Back to basics Are your hen, goat, pig and cow where they belong ? - - PDF document

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BECERA 2017

Adults Supporting Young Children’s Play

OR

Helen Moylett

Back to basics

Are your hen, goat, pig and cow where they belong ?

Areas of learning, routines

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Where is the love?

Where are the frolics and fiddle-de-dees ?

Play

The need for play

• Play is the natural way all young

mammals learn.

• Those that have the most to learn

play the most.

• Adults understand that this is

how they practise the skills that they must acquire to become effective adults.

“We play to make sense of life in activity.”

Trevarthen (2017)

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What matters?

Life long learning

Playing and exploring

• Finding out and exploring
• Playing with what they know
• Being willing to ‘have a go’

Active learning

• Being involved and concentrating
• Keeping trying
• Enjoying achieving what they set out to do

Creating and thinking critically

• Having their own ideas
• Making links
• Choosing ways to do things

What will I do? Do I want to? How will I do it?

Building on the characteristics of effective early learning

24/02/2017 4 ‘What is this? What does it do?’

• sensory investigation, seeking knowledge

‘What if…? What else…?’

• using symbols, flexibility of thought
• theory of mind

Finding out and exploring Playing with what they know

Being willing to ‘ ‘have a go’

• initiating activities
• seeking challenge, taking

risks

• ‘can do’ attitude

All young children are creative. In their play and self-directed exploration they create their own mental models of the world around them and also models of imaginary worlds. Adults whom we call geniuses are those who somehow retain and build upon that childlike capacity throughout their lives

Peter Gray ‘Independent Voices’ 13.01.14

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Albert Einstein …referred to his innovative work as “combinatorial play”. He claimed that he developed his concept

• f relativity by imagining himself chasing a

sunbeam and catching up with it, and then thinking about the consequences.

Image:Reflections Nursery

Albert Einstein …referred to his innovative work as “combinatorial play”. He claimed that he developed his concept of relativity by imagining himself chasing a sunbeam and catching up with it, and then thinking about the consequences.

Peter Gray ‘Independent Voices’ 13.01.14

Whitebread and O’Sullivan (2012) study of complex social pretend play

• extensive self-regulatory opportunities within this

kind of play. Children guide the play narrative forward either in character (‘Oh dear, the baby’s crying!’)

• or by stepping momentarily out of character (‘OK,

you pretend you’re the baby and you’re crying because you’re upset’)

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Whitebread (2013) - the crucial importance of the adult role

‘This is perhaps the most sophisticated type of play in which young children engage, and one that many children struggle to perform well. ……. a skilful adult can participate, taking on some of the regulatory role, and if they are able to sensitively withdraw as the children become more competent, it can be an excellent vehicle to support a range of linguistic and self- regulation abilities.’

Whitebread D (2013) ‘The importance of self-regulation for learning from birth’ in H Moylett (ed) The Characteristics of Effective Early Learning. Open University Press.

Stories are at the centre of human life.

Through stories we:

• make sense of our lives;
• understand our own and other people’s

thinking;

• create our personal and collective histories;
• present ourselves to other people;
• imagine new possibilities;
• learn about language.

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‘The narrative begins early.

Even before the spoken word, the pictures in a young child’s mind assume a story-like quality. How else could the dramatic play emerge so fully formed, filling up the spaces in other people’s stories? Our books and conversations work their magic because the children meet us more than halfway. They have already begun feeling the emotional highs and lows

• f the hero and victim and are ready to climb to the

next rung of the ladder.’

Vivian Gussin Paley (2004:14) A Child’s Work: the importance of fantasy play

I rarely paused to listen….

..I saw myself as the bestower of place and belonging, of custom and curriculum, too

• ften ignoring the delicate web being

constructed by the children in their constant exchange of ideas the moment I stopped talking and they resumed playing.

Paley (2004:19)

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T-Rex

T-Rex lived long time ago. He was here now. They don’t eat potatoes. He is not in Worthing, he is in Brighton. But he is here. And look at my dinosaur, he has got a long tail. He is bigger and bigger and… He broke the ceiling. Rex 2 years 10 months

There are many individual and vivid stories in this book, but

• ne big story runs through all
• f them; the story of two year
• ld children making new,

sometimes startling meaning.

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“This is sad…..

I imagine a tiny baby monkey taken away from his mummy by an angry man to his angry cave. He would have the baby in a bag, a big one and he would give the baby to a horrible angry monkey who would eat it. The little monkey went down the big monkey’s throat and then all chopped up and blood was bleeding and it really hurt and the baby cried.”

Abi : 3 years 9 months

The Power of Story Jack and the Beanstalk

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Don’t pretend think – be a thinker!

‘If teachers want their young pupils to have robust dispositions to investigate, hypothesize, experiment, conjecture and so forth, they might consider making their

• wn such intellectual

dispositions more visible to the children.’

