Jules

As a “Scots lass” I was proud when our country became the first devolved nation to directly incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic law. Rights are about more than being safe from harm and discrimination – they are about freedom, respect and the ability to make choices. The UNCRC demands that “children, including the very youngest children, be respected as persons in their own right. Young children should be recognised as active members of families, communities and societies, with their own concerns, interests and points of view.” (UNCRC General Comment No 7). All children are unique, and that uniqueness should be nurtured and celebrated by the adults around them. That’s why I have come to see that the work that I have been involved in around gender stereotyping is very much a matter of children’s rights. I don’t think anyone would disagree that all children should have the freedom to interact with the world, to dream dreams, and to imagine a future where they can be whatever they want to be and do whatever they want to do. Yet I believe that outdated gender stereotypes are still getting in the way. Gender Stereotypes Gender stereotypes limit our children in many ways, sending messages about what is appropriate or not appropriate for boys and for girls. They teach children that they ought to fit into one of two boxes which determine so much about what they can expect out of life. The rules around these “gender boxes” are taught from birth. Through the prism of pink and blue, the actions and reactions of those around us, and through the opportunities we are given, we learn what’s expected of us. Studies show that adults act differently around very young infants depending on their sex. Boys are seen as stronger and more capable, we tolerate and encourage their risk taking, we expect them to be sporty, and may even teach them to be tougher by taking slightly longer to respond when they cry. We speak to baby girls more, especially about emotions and we get concerned when they are too loud or boisterous. Through our words, tone of voice and facial expressions we encourage or discourage behaviour in children to fit these gendered norms – usually unconsciously. In 2019 Hopster looked at representation across mainstream children’s television in the UK and found gender stereotypes alive and well. Dominant male characters, a lack of strong females, few examples of caring boys or courageous girls – that sort of thing. They found a lack of disabled, LGBT+, working class and ethnically and racially diverse characters. Representation matters – all children have the right to see people who look like them in the world around them. The Let Toys Be Toys campaign has done stellar work in demonstrating how the toy industry produces and markets specific toys to boys and girls in ways which reinforce stereotypical gender ideals. And don’t even get me started on the clothing industry… I could list example after example showing the ways in which children are exposed to and learn from these gender stereotypes. How these stereotypes mean that little boys learn from a young age to hide their emotions, and how young girls learn that much of their value in society is placed on how they look. The shared characteristics, behaviours and interests we think we see in groups of girls and groups of boys may be more to do with this gendered socialisation than as a result of innate biological differences, which remain slight right up till puberty. The Vital Role of Early Years Settings By the time they reach you in early years settings many of these ideas about gender roles will have taken root in children’s minds. However, I am convinced that early years settings can play a vital role in challenging these ideas, not only through minimising stereotypes in our settings, but by providing a new narrative which can inspire and empower children. So, what advice would I give to anyone who wants to make changes to their practice? Find Your Why?: Change isn’t easy, particularly when it’s tied up in the way we’ve been taught to understand the world, or goes against the way “things have always been done”. If we find a motivation for making these changes, something we can remind ourselves of when we are finding it hard, then it can really help. For me, I can already see how my own children are being limited by these stereotypes. I have a passion for preventing suicide and can see how ideas about strong self-sufficient boys and men are feeding into the increased suicide rate amongst men. As a woman who has never felt comfortable in her own skin, I can see how pressures to conform to stereotypical body and beauty ideals have impacted on me and I don’t want this for my children (or any children!). The impacts of gender stereotypes are wide and affect us all. I believe that when people understand this, and find a reason that resonates with them, then they are usually on board. Use your passion to drive your action. Find your allies: As individuals we can make an impact – I’ll always believe this – but together we can do much more. I have found a network of like-minded people who just “get it”, who I can turn to for advice and support. Going it alone is never easy, so my advice would be to rally others to your cause. Perhaps you could look to organise some whole staff training which might help others in the team to find their why? Feed your knowledge: Even though I’ve been doing this stuff for quite some time, I am learning every day and I continue to participate in CPD around related topics whenever I can. As a result, my thoughts and opinions have evolved, and we have refined our approach. For example, we have moved away from a gender neutral approach to one rooted in gender equity. I believe that as long as we live in a world full of gender stereotypes we need to recognise and address the different impacts these will have on specific groups of children – for example boys and girls are subjected to quite different messages and expectations. Gender neutral approaches may not always allow us to provide the counter balance which I believe is needed to address these. So, look out for courses, webinars or events and keep learning. Get on Twitter and follow some of the brilliant organisations who are regularly sharing articles and opinion pieces on this topic. Small Changes, Big Impact: I know from experience that early years staff are already doing loads of brilliant equality focused work. We’ve always sought to recognise and celebrate this, but then provide inspiration and tools to take things even further. This is not about ripping things up and starting again – but about making small tweaks and changes which can have a big impact. It might be about buying in resources which show a variety of characters undertaking stereotype busting activities, or changing to gender neutral Christmas gifts or changing how you greet the children as they arrive at nursery each day. Every little helps. Look Across Your Setting: Taking a look at all aspects of your setting through a gender lens and making changes where you see room for improvement can really help. Take time to reflect on your environment, toys, books and resources, displays, policies, interactions with children and parents, the language you use, the activities you run. While small changes can have a big impact – lots of small changes can have even more! What We Permit We Promote: I believe that we need to challenge and call out gender stereotypes and sexist language whenever we come across it. This isn’t always easy, but it’s important if we are going to change the culture around this stuff. It is clear that staff in these settings have brilliant relationships with parents and children, which places you in an ideal position to gently challenge and influence in non-confrontational ways. For example, one staff member told us that when one dad showed some discomfort about his son playing with a doll and pushchair she asked him how he was planning on getting his son home that night. Simple! I believe that if we all play our part, if we start to make these changes, then we can make a big difference. We can ensure that gender stereotypes are minimised in our settings and challenge these stereotypes when we come across them. Children have the right to be free of these expectations, and as educators we have a duty (as per Article 29 of the UNCRC) to ensure that the education we provide develops every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full. Reducing gender stereotypes is one small way we can do this. Let’s make sure the potential in our children is limitless.

The need to understand more about speech, language and communication development and making this a core focus of CPD is frequently discussed within the Early Years. As we move to work in Key Stage 1, the focus on this essential area of development often lessens. Shifting our focus away from speech, language and communication skills as we begin to focus more on formal learning, literacy, maths and knowledge is a false economy. For all children, there is still a great need for us to understand more about speech, language and communication development. Although, for many children, the basic skills are in place as they leave the EYFS, they still have so much to learn. To name just a few, narrative, negotiation and the language skills surrounding problem solving need to develop way beyond the basic level of skill which will have been established by the age of 5. Non-literal understanding, allowing children to understand and then use humour, sarcasm and metaphors, also develops within this next phase of Education. Understanding more about the speech, language and communication skills children still need to develop between the ages of 5 and 7, can allow us to think specifically about the opportunities we create for our children. These opportunities could be created within the learning environment, our planning and the games we play. For example, if we are making some play-based learning available to children within our learning environment, we can make more informed decisions about what we add to the environment and how we might evolve the opportunities over time. This is because we have a greater understanding of the correlation between the purpose of the opportunities we make available and the skills we are wanting to facilitate in our children. Although understanding more about this crucial area of child development has applications for all children aged 5-7, it becomes even more important when a child presents with skill gaps. Many children leaving the EYFS will continue to present with some or all areas of speech, language and communication at an earlier stage of development than would be expected for their age. This is known as delayed development. The more we know, the easier it is to establish which area or areas of a particular child’s development are delayed and which are not. Even more essentially, understanding more about the order of speech, language and communication development, allows us to establish what a child can do, moving away from just describing what they cannot. It is from the child’s level of success that we must work from as we set next steps and facilitate progression. Developmental Language Disorder can be easily missed within the EYFS and it is often between the ages of 5 and 7 that children with disordered patterns of language development begin to stand out a bit more. As the other children’s higher-level skills develop, especially with social communication, inference, prediction and non-literal understanding, it becomes apparent that these skills are not as automatic for some children. It is essential that, if we work in this age bracket, we know more about this so that we can spot Developmental Language Disorder and not confuse a child’s issues with behaviour, lack of listening or rudeness. As our expectations with reading comprehension, problem solving and creative writing rise quite quickly and significantly, it is essential that we understand the impact that disordered patterns of development may have. Understanding pragmatic development/social communication is essential if we want to know how to support a child who is not mixing with or struggling to socially engage with the other children. Pragmatic issues are often the core root issue, with many children struggling with Personal, Social and Emotional Learning. Understanding more about speech, language and communication development links in very strongly with Ofsted’s agenda with, as they term it, ‘The lowest 20%.’ It becomes very difficult to decide and talk about what this group of children need if we do not understand more about child development and what the barriers to learning and progression are for this group of individuals. Building a Skill Profile for children who are causing us concern and who need and deserve a little more thought is often the best place to start. From this point, we can then think about what each child needs and decide how we might achieve that. At this point, our thoughts often turn to interventions alongside some Quality First Teaching Strategies. More often than not though, we will reach for isolated Intervention Programmes or follow a pattern of giving these children more of that same, but simply in smaller groups. Although there is nothing intrinsically wrong with Intervention Programmes, it is essential that we understand what the gaps are that need closing. Otherwise, we are trying to fix a problem that we haven’t understood ourselves. We also need to think about what we do outside of that Intervention Programme. How can we support closing the gap within our interactions, within the opportunities we create within our learning environment, etc? Understanding more can also help us to understand that more of the same, is not always the best way to ensure progression. For example, visual discrimination issues will impact on a child’s ability to retain graphemes, especially similar, confusable ones or to move on to di- and trigraphs. Issues with sequential auditory memory are often the root cause of children not being able to blend. Although a strong and consistent SSP is crucial, we will be much more effective if, alongside, we identify and tackle these barriers rather than ignoring them. Not only is this more likely to facilitate progression, but it is also a fairer and more empowering approach to take when children are finding things tricky, no matter how many times you repeat the same thing. Issues with auditory memory and sequential auditory memory may also be the hidden reasons why a child can’t hold a sentence, remember what to do when they get to the table, struggle with problem solving and reading comprehension. Issues with semantic development/vocabulary skills may also be the hidden reason why certain children struggle with inference, prediction, generating ideas of things to write about and why they still tend to take everything that is said or read literally. Understanding more about the links between these core skills and the things we are trying to teach and ensure progression with can make things a lot less frustrating when a child can’t do something. Most importantly, it allows us to understand why this might be the case and what we need to do about it. Knowing more about the specific nature of different children’s skill gaps and the incremental skills that need to be facilitated to close the gaps, will allow us to think about the exact Quality First Teaching Strategies we need to put in place for different children. It also allows us to begin to embed interventions into our interactions, our planning, the learning environment and the speaking & listening games we choose to play. This means that ‘interventions’ become more frequent, are less labour intensive, more sustainable and are woven into what the child is learning and communicating about already. Often, we turn to isolated Intervention Programmes as they seem easier, particularly when we don’t have the knowledge or confidence to embed our own. Understanding more about speech, language and communication development can also really support us when we need to work with Outside Agencies. Deciding which children need referring elsewhere is greatly supported the more we know. The extent of the mismatch between a child’s stage of development and their age, along with disordered patterns of development would be the main factors that would indicate that a referral might be needed. Understanding more about this area of development also allows us to avoid over referring as we begin to feel more confident about these decisions and being able to set next steps for children ourselves. Multidisciplinary working also becomes more two-way, the more we understand about speech, language and communication development. It allows our referrals and reports to contain more specific detail and offers clarity to our thoughts about what a child can do well and what they find more difficult. A greater level of knowledge also allows us to interpret reports from Speech and Language Therapists, Educational Psychologists, etc. Most fundamentally, it allows us to understand what their assessment findings mean to a child’s learning and what we need to put in place for that child. To find out more about Launchpad for Literacy, visit the website. All our primary articles have been moved to Tapestry.info. You can read them and lots of other articles there.

In Part 1 of this series, we considered methods of observation and assessment in the light of the revised EYFS and new Development Matters document. It’s clear from the guidance that we now have a great opportunity to reduce the number of observations and assessments we record for our children, and at the same time, make sure those that we do make are effective while not taking time away from being with children. In Part 2, we looked at the Prime Areas of Learning and how we might use the new EYFS programmes along with some open questions, to write narrative observations of your children to explicitly identify and celebrate their learning and development. Without a ticklist in sight! Here, in Part 3, I offer some open questions to support your observations in the Specific Areas of Learning. When you’re observing a child, think about one or two of these questions below - maybe even print them off and have them close by as a prompt. There are no right or wrong questions to answer; these are just prompts to help you and your colleagues think about what you’re looking for when you’re observing children. If you see a question that interests you, with a particular child in mind, then that’s the one to go for. Literacy The EYFS 2017 version states: Literacy development involves encouraging children to link sounds and letters and to begin to read and write. Children must be given access to a wide range of reading materials (books, poems, and other written materials) to ignite their interest. The new 2020/21 version states: It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together. Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words. Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing). Comprehension and Word Reading · How do they demonstrate an interest in books? · Can you describe the language they use which reflects their experiences of books? (e.g. repeating words or phrases from familiar stories or rhymes). · How do they demonstrate an understanding of a story that has been read to them? · In what ways do they retell stories or narratives? · What is their understanding of the way stories are structured? · What is their understanding of rhyme? · In what situations are they able to anticipate what is going to happen in a story? Or consider alternative endings? · How would you describe their increasing range of vocabulary? · How do they contribute to discussions about stories? · What kinds of books interest them most? Fiction/non-fiction? Rhymes and poems? · In what ways do they demonstrate an understanding of letter sounds and the alphabet? Writing · What do they tell you about the marks they make, or about marks they see elsewhere? · Can you describe their ability to write recognisable letters? · How do they demonstrate an understanding that speech is made up of separate words? · Can you describe their level of understanding in linking sounds to letters? · How do they make use of phonic knowledge in their writing? · Can you describe their level of expertise in writing short phrases or sentences? Mathematics The EYFS 2017 version states: Mathematics involves providing children with opportunities to develop and improve their skills in counting, understanding and using numbers, calculating simple addition and subtraction problems; and to describe shapes, spaces, and measure. The new 2020/21 version states: Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding - such as using manipulatives, including small pebbles and tens frames for organising counting - children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures. It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes. Number · How do they show an awareness of a change in the number of objects, images or sounds? · What is their level of understanding of number names and counting? · In what ways do they categorise objects? · How do they use manipulatives in their activities that demonstrate their growing mathematical understanding? · Which examples of mathematical language do they use? · What is their understanding of the concepts of addition and subtraction? · In what ways do they demonstrate an interest in number problems? · Which instances of subitizing have you observed? · How do they represent numbers? (e.g. using fingers, marks on paper). · Can you describe their level of understanding in recognising numerals? · How do they demonstrate their knowledge of number bonds? Numerical patterns · What is their level of interest in exploring patterns? · In what ways do they recognise pattern within the counting system? · What is their understanding of comparisons between quantities? Shape, space and measures · How do they demonstrate an understanding of the pattern of daily routines? · In what ways do they investigate and manipulate 2D and 3D shapes? · Under what circumstances do they notice simple shapes and patterns? How do they talk about them? · In what ways do they categorise objects according to size? When do they use the language of size? · What is their understanding of time passing, or of events in the past or future? · In what ways is their understanding of length, weight or capacity developing? · Can you give examples of the language they use in relation to position, money, or sequencing events? Understanding the world The EYFS 2017 version states: Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment. The new 2020/21 version states: Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting parks, libraries and museums to meeting important members of society such as police officers, nurses and firefighters. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension. Past and present · In what ways do they show curiosity about people around them? · What is their understanding of the past? · Which comparisons between the past and the present interest them? People, culture and communities · In what ways does their play reflect their own family and home-life? · How do they demonstrate a respectful understanding of the similarities and differences between us? · How do they show an interest in the lives of others? · Under what circumstances do they talk about familiar people and significant events? · Can you describe their levels of interest and understanding of the world about them? · What is their understanding of their environment? · Which comparisons do they understand, between life in this country and elsewhere? The Natural world · In what ways do they explore the natural world? · How do they show an interest in objects around them? · In what ways do they demonstrate an interest in the features of objects? · In what ways do they show care and concern for the living world and for the environment? · How do they demonstrate an understanding of similarities, differences, patterns or change? Expressive Arts and design The EYFS 2017 version states: Expressive arts and design involves enabling children to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials, as well as providing opportunities and encouragement for sharing their thoughts, ideas and feelings through a variety of activities in art, music, movement, dance, role-play, and design and technology. The new 2020/21 version states: The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe. Creating with materials · In what ways do they enjoy sensory exploration? · In what ways do they demonstrate an interest in making marks? · How do they engage in exploring colour, shape, texture, or construction materials? · Can you describe their level of independence and skill in selecting and using tools and techniques to shape and join materials? · In what ways do they construct with a design or purpose in mind? · How do they describe their creations and the processes they have used? · How do they make use of props, materials and other resources in their imaginative play? Being imaginative and expressive · In what ways do they express themselves through physical action or sound? · When and how do they demonstrate an understanding of pretend play? · How do they demonstrate an enjoyment of music? · How do they create movement in response to music, or demonstrate their increasing understanding of rhythm? · In what ways do they create stories or engage in role play? · What forms of creative expression do they prefer? Currently, around 2,800 schools chose to be early adopters of the revised EYFS, many of whom are trialling new ways of offering a stimulating early years curriculum whilst observing children’s progress without the need for ticklists. Some positive feedback is now coming through: ‘We are following children’s interests more and with greater fluidity. Nothing now seems forced (to complement tick lists of objectives). So far, a very positive impact. (Twitter mabel @MadeUpTeacher 1) ‘Nice to be able to try some new things out this year with the new framework’ (EmmaP @Elp_littletink) ‘I’m using ‘on track’ or ‘not on track’ as we go through the year. Targeting those not on track so hopefully more and more will be on track as we move through the year.’ (Victoria de Villiers- facebook early Adopters Schools 2020). Remember the guidance available to you, among others, is the revised EYFS which becomes statutory in September (2021), the new Development Matters, and Birth to 5 Matters.

