Training Talk - Brains and balls

Behaviour, Brains and Balls does not sound like a course aimed at childcare professionals. But this one-day training changed the way Greenacres Day Nursery manager and director Susan Green (pictured) cared for boys at her four settings.

She and three of her staff were ‘stunned’ as they listened to course creator Ali McClure delivering the officially titled Making It Better For Boys training. ‘We kept looking at each other as it rang true,’ says Ms Green.

The course explores differences between girls and boys, and how to support them. It covers subjects including how testosterone affects the brain and body, how to match boys’ development with practice, how boys learn best, and how to help parents understand and support boys. Training involves brainstorming, but no written tasks.

‘All of my years when I was doing my training, it was pushed into you [thinking] there is no difference between boys and girls,’ says Ms Green. ‘They don’t teach you why when boys play with dolls they use them as torpedoes, and when girls play with cars they don’t do big crashes. I felt angry no-one had taught us this.’

At the time, Ms Green had a boy-heavy quotient of three- and four-year-olds in her pre-school. They were noisy and expressing frustrations. ‘We didn’t seem to be able to give them enough space,’ she recalls.

The course made practitioners realise they should adapt their setting. As a result they hung balls from wooden beams so children could make bigger movements punching, kicking and pushing. Instead of doing arts and crafts on a table, children could climb under one, and paint lying on their backs. And rather than balancing on pre-prepared obstacle courses, they gave children planks of wood to construct their own climbing objects.

These changes helped the children spend their energy more efficiently, and channel it into more satisfying activities as they were being creative and problem-solving at the same time. ‘The children felt less frustrated,’ Ms Green says. ‘They were focused, instead of being noisy and running around aimlessly.’

Staff have completed the training every two years, and Ms Green also lends course books to parents struggling at home.

• www.alimcclure.co.uk