural capital (such as sharing books or going on outings) and children from lower income families can be very rich in these kinds of experiences. Both Gill and June said that Ofsted were open to suggestions about how to improve the statements relating to cultural capital in the framework. June expressed a feeling that cultural capital was quite a complicated term. She asked for contributions from the room and I have summarised the thoughts and responses briefly: • The word ‘poorer’ has monetary and social connotations and could be misread to mean higher/lower income as opposed to a lack of valuable experiences. Gill said they had been debating other words such as ‘better’ or ‘higher quality’. • Does cultural capital refer to ‘skills and knowledge’ and ‘broadening horizons’? Gill agreed these were relevant definitions. • Is cultural capital about the language and vocabulary we model and build for children? This was vigorously agreed with by Gill and June. Gill added that book language is more linguistically complex than ordinary conversation and this is why books and rhymes and songs are so important. • Surely the cultural capital of staff members will have an influence? June agreed with this and added that the ‘Staff Development’ came into play again here, building the cultural capital of educators so they in turn can build it for children. • Will Inspectors be trained in what cultural capital means and looks like in settings? Gill answered yes, absolutely. Another contributor suggested inspectors would need to take into account the context of the setting they were inspecting. • Concerns were raised about cultural capital being ‘outsourced’ into ready-made packs and courses as happened with ‘British Values’. June agreed there was always a danger that this may happen. Gill ended the discussion about cultural capital by saying it can be difficult for inspectors to unpick where children have learned things – it could be the setting, parents, older siblings, TV, books, peers. But she said they would be interested in what it is children have already learned to being doing what they are currently doing. There were some questions about what kinds of paperwork an Inspector would want to see under the new framework. Gill pointed us in the direction of Section 3 (Safeguarding and Welfare) of the Statutory Framework for the EYFS. June left us with this final thought: ‘What does Pedagogy mean? It is needing to learn. The curriculum is the means by which children learn and cultural capital is a route to build resilience to deal with what the world can throw at them.’ The afternoon was rounded off with a presentation by Ronke Kokoruwe of ‘iverbalize’. She talked to us about how she supports children to communicate with confidence and how important being able to stand up and speak is for children to increase their self-esteem. References For more information about the Big Conversation go to https://www.thebigofstedconversation.co.uk/ House of Commons Briefing Paper on Off-Rolling, Robert Long Shadi Danechi, Number 08444, 20 February 2019 https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8444/CBP-8444.pdfhttps://iverbalize.co.uk/ 1 2
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