Firstly, it’s essential to realise writing in the early years doesn’t always consist of paper, pencils and letters. There are a range of resources we can utilise for ‘writing’ as well as many factors to take into consideration to encourage children to engage in this activity; physically and mentally. The 2017 EYFS framework, development matters and outcomes shares a child’s writing is based on their skills and understanding which they develop as babies and toddlers, before they can write, they need to learn to use spoken language to communicate. Later they learn to write down the words they can say. ‘Children can only write what they can say’ During many Literacy CPD sessions I have heard “children can only write what they can say” and this applies in the Early Years as it does throughout primary school and beyond. Are we engaging in meaningful conversations with children? Asking open ended questions, allowing them to expand on their answers? Do we as practitioners model this (generally throughout the day, not only when it comes to the time to complete a task) by describing what we can see, sharing how our day was or what our lunch tasted like? Does the context of the conversation relate to the child and their experiences? If we’re discussing a jungle, do we have visual aids – real life photographs and videos as opposed to animated images. If we want children to write about decorating a cake, how much more exciting and engaging would it be to actually decorate the cake, then write down the colours and flavours we chose? What about the books children have access to around the setting? Do children see themselves represented in these books – skin colour, religious articles, local environment? All of this is vital for a child to make relations between texts they read and to then write their own ideas. Mark making Let’s take a look at some of the initial steps of writing in the early years – mark making. Do children give meaning and distinguish between the marks they make? Can they ascribe meanings to marks they see in different places? Mark making can happen with · a paint brush and a pot of water outdoors on the wall or the ground · twig in the mud · paint and fingers or brushes · in sand · pasta sauce or mushy peas · a window with condensation Do children speak as they are mark making? What are they saying? This differentiates the sensory activity to giving meaning to the marks they make. The use of different materials and resources encourage children to explore how they can make different marks and control tools with their fingers, wrist and hands. Their bodies are in different positions to utilise tools effectively, the range of tools and positions also builds a child’s physical strength which will support them when having to use a pencil and sit at a desk to write. Physical strength I think we might all be familiar with ‘disco dough’ or the use of play-doh and slime to stimulate children’s fine motor skills. This really does allow children to build strength in their fingers, wrists and hands which will support them to hold and control both the tool to write and the resource to write on. I have been aware that because of Covid, ‘messy play’ has unfortunately been more limited in some settings, but it’s vital to allow children to have access to this. Messy play allows children to explore movement with their fingers, hands and wrists, as they pinch, squeeze, roll and all sorts. They develop their communication and language skills by saying what they are doing, the colours they can see and the textures they can feel. These activities also encourage children to be creative. Gross motor skills are also vital to develop as this supports the child’s core strength and posture when having to write. We can encourage this development by climbing and lifting, and access to outdoor equipment will support this. Also having writing materials on the carpet and allowing children to lie on their stomach to write builds core strength, sort of like tummy time for babies. Opportunities We all know, in the Early Years setting there are many opportunities to encourage writing and allow children to access writing materials. The Role Play area for example – depending on what you have set up: post office, shop, café, family home, there can be whiteboards, post it notes, pads of paper and envelopes available for children to jot down notes and shopping lists, write letters to post. When using visual aids on displays, I think real-life images and handwritten prompts work much more effectively as they are realistic. Also modelling the use of these materials and how they tie in with the role play area, with specific language, will encourage children to access this more effectively. Take writing outdoors – nature walks, writing down what they can see, hear, feel or the ticking of lists (bringing in their reading skills), depending on what space, resources and equipment you have available. Children can write in their books or use clipboards on benches, play equipment, the grass, even sitting in a tyre. Again, this builds their physical strength, encourages them to be creative and allows them to explore different materials and settings – not restricting writing to a desk. Writing comes in different stages, from early mark making to clearly representing sounds when writing labels, captions and short sentences. When children reach this later stage, giving them a purpose to write works effectively, for example writing labels for the play equipment or for facilities such as the sink or toilet. Creating posters themselves, instead of using printed ones, explaining how to wash our hands, can be displayed and also provide a practical use. Show and tell We see a lot of show and tell when children bring precious items from home (maybe not now due to Covid) but what about sharing their writing, have they written a poem, a song or a letter? Do we see children’s writing displayed around the setting? I know a lot of writing is used for evidence in children’s journey logs but what about photocopying some of these fantastic pieces so they can take them home to share. I also like the idea of children writing captions and labels of something practical they have made in the construction area or with Lego etc. It gives them purpose and another relevant opportunity to write. A fantastic opportunity for keeping writing relevant when children start writing captions and labels would be to have real-life photographs from home, which we can photocopy and display, with the child writing who or what is in the photo and sharing this with their peers. I remember during my Early Years practice, I had some children who were reluctant to write. I focussed on encouraging all of the above: writing outdoors, using different materials, building their physical strength and relationships with their parents/carers and staff around the school. I also praised children for their effort and gave children a sense of pride by sharing their writing with parents/carers or staff and photocopying this for children to take home. If a child is motivated and feels a sense of pride, they will put the effort in to write and even if it doesn’t meet our ‘standards’, if we encourage this effort, it will develop their confidence and their skill. In conclusion, we have many opportunities to encourage writing across the Early Years setting. Using a range of materials (some that might be considered unconventional), it’s important to get the child to enjoy the task first, relate to the context given and build their physical strength - this is a big one, if they struggle to control the pencil due to poor fine motor skills, we won’t see their best writing. Let’s use real-life images rather than animated ones so a child can actually see what a whale or whatever it might be looks like. Sometimes developing relationships with parents/carers can be a difficult one for many reasons, as we have children with different circumstances at home as well as taking into consideration that some children might not have access to writing resources at home. But sharing children’s work and praising them for their effort can build their confidence and motivation to attempt this activity again. Building their communication and language will widen their vocabulary and this will support them when they come to write – remember they ‘will only write what they can say’. Make the writing relevant and realistic so children will be able to use the experiences and knowledge they have. Encouraging creativity through messy play, the role play area and topics we are looking at will develop their imagination and creativity when writing. There are so many elements to take into consideration when looking at writing. I hope some of this helps!

Is there a ‘right’ number? It is incredibly easy to become obsessive about the number of observations you are recording about a child. Whether you are an educator, leader or manager, it is an easy path to go down. It is almost subconscious to feel that it is essential to have documented evidence for every statement from an assessment framework or to justify the intent and impact of every decision you make. As discussed at the end of Part 2, despite the shift in the narrative of the day being that data collection and documenting supporting evidence really isn’t essential, it can still feel that way on the ground. So that means the question of ‘how many’ is as relevant today as ever. Firstly, let me clarify, this article will not give you a definitive answer at the end. There will be no you should be completing ‘x’ number of observations per term per child. Instead, I hope you will reflect on your current approach based upon the variety of factors considered throughout Part 3 and adapt your observation and assessment process as a result. The first consideration is your answer to the question: who are your observations for? Once you’ve answered this then you can begin to explore ‘what is the right number for you and your children?’ The reality is that everyone’s ‘right’ number will be different. It will differ from setting to setting, from educator to educator. But if you are like me, it is a constant debate you have both internally and amongst your team. The way you plan and the paperwork you use when planning (that’s a whole other topic!) will influence how reliant you are on documented observations to support your planning. If you use observations to document your planning journey for example, to justify your intention and subsequently evaluate its impact then clearly you are going to be documenting more than if you don’t. Some leaders and managers prefer to be able to follow the observation, planning and assessment cycle in a documented manner too. Both as evidence that the educator is supporting a child’s learning and development to improve their outcomes and also to help assess the performance and effectiveness of their provision and curriculum they have implemented. Another factor which will contribute to the number of observations you document will be the child themselves. For example, the observation of a child with learning differences is crucially important, and we should do this very carefully and thoroughly. However, it is worth noting that as with all children, we will only be documenting moments of learning for that child, regardless of whether those moments happen more or less often. If you have children who are vulnerable, 2 year funded or who receive Early Years Pupil Premium, you will most likely be documenting observations to evidence the extra support they receive or show where the additional funding has been used to improve the provision you offer them which will, in turn, improve their outcomes. As the changes to the EYFS come into effect in September 2021, local authorities may change their expectations regarding evidence they require to align with the shift away from a data-centric approach. It is worth considering this and consulting with your local authority when you are reflecting on the number of observations you document. With this in mind, the next question that often gets asked probably answers itself. Does each child need to have the same number of observations? At the beginning, I explained how the number of observations documented will differ from setting to setting and educator to educator. However I would go further and say it alters from child to child. For all of the factors discussed above. Whilst I don’t believe there should be a limit on the number of observations documented, I do think we have to be cautious they don’t become an obsession. We have all witnessed educators walking around with a notepad or tablet glued to their hands photographing every movement a child makes or noting down everything they say. As an adult I find nothing more intimidating than being shadowed by an adult with a clipboard, feeling like I’m being watched, and my every move judged. Now, think about how it must feel to be a child in that situation, not understanding what is happening or why. In addition, consider the discussion in Part 1 concerning whether observing children in such detail in the moment has an impact on the quality of the interaction and the teaching and learning experience of the child. Is there a minimum number of observations that should be documented on a child? Your answer to this question will be linked to your reflections on who do you document observations for and why. For example, it depends on whether you are focussing on how you share each child’s learning with their family, or if you are using them to inform your provision for each child by documenting their learning. Or if you are a Private, Voluntary, or Independent setting who may be thinking about how to demonstrate the quality of the service you offer and the experiences the children receive. Naturally the more reasons you have to document observations, the more you are likely to gather. Irrespective of what you believe the ‘right’ number is, it is vital for individual educators, leaders and managers that they do not become overwhelmed by the volume of observations they are expected to document. The more observations you collect, the easier it is to fall behind, and the more pressure that is added for all. And the greater the potential for staff well-being and the quality of interactions to be negatively impacted. Therefore, I would argue it’s best to not put a number on it and to instead consider what you have read in parts 1, 2 and 3 of this observation series to reflect on your own observation and assessment process. To build a strategy which works for you, for all. Children. Parents. Staff. Use your professional judgement. Trust what you decide. As long as you are able to justify it when you are asked then you have made the right decision.

