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Embattled early years teachers, many already feeling under pressure to abandon their play-based pedagogy in favour of a more formal approach, were dealt a further blow at the end of last year. Many in the sector interpreted Ofsted’s Bold Beginnings report, which promotes earlier exposure to more formal learning, as an attack on free-flow and child-initiated practice. A further report, Grouping in early years and key stage 1 – ‘a necessary evil’?, issued by the Institute of Education in December, found that early years teachers were concerned about increased pressure to group children by ability in order to meet curriculum expectations further up the school.
Experts point to overwhelming evidence that a broad-based early years curriculum, with a particular emphasis on physical, social and emotional, and language and communication development, makes positive contributions to the learning of subjects such as reading, writing and maths. A more formal approach, on the other hand, has not been shown to achieve the same long-term results.
Early Excellence’s review of the Reception year in England, published last May, concluded that rather than moving away from play-based learning in Reception, schools should extend it into Year 1. However, Reception teachers have reported pressure to adapt their practice.
‘All schools are feeling pressured to take a more formal approach, particularly in Reception, and particularly if they are serving less-advantaged communities where outcomes are lower,’ says Professor Chris Pascal, director of the Centre for Research in Early Childhood.
‘The recent Ofsted report has contributed to this, but pressure is coming from the whole system to deliver ever-rising standards. A more formal and directive teaching approach, with a primary focus on literacy and maths, is seen as the solution. Often nursery-aged children continue to receive a play-based experience, but Reception classes are more vulnerable to pressures.’
Lack of funding, as well as the inspection process, is adding to the pressures that schools are experiencing. ‘There is no shortage of evidence that an investment in improving life chances is never better placed than in early years,’ says Hugh Greenway, chief executive of The Elliot Foundation, a multi-academy trust specialising in the primary sector. ‘But moral purpose is nothing if you haven’t got money to match it. As a primary school, you need the confidence to shift your budget out of Years 5 and 6 to early years, but if you feel the cold spectre of Ofsted on your shoulder, will you be able to do that? It takes real courage to stand up for the joy of learning for all children.’
SUPPORT NETWORKS
Almost a quarter of primary schools in England are now academies, but there are fears that academisation can threaten quality early years provision. A report from the Family and Childcare Trust earlier this year expressed concerns that since academies do not have to engage with local authority early education networks, they could lead to a further weakening of such networks of support, already under pressure from lack of funds.
‘I think academies are not necessarily more inclined to take a more formal approach in the early years, but because the early years element of provision is a small part of the school, it becomes vulnerable to whole-school pedagogic policies and practices,’ says Professor Pascal. ‘Early years staff may not have access to an external early years specialist as the local authority schools would have had, who could protect early years practice. Everything then comes to be about standards and scores and performance, and this preoccupation permeates into Reception and below.’
Some academies gather together in multi-academy trusts (MATs), allowing them to share good practice and resources, for example specialised staff support for children with special educational needs or disabilities. A House of Commons Education Committee report last year found the success of MATs was patchy: while some produce excellent results, a considerable number are failing to improve.
One early years teacher who left the academy she worked at says that she has a number of concerns about her previous workplace, including trust-wide directives on behaviour which she feels led to children being disciplined for ‘simply them being young’.
‘We were told to be strict – sitting on bottoms, hands on knees, no fidgeting,’ she says. The amount of time devoted to completing a set number of written and maths pieces left little time for other activities, she says, while an academy-wide homework policy meant young children were issued with homework that took hours to prepare and mark.
However, some MATs have been taking advantage of the benefits of being in an academy chain by employing an early years lead to instil an evidence-based approach across all their early years provision.
ST MARY’S ACADEMY TRUST
Rebecca Openshaw is early years lead at Barnsley-based St Mary’s Academy Trust, where she is able to use inset days and other training opportunities to inculcate staff with the principles of early education.
‘I have meetings for any early years staff who want to come, which take place at a different school every half term,’ she says. ‘This week we looked at shape, space and measure, indoors and outdoors. We have done a lot of work in our settings on outdoor provision, ensuring opportunities for children who are outdoor learners.’
Her own school, for example, raised money to build a ‘hobbit den’, with wonky windows and doors and a bird-house chimney. ‘We have shelves where children can access explorer kits and encourage them to think critically about what they want to use,’ she says.
Ms Openshaw has also run inset days for staff across the whole Trust, including heads, with workshops focusing on issues including outdoor provision and early communication and language. Staff have undertaken Thrive training, which draws on advances in neuroscience, attachment theory and child development to support children’s social and emotional development. ‘Children learn best when they feel safe and secure,’ says Ms Openshaw. ‘We aim to build a love of learning.’
They are not alone in developing practice they feel is best for young children. See Case studies, overleaf.