(Katz 1995 : 65)

Self-regulation in practice

Forest School at North Beckton Primary

Kaizen Primary School Gainsborough Primary School Woodgrange Infant School Earlham Primary School North Beckton Primary School

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Ori rigin ins of

• f the

the Proje

• ject
• Group of Newham early years leaders all believe that children are

entitled to become good learners whatever their circumstances and that the best early years pedagogy rests on a deep understanding of child development and learning

• BUT there was growing evidence that seemed to indicate that in some

schools the value of play was becoming misunderstood.

• Probably because schools often feel pushed into children learning for

short-term gain rather than becoming learners for life

• BIG QUESTION ….How to bridge the gap between their conviction that

play based learning is right for children in reception and the everyday practice in their schools. They applied to the Newham Innovation Fund for money for cover and consultancy to support an action research project

Aims

‘Maximising pupil progress, through play-based learning in reception classes, by developing:

• effective EYFS leadership skills
• the necessary skills, knowledge and

understanding of teachers and other reception based adults’.

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Play

• Play is freely chosen by the child, and is under the

control of the child.

• The child decides how to play, how long to sustain

the play, what the play is about, who to play with.

• There are many forms of play, but it is usually highly

creative, open-ended and imaginative. It requires active engagement of the players, and can be deeply satisfying.

Playing, Learning and Interacting (DCSF 2008)

• secu

cure e attachm tachmen ent t and emoti tion

• nal

l warmth rmth

• feeli

ling ngs of contr trol

• l and agen

ency cy

• cognit

itiv ive e chall llen enge ge – including the challenges children set

themselves in play, and adults providing and supporting achievable challenges

• arti

ticu culation lation of learnin rning g – using talk, as well as other ways

children express themselves, to help children to recognise and clarify the way they think and learn.

David Whitebread

A pedagogy which supports children as self-regulating learners provides:

The e role e of the adult lt

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Key features

All schools audited their practice in supporting the characteristics of effective learning Schools then chose different approaches to improvement but key themes have been

• Playful interaction with children
• Support for communication and language
• Supporting imaginative play
• Following children’s playful interests across

all areas of learning Underpinned by

• Work on leadership skills to successfully

manage change

• Peer learning and visits

Earlham Primary School

Learning Dinosaurs

Woodgrange Infant School, Forest Gate

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Why begin this?

• Part of the project with other Newham Schools
• n valuing learning through play in Reception
• To value play and to value the process of

learning rather than the end result

• To give everyone a working knowledge of the

characteristics of effective learning

• To encourage children (and staff) to use the

language of learning

I am a Shareonyx – I share my ideas and resources.

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I am a Tryatops - I try my best and never give up. I am an Explorosaur – I explore everything around me.

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I am a Thinkodocus – I think carefully about what I do when I learn. I am an Askaraptor – I ask questions and find things out.

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Solveosaurus Rex – I am learning to work hard to solve problems.

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Home learning / links with parents

24/02/2017 20 Innovation reception project 2015-2016

Before

 Early Years very bright and busy with lots of furniture

and displays hanging from all of the walls and ceilings.

 Children weren’t really able to access resources

appropriately and adults were setting up the provision so some of the independence we wanted to instil was taken away.

 We felt that this didn’t contribute to the calm and

purposeful setting we wanted to create.

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After the audit it was clear that we needed to make the environment more accessible so the children were able to develop and extend their play in the way they chose. We invested in community playthings to ensure they had free access to all the resources in the setting. The changes have allowed us to create an environment that can be moved easily to create different spaces which cater to the children’s play. It has also given us a calm space where children can access all the resources they need independently and their play is at the heart of their experiences in the setting

Literacy

Group research on how they were going to get to the moon.

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Exploring and using media and materials

After extensive research the children found the best way to build a rocket to go to the moon.

Understanding the world

By providing real

• bjects the

children were able to explore their

• wn experience and

that of their peers.

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Role play

Children building a den to conduct their superhero missions from.

Personal, social and emotional development

Children working together to find a way to make a roof for their house.

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Literacy

Teaching friends sounds.

Outcomes of the project

Children Adults

 Children have the freedom

to choose resources and activities (nothing is off limits to them) as they please.

 Children have developed

their abilities to problem solve, negotiate and work as a team through shared interests.

 Staff are more reflective

about using resources and giving open ended experiences.

 We are partners in play

and have the chance to extend and challenge the children’s thinking.

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• These case studies illustrate how play and playful interactions

provide the natural contexts children need to learn and to develop their skills.

• They remind us very powerfully that ….playful, everyday

activities are just as much about teaching as learning the names

• f shapes or remembering the sounds that letters represent.

Setting up teaching and play as opposites is a false dichotomy.

(Teaching and play in the early years – a balancing act? Ofsted 2015 p5)

Read more…..

June 13th 2016 January 2016

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The journey

• “It is in the development of their themes and

characters and plots that children explain their thinking and enable us to wonder who we might become as their teachers.” Paley(2004)

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‘Attention, the act of listening with palpable respect and

fascination, is the key to a Thinking Environment. The quality of your attention determines the quality of other people’s thinking.’

Nancy Kline (1999:37)