Who are observations really for? In Part 1 of this miniseries about observations in Early Years I explored when it can be best to document an observation. This next part will focus on the question ‘who are observations really for?’ With the third and final part of the series examining if there really is such a thing as a ‘right’ number of observations to collect on an individual child. Observations are one of the most important parts of being an Early Years Educator. They are a fundamental part of any Early Years Educator qualification and there is an expectation that all staff know how to complete them, but how often do we reflect on why we collect them? When working in Early Years we are ‘programmed’ to collect observations: we spot a moment that we consider to be ‘observation worthy’ and can end up robotically working through our methodical observation, recording and assessment process. Over recent years I’ve seen observations from many different settings and from a wide range of educators and they all follow a similar format: photo / videos + a description of what took place + assessment against a developmental framework + evaluation of a child’s well-being and involvement against the LEUVEN scales (links to more information on these at the end too). For the purpose of this however I want to dig deeper into the first two parts of an any observation - the use of photos / videos and the written description. In Part 1 of this miniseries we reflected on whether it’s easiest to get photos / videos ‘in the moment’ and write the narrative part and / or assessment later or not. The answer to that could be influenced by considering who the observation is actually for. There are several different possible target audiences for an observation. Are observations meant to be memories for the children? We all have those photo albums from when we were children that are brought out during family events, so if we are wanting to create a record of a child’s learning journey through Early Years, does part of this have to include memories from their childhood? This could be where videos play a key role - a video can make a memory come alive, they can convey the engagement and joy in ways a photo or written observation can struggle to. This isn’t to say the written narrative is not important, however. There are some brilliant ways you can include a written observation to bring alive the moment and to make the child feel at the heart of the journey, even when they look back in the future. Learning stories, originally developed by Margaret Carr and Wendy Lee, for example are a wonderfully rich way of writing the narrative observation (see the further reading at the end for more information), but very briefly they are written to the children directly, as a narrative of their experiences in an objective way, for example “you played with the blocks and built…” rather than “child A was playing with the blocks and building…”. Are observations for the families? Observations being gathered for the families themselves links to the previous idea of them being created as a journey of memories for the children, except rather than them being documented for the child to look back on in the future, they are provided as a way for the family to see a child’s engagement, learning and development in the present. They are also really important to enable families to ensure their children are happy in your setting, not just as evidence of their development. They can be used to demonstrate to parents / carers how you are supporting their well-being, especially when a child is new or struggling emotionally. When documenting an observation for a parent / carer, try and think about it from their point of view; would you rather see photos / videos of your child with an accompanying story of their learning as previously discussed? For observations that are aimed to provide both the child and their family with a memory for them to enjoy there is a really important question we must consider. Is assessment of these observations really necessary? These ‘wow moments’ could be included without being linked to any assessment framework. If this is the case, should we complete and share these observations immediately with parents / carers, in as close to real time as we can? It could be argued that this is particularly pertinent in the PVI sector where parents are not just our partners but also customers. Therefore we need to consider should we be providing observations as evidence of the experiences of their children in our care and to evidence the quality of the service the parents / carers are paying for? Are observations documented for assessment purposes? It is easy to feel pressured to document observations as supporting evidence for baseline / summative assessments. This pressure can be our own internal pressure to justify the impact of the teaching and learning we are providing for our own key-children or can come externally from leaders and managers, the need for external moderation or visits from external organisations such as your local Early Years team or Ofsted. Despite the current rhetoric, both now and ahead of the EYFS reforms effective from September 2021, that the collection of data and documentation is less important than previously, does it really feel that way on the ground? When reflecting on who observations are for and how many we should document it is important to consider how our observations help us. They are a prompt to remind us what a child can do, about the teaching and learning experiences they have had and they support us to understand where a child is on their developmental journey. They also help us to get to know a child and they help to build up a picture of the child for all adults. With that in mind, there is one last question to consider regarding observations. ‘Is there a right number?’. Can there be too many? What number is too few? And should each child have an equal amount? I will explore this in the 3rd and final part of this miniseries of observation in Early Years. Finally, in reflection on Part 2, it is probably the case that observations should be documented for a combination of audiences, factoring in all of the above. An observation made for the purpose of assessment could still provide a memory for a child and their families, for example. It is however vital we consider who the target audience is when we evaluate how we are documenting an observation as there are multiple different ways of collecting evidence and the why we are collecting it definitely has a BIG impact on the how.

Parents and carers who do not engage with services are often referred to as ‘hard to reach’. Though the term is not intended as judgemental, it does imply that these families are ‘difficult customers’. Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre in the London Borough of Newham decided to put this notion to question. Julian Grenier, Headteacher of Sheringham, tells us, “We noticed that most of the families of children with SEND were staying away from our Children’s Centre. They only came into contact with us when their child was due to start nursery or reception. We had to think about what we were offering. Perhaps it was our services that were ‘hard to reach’? If you have a young child with SEND, you might not want to come to Stay and Play because it’s too busy or distressing for your child. It could also be that you’re fearful of how other parents or professionals might respond to you?” Some children were starting at Sheringham with a high level of need and developmental delay. Opportunities for early assessment and support were being missed. The families that would most benefit from early help services were slipping through the net. ‘Buttercup Group’ came about as an intervention aimed at addressing this problem. Its entire focus is to provide a setting that is suited to the individual child: being able to fit in or not fit in does not feature. (The term parents is used in its broadest sense throughout, referring to the child’s main care-givers.) Getting started The Buttercup team is led by Sue Cox, former head of a children’s centre. Althea Dove is the Speech and Language therapist and Marie Da Silva and Hazra Patel are the Family Support workers from the Children’s Centre team. The group functions in partnership with parents: this underlines all their work. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) reported in 2018: ‘parents play a crucial role in supporting their children’s learning, and levels of parental engagement are consistently associated with better academic outcomes. Evidence suggests that effective parental engagement can lead to learning gains of +3 months over the course of a year’. Where there is a language barrier other staff or family members are asked to translate, or an interpreter is booked. The parents are encouraged to enrol on classes to learn English (ESOL) when their children start their nursery placement. Initial discussions with parents made it clear that they needed a quieter group with appropriate equipment. They also wanted access to a specialist who could give them support and advice. Thus, Buttercup evolved as a small Stay and Play session, catering for just six children and running on a six-weekly programme. Sue points out, “A time-limited programme ensures that no-one is on a waiting list for more than a few weeks. We use our professional judgement to decide if longer participation would be helpful.” Work preliminary to attending the group Home visiting is the first thing. Sue explains, “We use this time to listen to what the family says about their child’s needs. This includes any cultural or religious perceptions of special needs and disabilities.” It is an important time to start nurturing a trusting relationship with the child and family. The EEF recommends that schools and early years providers should ‘consider offering regular home visits for younger children with greater needs. This can be an effective approach for parents that struggle to attend meetings in settings, and for building relationships.’ This works with Buttercup as every family visited has engaged with the programme. The next step is to collaborate with the family on outlining the child’s priorities and needs. These are addressed using an Early Help Record (EHR). This is written with the family, and focuses on family strengths and needs in relation to supporting the child’s health, early learning and emotional wellbeing. The EHR includes practical strategies that the family can try at home. The Family Support Workers follow these up regularly and offer additional support if needed. Further support is also offered through home visits. The group sessions The primary focus of the group is on children’s communication. The partnership with the Speech and Language Therapy service is, therefore, critical. For the large majority of children, difficulties in communication lead to additional difficulties in learning and distressed behaviours. The latter is usually the most pressing difficulty that parents identify and want help with. The room is welcoming and relaxing. Activities are organised around the three prime areas of learning and development in the EYFS. They are all adapted to meet the needs of the individual children. A variety of play activities helps to engage the children and encourage parents to join in. Adult chairs are located at all activity tables and the staff model interactions with the children. Toys and activities are kept simple so that families can replicate them at home. For example, demonstrating how to make play dough, playing with cars, trains, and variety of construction toys and mark-making with crayons and pencils. The type of development that each activity promotes is explained to the parent. There are a few specialised pieces of equipment, as recommended by Althea, the Speech and Language therapist, to engage the child’s interest and increase their attention span. Parents are supported by staff to use these with their child. During the sessions the staff help parents to develop their confidence as well as understand their child’s needs. “This helps them to support their children in all areas, including emotional wellbeing and managing behaviour,” says Sue. ‘Attention Bucket’ is the last activity, drawing on the work of Gina Davies. The lead adult