CASE STUDY: ACTIVE LEARNING TRUST
The 21-school group focuses on quality provision and learning through play at its pre-school, nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes
Kerry Read is EYFS lead for Active Learning Trust, which runs 21 schools in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, as well as head of school at Westwood Primary School in Lowestoft. Active Learning Trust schools emphasise well-planned, high-quality continuous provision and learning through play in the early years.
‘I am not a school leader who will avoid that word “play”,’ says Ms Read. ‘Play is valued here – we learn through play and play is the application of learning. Come to my school and you will see pre-school, nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 classes with free-flow access to indoor and outdoor learning environments.’
A visitor might, for example, see a child making bricks out of mud on a role-play building site, operating a cement mixer to get more mud, while another chooses to sit at a computer in the ‘site office’ organising everybody with jobs to be completed.
Westwood’s early years provision was rated Outstanding in its last two inspections, but Ms Read’s role is to ensure this standard is replicated across the Trust. ‘Early years is a specialist area, so it needs someone with specialist early years knowledge and expertise to lead its development,’ she says. ‘I am an activist when it comes to raising the profile of early years.’
A ‘vision document’, put together in October last year and circulated to early years staff and senior leaders, allows the Trust to maintain consistent principles and values across its early years provision, while still giving schools the flexibility to deliver in a way that best suits their children. For example, the document promotes risk and challenge as vital for children to develop critical thinking, resilience and perseverance, but what that risk and challenge look like in practice is up to the school.
To enable children to participate in ‘risky freedoms’, the schools ensure that both adults and children are involved in processes of assessing risk and benefit. For example, children build structures with real bricks and wood. ‘With support from the adults, the children need to identify the risks and test the safety of their structures before anyone is allowed to climb on the structure,’ says Ms Read. ‘We have tree-climbing rules that have been agreed by the children – these include not climbing any higher than you can reach with your hand and your feet flat on the floor.’
Early years vision
The physical environment is an important part of the Trust’s early years vision. ‘Our schools are beginning to think about their learning environments in the early years and Key Stage 1, ensuring that they support how children learn best,’ says Ms Read. ‘Many tables and chairs have been removed in some cases, and outdoor areas made available with children able to move freely from one area to another.’
Each classroom has designated areas of learning that are planned using the appropriate curriculum, but these areas include open-ended resources. ‘You will frequently see children collecting small-world characters to add to their constructions or gathering books to tell a story using the small-world props,’ explains Ms Read.
In order to raise the profile of early years across the Trust, heads have taken part in training delivered by Early Excellence alongside early years leaders. Ms Read has organised an Early Childhood Conference for May 2018, where Key Stage 1 and early years staff will be able to learn from early years expert Julie Fisher and Jude Twani from Early Excellence.
Anxious parents who might baulk at hearing that their child spent all day playing also need to be brought on board with the Trust’s early years vision.
‘We communicate with parents through social media, but also in schools with Family Cafes and information sessions, for example,’ says Ms Read. ‘We leave boards up in every classroom so parents can see what teachers are planning.’ Parents regularly come into schools and take part in family learning sessions.
‘I feel my role has had an impact over the last year and a half,’ concludes Ms Read. ‘GLD [Good Level of Development] scores show that children are making rapid progress. They are creative, resilient children who can problem-solve.’
CASE STUDY: KENT CATHOLIC SCHOOLS PARTNERSHIP
‘We strongly believe in early intervention,’ says Sarah McBennett, senior primary school improvement adviser at Kent Catholic Schools Partnership (KCSP), which has 19 primary schools. ‘Research shows that gaps widen if you don’t get in early. We have schools with a high proportion of Pupil Premium-eligible children and children with English as an additional language.’
KCSP chief executive Clive Webster is a former teacher, principal educational psychologist and local authority director of Children’s Services. Mr Webster brought in consultancy Early Excellence to help transform early years across the academy chain, and the Partnership is currently in the first year of a three-year plan. The Partnership is using Early Excellence’s tracker system to measure progress across its schools. Ten schools have also taken part in a Transition Project run by Early Excellence, with another three taking part this year.
‘Experts visit the schools, and look at the indoor and outdoor environment,’ says Ms McBennett, who was a primary head for 10 years before taking on her current role. ‘For example, children don’t always have to sit on chairs at tables. I visited one of our schools where Year 1 children were using maps to find their way to Father Christmas. Boys in particular were moving around with clipboards writing things down – their motivation was fantastic and they were exhibiting all the Characteristics of Effective Learning.’
One school which took part in the Transition Project was St Richard’s Catholic Primary School in Dover. St Richard’s felt its approach to learning was too formal: children were not effectively accessing continuous provision, and behaviour could be a problem at break times. To remedy this, the school made a number of changes; for example, getting rid of set break times for Reception and Year 1. Children in Reception now have extended access to the garden rather than a specific break time, and children in Year 1 enjoy a separate, flexible playtime in the adventure playground. The school says this has given Reception children longer periods of uninterrupted child-initiated time and, as a result, they are more engaged, while the behaviour of those in Year 1 has improved.
