Enabling environments: Continuous provision, part 4 - The right stuff

In her book Resources for Early Learning: Children, Adults and Stuff, Pat Gura uses the word 'stuff' as shorthand for all the resources (natural, manufactured, recycled) and equipment used for play.

She rightly points out that 'anything can become a play material, as the player wills it'. We have all observed children imaginatively using (and being inspired by) everyday objects as playthings. What is really important about the 'stuff' of continuous provision, though, is how easy it is for children to choose to use it. They need to:

- know it exists and will fit their purpose
- know where to find it
- have help (if necessary) to use it
- be allowed to be creative in the way they use it
- refine how they use it
- know where to put it back when they have finished using it!

A lot of advice and guidance is available about the kinds of materials and equipment that should be provided as part of continuous provision and it is common practice now to 'audit' the environment in a setting, often using an external advisor or consultant, to make sure that the right kinds of 'stuff' are available to children.

However, if we want to make sure children actually benefit from all this lovely stuff, then we need to recognise and understand the purpose and meaning that children bring to their play. This is about:

- processes, not just outcomes
- learning dispositions, not just learning objectives
- levels of involvement, not just levels of competence
- capitalising on children's urge to explore.

The work of Professor Ferre Laevers and the Experiential Education project at the University of Leuven in Belgium have highlighted the value of assessing levels of involvement and emotional well-being.

The concept of involvement isn't linked to certain types of behaviour or developmental stages. We can recognise the concentration of a baby reaching for their toes, just as much as the intensity of an adult focusing on a mathematical theory or complex practical task. Just as importantly, a child with a learning impairment and a gifted child can both be equally involved in a personal task that has purpose for them.

Ferre Laevers suggests that emotional well-being is important because without it, levels of involvement and concentration are likely to be low.

There are strong links here with other learning theories:

- Maslow described a 'hierarchy of human need' and suggested that if our needs are not met at one level, then we cannot move on to the next. Feeling safe and feeling good about ourselves makes it easier to explore and learn new things.

- Vygotsky theorised about a 'zone of proximal development', where the level of challenge needs to be just at the right level to take learning forward - it is not too easy, nor is it too difficult so that it becomes frustrating.

- Csikszentmihayli described the 'state of flow' and the intense personal satisfaction that comes from the exploratory drive - the urge to find out more, having an intrinsic interest in the way people and things are and the desire to figure out how the world works through a variety of personal experiences.

These are exactly the kinds of conditions that we aim to provide in our 'enabling environments', where process is as important as outcomes. Observing children's levels of involvement gives us vital information about the processes of learning - information that can often be undervalued in the unhealthy rush for practitioners to focus on outcomes and competencies.

LEUVEN INVOLVEMENT SCALE

The Leuven Involvement Scale is a five-point scale, devised by Ferre Laevers and his team as a way of measuring, through observation, the level of involvement displayed by a child.

Level 1 - No activity. The child appears 'mentally absent' or uninterested and any activity is purely repetition.

Level 2 - Interrupted activity. The child is easily distracted from their actions.

Level 3 - Functioning at a routine level. The child may be listening to a story or playing with something but there is no evidence of concentration, motivation or intense pleasure in it.

Level 4 - Activity with intense moments. Concentration, excitement, pleasure, etc are seen momentarily throughout the activity.

Level 5 - Total involvement. This is seen in continuous intense mental activity. Even if the child is sitting motionless (for example, listening to a story) or running around (deeply involved in a role play) it will be shown in their eyes and facial expressions. The child shows frustration if the activity is disturbed or interrupted.

This puts an interesting slant on some of the behaviours that children display when it comes to 'tidy-up time'! It also makes us think twice about the different interpretations of 'purposeful' activity. Activities that are sometimes considered purposeful for children ('copy this', 'colour these in', 'put that there') may generate low levels of involvement, whereas other activities that might appear to adults to be less structured or controlled (for example, super-hero play, scribbling, filling and emptying containers) might be engaging individual children at very high levels and provide real evidence of concentration, persistence and embedded learning.

DEEP-LEVEL LEARNING

Ferre Laevers describes Experiential Education as being about deep-level learning - and this is surely what we want for children. It is the kind of learning that is about more than just skills acquisition delivered though narrow learning objectives. He also writes about the value of 'connectedness' - of children making connections with their previous experience, with each other and with the learning environment and the stuff that they find there.

He draws attention also to the importance of feeling connected with the world in order to feel safe and ready to explore. This links closely to our understanding of 'attachment' and the impact it has on our emotional well-being and readiness to engage in learning. A truly enabling environment is one that encourages children to make those all-important connections and helps them to feel a sense of belonging and connectedness with the wider world, as they develop dispositions for learning that will stay with them long after they have left the early years.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER RESOURCES

- The Leuven Involvement Scale for Young Children (manual and video) Ferre Laevers (ed). Research Centre for Experiential Education Belgium (www.cego.be)

- Resources for Early Learning: Children, Adults and Stuff by Pat Gura (Hodder and Stoughton)

Maslow is cited in:

- Sustaining Shared Thinking by Jenni Clarke (Featherstone Education)

- The Foundation Stage Teacher in Action - Teaching 3, 4 and 5 Year Olds by Margaret Edgington (Paul Chapman)

- The Excellence of Play edited by Janet R Moyles (OUP)

- The Continuous Curriculum: Planning for Spontaneous Play. Kirklees Council

- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Harper Perennial)

- Bringing the Reggio Approach to Your Early Years Practice by Linda Thornton and Pat Brunton (David Fulton)

- Understanding Child Development - Linking theory and practice by Jennie Lindon (Hodder Arnold)

- Listening to Four-Year-Olds: How they can help us to plan their education and care by Jacqui Cousins, National Children's Bureau

LINKS TO EYFS GUIDANCE
- PR 3.3 Supporting Learning
- EE 3.1 Observation, Assessment and Planning
- EE 3.2 Supporting Every Child
- EE 3.3 The Learning Environment