has a collection of exciting resources in their ‘bucket’ and takes out one object at a time. They play with the object briefly in a fun and engaging way. Parents and children sit together, with the adults modelling anticipation as each object is brought out. This helps children develop joint-attention with an adult, which is fundamental to developing early play and communication. The session ends with bubble machine with the children leaving on a fun note. Assessments and reviews Althea develops individual plans for each child. “Initial assessments are done in a relaxed environment,” comments Althea. “I take case histories from parents and model helpful strategies and tasks that could be useful at home. We then check in with parents on a weekly basis to see how useful they have been. So, progress is constantly and consistently monitored and reviewed”. Althea also does assessments and makes early referrals to other services and agencies. She comments, “My participation means that parents don’t have to attend a health centre. All assessments take place in Sheringham’s Children’s Centre.” Althea also directs parents to high-quality online resources. The ICAN website has guides for parents about language development and how to support it. Althea works with parents to assess their child’s level of development and consider what would be the most appropriate input for their child. Tip Sheets from the Triple P Parenting Programme are also used. Triple P is an evidence-based programme that parents can access at Sheringham. Triple P or Triple P Stepping Stones (an adapted version for families with a child who has SEND) are both on offer. The four most commonly used Tip Sheets are: · Tantrums · Hurting Others · Bedtime Problems · Toilet Training Impact The staff asked parents the open question, “What has changed for your child?” as a means of assessing the impact of Buttercup group. Included in the replies are: - “Before these sessions he would never respond to his name, but this has improved. He was afraid of going out if there would be new people around – now it’s not a problem.” - “She is now using more words and better eye contact.” - “He is more confident, and his speech has improved. He has started using a lot more words.” - “She interacts with many more people now. At first she was very reserved but now engages with lots of others. Her communication skills have improved so much.” - “My child wouldn’t play with toys and explore – now she likes to. She wasn’t babbling but now she’s trying to make sounds. She enjoyed every session. Everything was brilliant!” - “It has changed my son. He plays with others and eats by himself”. Research Research highlights the multiple disadvantages faced by families and by young children with SEND. The Study of Early Education and Development (SEED): Impact Study on Early Education Use and Child Outcomes up to age five years says that, ‘children with an SEN are less likely to use formal ECEC [Early Childhood Education and Care] and are likely to have on average poorer cognitive and educational outcomes.’ (Melhuish and Gardiner 2020, p. 27). It also says that accessing high-quality ECEC is beneficial to children living with disadvantage. Conclusion Educational outcomes for children with SEND are concerning in England. The Education Policy Institute reports that children with SEND are 10 to 15 months behind in their development. This is a huge gap for children who are only 5-years old. Sue Cox states, “We no longer see the families as ‘hard to reach’. Instead, we see that services are difficult to access for the family of a child with SEND. Our children and their families now receive the early support they need during that sensitive period of time”. We can draw from this that Children’s services need to be pro-active in reaching out to families where access to regular services is not happening. Many more adapted groups like Buttercup are needed in order to reduce barriers to engagement. (Find out more: read the full report [PDF] about Buttercup Group)

Considering I had no intention of becoming a teacher, it’s very interesting how almost all of my experience as an educator has been spent supporting children with Special Educational Needs. Despite having considerable experience working with young people through various roles, this baby faced 22 year old had no prior experience working with children who had special educational needs. What’s more, I had never worked in a typical school setting. I had supported young people through sports and youth work but never in a school setting so my first role as a one-to-one for a non-verbal autistic child was a life-changing induction. In the early days of my career, I had supported autistic children and children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and SEMH (Social Emotional and Mental Health concerns). I loved every minute of it. I loved the relationships I developed with my students, my contribution towards their academic success and my influence on their wellbeing. It made me aware of the barriers to learning and the lack of understanding teachers had regarding these barriers. Ultimately, it opened my eyes to the lack of support both students, teachers and families received in mainstream schools when supporting children with complex needs. These revelations inspired me to pursue the SENCO qualification very early on in my teaching career but my first and most crucial decision was to first secure a teaching position in a special school for children with SEMH (Social, Emotional and Mental Health issues). A strange but well-informed decision for a Newly Qualified Teacher. Unlike mainstream schools, there isn’t a statutory requirement for specialist schools to have a Special Educational Needs Coordinator. Some may argue this makes very little sense considering a school exclusively for children with SEN requires a coordinator even more than a mainstream school. Fair point. However, when you understand the roles and responsibilities of staff in SEN schools you realise there is a shared responsibility for the provision of children with SEN. When this is the case, there is an acceptance that everyone is a teacher of children with SEN. This is how it should be. The responsibilities of middle and senior leaders more often than not include an area of responsibility that a SENCO would typically do. For example, the head of school may arrange and facilitate the annual reviews and the head of departments may liaise with external agencies like the speech and language therapists or the educational psychologist service. Despite the shared responsibility of the SENCO role amongst various staff at my school, I made the decision to apply for my National Award in Special Educational Needs Coordination (NASENCO) in my first year of teaching. As If I didn’t have enough on my plate. I devised a 5-year plan for my teaching career and highlighted the NASENCO as the professional development necessary for the roles I wanted in the future. It was an unusual decision because, as I mentioned earlier, my school did not have a SENCO and had functioned for 25 years without a formal SENCO in place. Furthermore, I knew the training would provide me with research, strategies and resources that could be applied to an environment lacking in fresh ideas. With my mind very much made up, I enrolled onto the postgraduate course and qualified as a SENCO in my second year of teaching. Whilst training to be a SENCO, I conducted a research study that focused on an area of improvement for the school. I focused my research study on the poor engagement of parents in their child’s learning and the poor communication between the school and its parents. The research process and its findings presented an opportunity to create a solution to a problem that could improve pupil outcomes. The following year, I used the findings of the research to create a parental engagement initiative that was named “Coffee mornings”. Parents came into school to share ideas and concerns whilst eating biscuits and drinking tea. It was perfect. It’s been a number of years since I took on the challenge of being a SENCO in an all through specialist school. There are 80 children altogether across Key stage 1 – 4 and each and every student has an Educational Health Care plan. In one way, you can say my role is made easier because my students arrive at my school with educational health care plans so no assessments are needed. However, there are 80 students that still require the very best service and to do this, you need everyone on board, playing their part. A huge part of my role is ensuring that the need of every child is being met and the necessary provisions are in place to meet those needs. One of the best decisions I made was to buy in to Provision Map created by Edukey. This allowed me to list what provisions we had available to our children and create the ones we needed according to our children’s needs. The obvious provisions are one-to-one support, mentoring, speech and language therapy etc. Then there are some provisions that are a lot more niche and bespoke such as Lego therapy, music therapy and bereavement counselling. The provision map tool allowed you to list these provisions on a database, assign relevant provisions to each child and review the success of these provisions. A dream. My personal expectation for senior leaders is a high level of teaching ability and a clear understanding of learning. This is no different for me as a SENCO. I’ve been fortunate to spend 5 years of my teaching profession educating children with SEN and I’m currently teaching a year 6 class. My experience and qualifications make me somewhat of an expert in my field – one who can and will get better of course. I use my skills and knowledge to support my teaching assistants and colleagues in areas of teaching and learning and behaviour for learning. This is by far my favourite part of being a leader – the empowerment of others. This can be as simple and as organic as conversations in the corridor and it can be as formal as CPD training delivered by myself or by an external agency. As a class teacher myself, I’m never too far removed from my teachers and I embrace leading by example and setting the standard I expect from others. Class teachers have the opportunity to team teach with me and I make myself available to support them in their planning and resourcing. But it’s not all about the teachers. The silent and underappreciated heroes of our great profession are the teaching assistants. Being a former teaching assistant, I can appreciate the contributions made by our TAs when it comes to supporting children with SEN. I’m also aware that unlike teachers, TAs do not get the same level of support in their professional development. Line managing TAs to teach intervention groups is one thing. It’s important and it’s very well needed but it’s the role of a manager. Recognising the strengths of your teaching assistants and putting them forward for training that will benefit the students, the school and their career is another thing entirely. That is leadership. In September, I will begin my new role of Assistant Head in a mainstream community school as Head of Inclusion. I believe my experience as a teacher and SENCO in an all through specialist school will make me well placed to support the school’s aim in being inclusive. Unfortunately, in many mainstream schools, there is far too much pressure on the SENCO to ensure high quality education for children with SEN in the school. This is what they will be judged on and rightfully so but there should be a shared responsibility of all staff in a school to create an inclusive environment for its children with SEN. I’m looking forward to supporting my SENCO, teachers and teaching assistants in making this possible. I’m looking forward to spotting talent within my staff and empowering those who are struggling and I’m looking forward to strategically planning for the provision of all children across the school, particularly those groups who are far too often excluded and marginalised. I was under no illusion that the role of a SENCO would be hard but the wisdom I’ve gained and the lives I’ve affected has made it well worth the journey. All our primary articles have been moved to Tapestry.info. You can read them and lots of other articles there.