St Richard’s has also changed timetabling and planning, giving Reception children more opportunities for child-initiated learning and fewer focused tasks. Previously too much time was being spent on planning activities and making resources, and staff now lean more towards ‘in the moment planning’, following the children’s interests.
There have been challenges around rolling out this new approach. ‘Some schools are worried about how they are measured, and can get a bit formal because they feel under pressure,’ says Ms McBennett. However, even the more reluctant are now seeing an impact on children’s motivation and achievement, she adds. ‘There is definitely an overall willingness from staff.’
As with all schools, funding can also be a barrier. ‘The Transition Project, for example, was an additional expense, so while we suggested schools take part, there were some that couldn’t afford it,’ Ms McBennett says. ‘Replacing old and tatty resources is also a challenge – schools know what they want but they can’t always get it.’
KCSP’s academies are at the beginning of a journey, and the hope is some schools will gain enough expertise to create learning hubs to share their practice with others. ‘To me, this approach makes perfect sense and it seems to be working in practice,’ concludes Ms McBennett. ‘Children and teachers are happier, outcomes are improving and everyone seems to be more organised and systematic.’
CASE STUDY: BATH AND WELLS MULTI-ACADEMY TRUST
The MAT has grouped its schools into supportive hubs, and hosts conferences with topics such as ‘creativity’ to spread best practice
Sue Lucas joined Bath and Wells Multi-Academy Trust in September 2016 to oversee the MAT’s five nurseries, but her part-time role has now expanded to cover the whole of the EYFS across the Trust’s 19 schools. The schools in the Trust are grouped into geographical hubs, each with an early years hub leader appointed from one of the schools.
‘Myself and the hub leads have regular meetings, and we also have regular meetings with all the early years practitioners in the different schools,’ says Ms Lucas. ‘This allows people to share good practice, what they have learned through training, for example, or to collaborate on challenges they may be facing, like the implementation of 30 hours for our nurseries, or what constitutes Good and Outstanding EYFS practice for Reception colleagues.’
Early years teachers visit each other’s settings to take notes on different approaches to the learning environment, how the day is structured, the deployment of resources, and other aspects of early years provision. This support is one of the advantages of being part of a MAT where early years is valued.
‘We have that real family of schools valuing each other, learning from each other and wanting to support each other,’ Ms Lucas says. ‘There is a real commitment to high-quality CPD courses, including an annual conference on a different theme.’
A recent conference held by the MAT focused on what is effective and engaging when it comes to learning maths, while last year’s theme was creativity.
All nurseries and some schools are using the Tapestry system to engage parents in understanding how their children are learning. ‘We have noticed how effectively that has engaged parents, who are able to access it straight away and contribute to their child’s learning,’ explains Ms Lucas.
Classroom audit
Part of the journey to delivering quality early years provision has involved an audit of classroom resources, looking at how appropriate they are for the age range they are accessed by. ‘While we don’t want the Reception class provision to mirror our two-year-old provision, the underlying principles of play-based learning are the same,’ says Ms Lucas.
‘Quality resources are open-ended, not just things bought from education catalogues. We have also been looking at how we display things so what is on the wall highlights children’s learning, but is not bombarding them with lots of information, and ensuring our environment is exciting, involving, and clutter-free.’
Behaviour is another part of Ms Lucas’s role. ‘We work hard to create a calm, positive, purposeful environment where boundaries are clear and consistent,’ she says. ‘We use the principles of emotional coaching, and staff carry picture emotions fobs which the children are encouraged to use to help express their feelings and resolve difficulties between each other.’
Staff are careful in their use of praise, focusing on effort, enthusiasm, developing ideas, persistence, problem-solving and concentration.
Reflective practice is key. ‘We want to know why we are doing what we are doing,’ she says. ‘Early years is not just a watered-down version of school. Year 1 and EYFS colleagues are looking at each other’s curriculum. It works two ways – EYFS becomes aware of expectations further up the school, and Year 1 is aware of the style of learning in EYFS.’
FURTHER READING
O’Connor A (2017, 2nd edition) Understanding Transitions: Supporting Change through Attachment and Resilience. Routledge
Selleck DY (2006) ‘Key persons in the Early Years Foundation Stage’, Early Education, 50
Bridges W and Bridges S (2011) Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change. Nicholas Brealey
Goddard Blythe S (2012) ‘The Right to Move: Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning. Why physical development in the early years supports educationalsuccess’, www.allianceforchildhood.eu/files/book2012/QoC%20Book%202012%20Chapter-1.pdf
Ayres AJ (2005) Sensory Integration and the Child. Western Psychological Services
Ephgrave A (2012) The Reception Year in Action: A month-by-month guide to success in the classroom. Routledge
