AnonyMouse_13453

On 18/02/2021 at 16:45, Helen said:

The Confucian quote that Sue mentions in her comment is so relevant to today's pressures towards a knowledge-based curriculum for our youngest children, where they are required to remember 'stuff'. How many times does the new EYFS mention learning about things 'from books'? It's so obvious we learn so much more from doing than passively absorbing information. Thanks for this, Rachna-an interesting read. I haven't come across the Vedic ideas of learning by doing but, like Leedslassie, I'm keen to find out more. I've always loved the idea of yoga sessions for very young children.

Our children loved the Tatty Bumpkin yoga sessions.  

Couldn’t agree more!  There’s something that goes wrong with the static method of learning the phonic aspect of reading for some children.  They get bogged down with the technicality of it, I think.   Learning isn’t a ‘one size fits all’, which makes it hard for the teacher, I admit, but there needs to be some sort of exploration into what fits each particular child.  Much as we know that some children are visual learners, for example.  
I don’t remember having a reading scheme at school, but I do remember flash cards at home, and my parents making it fun.   

Fabulous. Thank you.   It really makes one wonder about what we were all reading 40 years ago.  Richmal Compton, Enid Blyton?  These were page turners for my brother and I.   Did they get it right?  

A fascinating read. Thank you 

I wrote about this when I was doing my foundation degree in early years many moons ago!  It was seen as a problem right back then, and nothing seems to be resolved yet!  All children come with their own set of ‘special needs’ individual to that child, it’s when they become more complex and specific to an individual that we have to go down the route of labelling to access help and funding for extra support.  Whilst that system is in place, a label is, unfortunately necessary.  If it was possible to access support without a label, that would help!   I can remember having a child that her parents and I were sure was autistic, it was obvious that we would need support to help her, but she had to have that official label in order for us to get help.  
On my course we also pondered the usage of the terms ‘disability’ and ‘dis-ability’  and whether we felt differently about the connotations of the labels.  
We used to use the term ‘Big Helper’ as sometimes the actual individual would change, or be absent for some reason.  Someone else could then be called upon to be the ‘Big Helper ‘ for the session.  

Really interesting.  That's a worrying trend in the lowering of core strength, isn't it?  I wonder what it was like in the Victorian era when children's bodies were often confined and they were expected to be mini adults in their behaviour?