Providing something for everyone is a tough challenge, but Birth to 5 Matters aims to do just that as ‘guidance by the sector, for the sector’. It is designed to support everyone implementing the EYFS, from new members of staff with limited experience and background knowledge of child development to their very experienced and highly qualified colleagues. In order to meet such diverse needs, Birth to 5 Matters(Bto5M) includes a range of formats and various levels of information to form a valuable, flexible resource. So where do you start? Though Bto5M has grown out of previous EYFS guidance, it contains a lot more material than the last Development Matters and engaging with it all could seem like a big project. And how can you use Bto5M in day-to-day practice? If you follow current advice and move away from using Development Matters statements as a ticklist, how can you use Bto5M to help you to understand children’s development and plan to support their progress, day to day and moment to moment? Where do you start? Young children’s experiences lay the foundations for the rest of their lives, and the privilege of working in the early years centres on the chance to offer children the best opportunities and most supportive relationships to enable them to flourish. The introductory sections of Bto5M outline features of the optimal environments, relationships and interactions that will support all children. Settings can consider how they lay this groundwork so they can have confidence that most children will thrive. The Statutory EYFS states that four guiding principles should shape practice in early years settings. Bto5M is firmly based on those principles to support your reflection on how they underpin your practice. As well as focussing on central issues such as play, care, and leadership, the beginning sections of Bto5M provide information and guidance organised under the EYFS principles of A Unique Child – including child development, self-regulation, characteristics of effective learning, inclusive practice and equalities – as well as Positive Relationships, Enabling Environments, and Learning and Development. This wide view of principled practice serves as a resource for practitioners at any level to consider the most important foundations of providing the best for children. For a quick overview, you could simply read through the ‘Key points’ identified in each section. To engage more deeply in any area you could read the full text, and then perhaps go on to explore the extra resources available on the website for more in-depth background, tools, case studies and research. Just as each child is unique, so is each practitioner and each setting. How you refer to these sections of Bto5M will depend on what is most valuable for your individual professional development, as well as priorities for developing the ethos and practice of your setting. These sections deal with areas which are fundamental to excellent practice, but they are not likely to be referred to on a daily basis in your ongoing work with children. If you take the time to become familiar with what is available, however, you may now and then find it helpful to look up particular sections and the linked extra resources in response to situations that arise for individual children or families. Supporting children without ticklists Beyond the background provision for all children, the detail of understanding, supporting and extending every child’s thinking and learning is the marker of excellent early years practice. The Statutory EYFS makes clear that practitioners have responsibility to ‘consider the individual needs, interests, and development of each child in their care, and must use this information to plan a challenging and enjoyable experience for each child in all areas of learning and development.’ It also describes ‘knowing children’s level of achievement and interests, and then shaping teaching and learning experiences for each child reflecting that knowledge.’ This is why the cycle of observation-assessment-planning is at the heart of early years practice. We need to be curious and attentive to notice what each child does and communicates (observation), think about what it might tell us about how the child is thinking, feeling and learning (assessment), and then think what we could do next to support them (planning). In many settings, this thoughtful cycle had been reduced to a fairly mechanical matter of looking for examples of children’s actions to match particular items from Development Matters, ticking them off, and automatically settling on the next statement in the list as a ‘next step’ to guide planning. It gave the reassuring illusion that we knew where children were in their learning, and where they were going. But it was a false picture because it narrowed our view to one prescribed learning pathway, rather than helping us to see and respond to the infinite variety of ways children are thinking, following their own motivations, and making sense of the world around them. The government and Ofsted are both clear in their messages that ticklist assessment and the associated heavy workload of recording evidence are not desirable. But this doesn’t mean that real observation-assessment-planning is to be thrown out the window – instead, it’s an invitation to up our game. Understanding development with Bto5M It’s important to be very clear that reducing paperwork and stopping checking hundreds of statements against each child does not mean letting go of observation, nor of being aware of each child’s learning and development. If we reduce attention to what each child is showing us and just assume that most children will be making good progress within our enabling environments, we risk not making the most of learning moments for each child. So we can’t stop observing, assessing and planning for all the children, but need to pay attention to each child in a different way. The grids in Bto5M look similar to those in Development Matters (2012) but can be used to support you to understand and respond to each child on their own learning pathway, rather than along a pre-set route. The guidance says the Unique Child trajectories ‘illustrate samples of what children may do along that journey. While these present some examples, children will do countless things that do not appear in the grids but are equally valuable for their learning. And as each child winds their individual path through the different areas, they will not necessarily show signs of each of the descriptors, nor in the same order presented.’ So it is up to practitioners to notice and reflect on what a child is doing, not to look simply for what we expect. Similarly, the grids contain ideas for adults but invite you to think for yourself about your children as you plan how to respond: ‘Examples of what adults might do or provide should be seen as suggestions or prompts for thinking, suggesting “next steps” adults might take to support children’s development and learning. Adults should use their creative and critical thinking to develop their own ideas, decide what to try, and evaluate its effectiveness.’ Using Bto5M in everyday practice The guidance can be seen as a flexible friend, to be called on to meet your needs when you would like some support. Some very experienced practitioners with a deep understanding of child development may not often refer to the trajectories, while others may find it useful to dip in much more frequently or even use it as a professional development resource for background reading. The main purpose of the grids is to support meeting children’s needs effectively, so the columns for the adult – what you might do in your interactions or what you might provide in terms of experiences and resourcing – are a critical part of the picture. It is of little use to understand children’s development unless we go on to respond sensitively and closely with what will support them best. So instead of thinking of ‘next steps’ as targets for children, it might be more helpful to think of the next steps adults will take to support and extend development and learning. In a sense, you will be constantly observing the children you work with, and the more you tune in and get to know the children the more information you will pick up. Most of the time you will be assessing and responding in the moment, interacting in ways that depend on the messages you are picking up from the children – what they are interested in, how they feel, what they are attempting, how they are responding to challenges, what they are thinking about. At these times you are not likely to refer to any guidance document. At other times, you may notice a pattern for a particular child, something new that you hadn’t noticed before, or perhaps a similar development for more than one child. In these cases you might decide that a little more reflection about your response would be useful. You might choose to make a record of these occasions, to support your thinking or to share with parents, the child or colleagues. The Bto5M guidance can be useful at times like this, to help you focus your mind on the learning that you are seeing. You could identify which Characteristics of Effective Learning you see in action, and which Areas of Learning and Development are in evidence. Then you can look within the grids to find a general area that reflects what you have noticed in the child. There are no ages listed in the grids, so the age of the child is not relevant here. Just find the rough area of development that matches what the child is showing you. Then the most important part: Have a look at the prompts for adults that are alongside that broad area of development, and decide whether any of these point you in helpful directions to plan how you can support the child’s progress, as in the examples below. Beyond this everyday attention to supporting children’s development and learning, you may at intervals – perhaps two or three times a year – find it useful to sum up children’s learning with best-fit judgements about which Ranges best describe their current development. This can be useful to see where children are making good progress, help to identify children who would benefit from additional support, and to identify any areas where the setting could improve practice. For each child, who is constantly learning in the present moment, the important assessment and response is the sensitive, timely support from an adult who is fascinated to understand more about the child and to help them along their own pathway. Case Study 1 Kim is the key person for Tommy, who has recently joined the nursery at 7 months, and she is keen to build a close, trusting relationship with him. She notices that at nappy changing time he sometimes seems tense, turns his head away and cries. To help her understand Tommy better (her assessment) and decide how to support him (her planning) Kim looks in PSED (Making Relationships) and finds in Range 1: Distinguishes between people, recognising the look, sound and smell of their close carer They will usually calm, smile or reduce crying when they hear their carers’/parent’s voice, or smell their clothing, for example Holds up arms to be picked up and cuddled and is soothed by physical touch such as being held, cuddled and stroked Begins to display attachment behaviours such as wanting to stay near their close carer and becoming upset when left with an unfamiliar person She also notices that in CL (Speaking), Range 1 includes: Lifts arms in anticipation of being picked up She reflects that Tommy is communicating that he still sees her as an unfamiliar person and is expressing his feelings (her assessment). For guidance in how she might respond, Kim finds in the Positive Relationships and Enabling Environments a number of suggestions for building a trusting relationship, including the following: Offer warm, loving and consistent care in your interactions with babies and young children, making good eye contact and handling children gently and respectfully. Respond sensitively and quickly to babies and young children’s needs, holding and comforting each child as they need. Learn from parents regarding caring practices at home so you can establish predictable and familiar patterns within your own interactions allowing the child to feel safe with you. Tune in to the meaning of babies and young children’s communications of crying, babbling, pointing or pulling and respond with interest, watching and understanding the cues they offer so they feel acknowledged and known by you. Spend plenty of time with your key children playing interactive games, finger plays and singing familiar songs that engage you both in mirroring movement and sounds, follow the child’s lead. Use care events to build a close relationship with babies and young children through respectful interactions and taking it slowly. Always explain what is going to happen and invite their participation. Kim decides the next steps for her are to focus on spending relaxed time with Tommy, to build a rapport and trust. She will be sure to slow down and respond to Tommy’s signals, including picking him up only once she has established contact and invited interaction by holding out her own hands, and waited for his response. She will also discuss with parents Tommy’s nappy changing routines at home to make the process as familiar to him as possible. Case Study 2 The nursery has a bed for growing vegetables, and the children have enjoyed pulling up the potatoes that are ready for harvesting. In the process, a few worms emerged and Sara and Elijah were fascinated to watch them moving. Both children picked them up and looked closely. ‘Have they got any eyes?’ Elijah asked. They remained engrossed in the worms for an extended time. The practitioner, Sam, would like to build on their interest and support their learning about the natural world. In UW (The World), Sam finds in Ranges 3, 4 and 5: Is curious and interested to explore new and familiar experiences in nature: grass, mud, puddles, plants, animal life Can talk about some of the things they have observed such as plants, animals, natural and found objects Comments and asks questions about aspects of their familiar world such as the place where they live or the natural world Suggestions for adult support include Use conversation with children to extend their vocabulary to help them talk about their observations and to ask questions. Make use of outdoor areas to give opportunities for investigations of the natural world. Provide story and information books about places, such as a zoo or the beach, to remind children of visits to real places. Provide opportunities to observe things closely through a variety of means, e.g. magnifiers and photographs, phone apps to listen to and recognise birds. Sam decides to enhance conversation opportunities by taking pictures of the worms that can be shared and discussed. In discussion, the staff decide to leave the empty potato bed as a digging place with magnifying glasses on hand, with a challenge to see if the children can find what lives there. Information books will be brought into the nursery, and online images shared. Beyond this, Sam wants to build on the children’s Characteristics of Effective Learning. She recognises that the children have shown: Playing and Exploring Finding out and exploring Showing curiosity about objects, events and people Using senses to explore the world around them Active Learning Being involved and concentrating Showing a deep drive to know more about people and their world Maintaining focus on their activity for a period of time Showing high levels of involvement, energy, fascination Not easily distracted Paying attention to details Sam would like to support the children in the third Characteristic, Thinking Creatively and Critically, particularly in: Making links (building theories) Making links and noticing patterns in their experience Working with ideas (critical thinking) Planning, making decisions about how to approach a task, solve a problem and reach a goal The guidance in Bto5M suggests: Use the language of thinking and learning: think, know, remember, forget, idea, makes sense, plan, learn, find out, confused, figure out, trying to do. Model being a thinker, showing that you don’t always know, are curious and sometimes puzzled, and can think and find out. I wonder? Give children time to talk and think. Make time to actively listen to children’s ideas. Encourage open-ended thinking, generating more alternative ideas or solutions, by not settling on the first suggestions: What else is possible? Always respect children’s efforts and ideas, so they feel safe to take a risk with a new idea and feel comfortable with mistakes. Sustained shared thinking helps children to explore ideas and make links. Follow children’s lead in conversation, and think about things together. Encourage children to choose personally meaningful ways to represent and clarify their thinking through graphics. Take an interest in what the children say about their marks and signs, talk to them about their meanings and value what they do and say. Represent thinking visually, such as mind-maps to represent thinking together, finding out what children know and want to know. Sam decides to support the children to be more aware of their own learning through conversation about what they know about worms, and what they would like to find out. They will be invited to draw what they already know, and then together they can talk about the drawings and how they learned these things. They will share ideas about how they could learn what they want to know, plan what to do next and illustrate these plans on a mind map.

I have been thinking a lot recently about the role of observations in Early Years. Especially with the opportunity to ‘reset’ that this September brings. This mini-series will be split into 3 parts (look out for parts 2 and 3 in August and September) where I will explore each of the following questions in more depth. 1. When to document an observation of a child? 2. Who are they really for? 3. Is there a ‘right’ number? Part 1: When to document an observation? There are so many things to consider when observing and assessing children in Early Years. One of the biggest challenges we face is what should you document and when. I use the word ‘document’ purposely. This is because we observe the children constantly. Everything they say, everything they do. All of it is observed. As you interact with children you are observing them. Effective communication and effective teaching requires observation, you need to observe in order to respond. Whether this response is immediate or planned for a time in the future, all of it requires observation. However, in Early Years sometimes it seems there is a belief that if it is not documented and assessed then it doesn’t count. As a result I often find myself contemplating how do I best focus on extending a child’s learning in my role as an educator whilst also ensuring I collect the evidence needed to observe and assess a child. Now I ask you to reflect on your practice, when you are mid-interaction and see something that makes you think ‘wow this a teachable moment’ or ‘this is a wow moment’ or ‘this would be evidence for x, y or z’ from your framework of choice, what do you do? · Do you always carry a notepad / tablet around with you so you are instantly able to make notes / take a photo to snapshot a child’s learning or when you see a ‘wow’ moment? · Do you ask another adult to take a photo / video or to provide you with some paper / tablet, potentially taking them away from what they were doing at the time? · Do you move away from the interaction to get it yourself? · Do you stay fully engaged in the interaction in the moment and only when it has reached its conclusion do you document it and therefore potentially sacrifice the photo opportunities etc and make notes from memory? It is quite the balancing act and I think all the possible answers have their own problems. I believe first and foremost we have to ensure we continue to provide the high-quality child-adult interactions that children need. Therefore, in order to provide outstanding teaching and learning, to extend a child’s learning as much as possible and respond ‘in the moment’ to the best of our abilities we need to carefully develop an observation method which strikes the right balance. Every adult will have a different method that works for them. Just like children we are all individuals and all work in different ways! If you prefer to write an observation mid-interaction then it is important to examine what takes the most time and what you could do to navigate this. If you usually write the full observation at the time, it is worth considering if it would be easier for you to take photographs in the moment and use these as prompts to verbalise what took place afterwards. Another thing to consider to help ease any possible impact on the teaching and learning in the moment is assessment. The new EYFS framework, Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters which are all effective from September 2021 are falling more in-line with the recent Ofsted narrative of trying to move away from the need to create lots of assessment. With this in mind it is definitely worth reflecting on whether every observation needs to be assessed and ensuring any assessments carried out are useful to help support a child’s development. Reflecting on both of these will help you to be more comfortable about this new way of thinking. If you prefer to retrospectively document the observation when the interaction is over then there are some pointers that could help to ensure any observation is as accurate as possible. As mentioned above you could use a notepad / post-it notes to make even the briefest of notes or ask another adult to take some photos as prompts. Or if you are going to do it completely from memory you should definitely write it up in full or at least make the notes immediately after. You can always revisit the assessment at a later date. As we all know a typical day in Early Years is so busy and full of so many teachable moments even the shortest delay could lead to key details being forgotten. Both of these strategies are however, not without problems. If you don’t complete the full observation and assessment at the time it can be easy to get overwhelmed with half-finished observations and easily fall behind. It is also easy to feel you aren’t providing parents with the updates they want / need of their child’s development / well-being and this can be exacerbated by not including photos or the learning experience. I would however argue that these cons are outweighed by the improved learning experience, improved adult-child interactions and the opportunity to extend a child’s learning to it’s fullest that can be achieved by making even small adaptations to the observation process, whichever method you choose! Nonetheless it is important to understand there isn’t a blanket approach that works for all or a perfect solution. It is about finding what works for you as an educator, your setting and your children. You can listen to a podcast we recorded with Adam here.

Perhaps it’s an age thing but I find shadows really fascinating. The fact that light has travelled almost 93,000,000 miles in 8 minutes and 20 seconds and in the last split second an object or person blocks it, stopping it reaching the ground, is quietly mesmeric. I love watching shadows, especially when out in the woods here in Devon - the sunlight streaming through the tall trees and the leaves choreographing a silent ballet on the floor. The Japanese word ‘komorebi’ comes to mind in these moments, literally ‘trees leaking through light’ a reminder of the joy of discovering how languages around the world attempt to describe and explain things that for other languages lie ‘beyond language’. To my mind the world is full of these moments - reflections, small sounds, the wind, even seeing the Moon in the daytime. I hope you notice these moments too as there is a real magic to be found in them and they tend to be a reminder to seek a slower pace of life as best we can. And it’s this magic that I love to immerse in. It’s what I call The Gift. It’s my belief that The Gift is what we need to show children, because when we do, they begin to see that objects, animals, the landscape, other people and they themselves all have learning and joy within them. They start to notice what is around them with increased awareness and delight and feel a sense of who they are both as learners and as people. Sharing The Gift requires a subtle shift in perspective from the Adult World. In her brilliant poem ‘Do Not Hesitate’ the late great American nature poet, Mary Oliver wrote the immortal line ‘Joy is not made to be a crumb’. To me, this is a really powerful statement about our interactions with childhood. I believe that it is joy that must come first. When we show the joy of mathematics then childhood leans in. When we share the joy of nature and its connections with us then childhood wants to discover and explore. When we reveal the joy of reading then childhood opens its eyes wider. Learning as Gift, not Graft. Whenever I’m around children, I’m reminded of The One Hundred Languages of Children’ poem by Loris Malaguzzi in which he talks about ‘marvelling’. Marvelling with children is one of the most extraordinary things we can do when in the company of childhood. When we do this, when we begin to give children choices and collaboration and creativity and step into these experiences too with a heart that honours and values the choices of childhood, we then begin to see the magic of children and how it craves to be acknowledged. This is why I am such a passionate advocate of co-play, of the Adult World waking up from its play amnesia to join the flow of childhood. I strongly believe in the ‘play-full heart’, a heart that carries wisdom and love and skills and joy within it, enabling adults to see childhood for what it is – a time and space of simplicity, invention, exploration and solidarity. When we are in this flow, we begin to put something into the world that it needs more than ever: the Bright Shadow. We start to show children that adults listen, have faith in their choices, advocate for them and want to be co-adventurers into learning, story and the world around us. We cast the Bright Shadow to amplify childhood, not diminish it. We are the Bright Shadow because we acknowledge the joy of being a young child, not ‘getting children to write’ but instead showing them the joy of writing so that they want to, so that they see and embrace the Gift. It’s for this reason I created Adventure Island, the Message Centre, Drawing Club, Play Projects and the Inventures of Noodle and Titch – to show both children and adults The Joy of Being You and The Joy of Being Me , to share with them the joy of make-believe, to show them how learning can be used like a spell within the world and how play is in the DNA of childhood and can never be taken away no matter how much the Adult World would say otherwise. It’s why Malaguzzi’s poem ‘The Hundred Languages of Children’ so readily springs to mind when thinking about early childhood and our role within it. In a way, these hundred languages and hundred more are the brightest of Bright Shadows, illuminating life and all its corners. And the Bright Shadow of childhood shines into us too, it can penetrate through to the Adult World showing it how to think and be and feel once more. So much of childhood is about feeling, an intense sensory-fed curiosity that makes the world around it a place for hands-on, heart-on exploration, discovery and invention and it is as though it reaches out and urges us to take its hand and BE. To a degree, when we are drawn into co-play with children, we are creating a Double Bright Shadow, as though both adults and children are a light source to one another, sharing the moment of being together on an adventure into childhood’s dreams of building, drawing, making, imagining, running and climbing. We become two Bright Shadows together. I’m sure you have felt this many, many times if you are one of the Play People, those of you who are passionately committed to the magic of children and singing the song of play. You sense that transmission of the Bright Shadow between you and children as you spend Time Together, seeing how childhood interacts with the world and re-imagines it. In order to witness the magic of children we know that we need to enable them to experience these three things across their days: Creativity, Collaboration and Curiosity. These are what childhood is looking for. It wants the myriad of possibilities that enter the room when we honour children’s problem solving, re-interpreting, the richness of their interactions, their questioning and their desire to unfold the world around them so that they can be within it for themselves. And all three things can only truly happen when we give childhood the ultimate gift of Choice. It always astonishes me that the Adult World, this world of supposed democracy and rights, this world that wants a ‘market’ of consumerism, seems to fall short when it comes to children. So often the Adult World seems to push children to the side of their own lives, dictating the who, the where, the what and the how. When it does this, it is the opposite of the Bright Shadow… It’s as though we too need to make a choice. We have the opportunity to put our finger on the Control Panel of each day and either slide it left towards More Control or right towards More Choice. The more choice we give, the more autonomy we enable. More autonomy, more developing independence and positive sense of self. Because this is the shadow that means the most, that sense of who we are that forms in the flow of childhood and stays with us as we move into the future that awaits. This self-perception, this understanding of our own great potential, our own courage to meet life with a Big Heart is one that can follow us for the rest of our days way beyond the time we finish our years in nursery and school. I deeply believe, and I hope you do too, that children are born with a creative energy and a sense of wonder for the world and as they grow, they need adults and children around them to nurture their inner world of confidence and courage. For indeed one day the children we are with now will be adults and it will be their turn to find their Play-full Heart and to seek the magic of children so that their own Bright Shadow and those of childhood can stand together once more and do the one thing that children want us to do: sing the song of play…

Context Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the world began to reflect on itself. Institutions began to reflect on the structures and systems they had in place, and many had to ask themselves if they are truly representative and this included the Education system here in the UK. There were questions about whether the curriculum was reflective of our students and whether the staff body including those in leadership reflected the student body. Of course, these questions have been asked before – but they were brought to the forefront by the unfortunate killing of an innocent Black Man and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. An opportunity arose to make a real transformation of the education system as we know it. Many of my staff and students began to ask uncomfortable questions. Working with older children who often have access to what is happening in the world meant that I had to prepare for some tough and difficult conversations about why even if Black Lives Matter, it still means that all lives matter and the importance of having Black and ethnic minority teachers. My experience The phrase representation matters has gained traction over the past year. For some it is because they want true change, for others it is a form of tokenism with no real intention behind it. For those that fall into the category of the latter, they don’t seem to understand the value and importance of having representation everywhere, most importantly in the education system. Now I want you to take a moment and to ask yourself three questions 1. Growing up – were you ever the minority in your class? 2. Growing up – did you have teachers that looked like you? 3. How did the above make you feel about your education and what you can achieve? For me, I was always the minority in the classroom, and I rarely had a teacher that looked like me. On reflection, I had about two Black teachers growing up and one Asian. I have never had a Black or ethnic minority headteacher. Personally, this meant that teaching was never seen for me as a profession that I aspired to as I never actually got to see myself represented in the profession. When I got to college, I had two Black teachers. Two Black teachers who changed my outlook on life and outlook on education and how I could succeed. Now, I could only imagine that impact as a 5- or 7-year-old girl. I am now a teacher of much older students, those who have navigated through much of their education already, many of whom have formed a stereotype of what a teacher or headteacher looks like, many of whom have ruled out teaching as an option because they can’t see themselves represented in the teaching and staff body. This is worrying and I have often asked myself what the solution could be. The only way we can change this is if we feed representation into every stage of the education system, including early years and primary school. A more culturally diverse education system can only do good, it can only bring together a diverse amount of thought, ideas, and experiences to create an education system which truly values all. Why is representation important Diversity is important in education. Students need to be able to see themselves in their teachers. Now, this isn’t to say that White teachers can’t bring value to Black and Brown students – they absolutely can. I had many White teachers who made a positive impact on my life. But there is something about having a teacher that you can see yourself in. BAME teachers give minority ethnic students a chance to see what academic success looks like and it also gives them something to aspire to. For children, to see an adult which looks like them possess great qualities and an abundance of knowledge will of course leave them feeling inspired. It provides hope and something to aspire too. You can’t be what you can’t see. This is also extremely important for White students. It helps to dismantle stereotypes and helps them to see the beauty of diversity for themselves. It also exposes them to different cultures and different views of the world. This is so valuable to students, especially if we are preparing them for the wider world where they will interact with people from all walks of life. But this can’t stop with teachers in the classroom. School leaders also need to represent their students. Headteachers and senior leaders must also be diverse. For BAME students, seeing school leaders that reflect them is empowering and it also helps them to aspire to reach those positions. Diversity vs Inclusion Despite all the positivity around diversity, it’s important not to confuse diversity with inclusion. Having a diverse teaching workforce is great but to see the full impact, your institution must strive for inclusion. Inclusion is giving all your staff equal opportunities and to ensure all staff feel comfortable and valued in the workplace. Only then will you see the real impact of diversity in education. All staff should be able to have an input on policy and curriculum if there is truly going to be an education system which values all. I believe that this is something which children should be exposed to from a very early age. Primary school is a time of curiosity and asking questions. If students are engaged in diverse and inclusive environments from this stage in their lives, it means that this will become their norm. When they move through their lives, they will be able to question if certain environments they are in are not inclusive and they can work towards creating this in their own institutions. What can you do? So, let’s think about how you can make change to have a real diverse and inclusive setting for your staff and students. What I am not suggesting is that tomorrow you begin an overhaul of the curriculum, begin to recruit only BAME teachers and hope that this will bring change. Instead take small steps towards a more diverse environment: · Training – it is important to raise awareness and tackle unconscious bias and stereotypes that both staff and students may hold. · Celebrate diversity in schools. Ensure that all holidays are celebrated and recognised · Use images/resources that reflect students. When delivering lessons think about the pictures you use and the names that are used. Can you use the name Emmanuel instead of Harry? Do you typically use images of white people – can you change this? · Get support – my organisation like some others support schools in creating diverse and inclusive environments · Commit to long lasting change for the right reasons. Don’t engage in diversity for diversity’s sake The push towards a diverse and inclusive education system is not easy but it’s worth it. Rhia is founder and CEO of Black Teachers Connect. All our primary articles have been moved to Tapestry.info. You can read them and lots of other articles there.