A desire to provide an environment that enables every child to follow their interests and become independent learners led to staff at Vanessa Nursery School in west London developing a curriculum based around core experiences.
By thinking carefully about children’s interests and giving them the resources to pursue them in a well-structured environment, children are able to take ownership of their explorations, engage in positive ‘deep’ learning experiences and master new skills.
‘We absolutely believe that children should lead their own learning, and part of those core experiences is giving children the resources for them to do just that,’ says head teacher Michele Barrett. ‘If we don’t provide thoughtful provision for them, then how are they able to show us what they are interested in, what they like, and how are they able to become independent learners?
‘We also wanted to move away from that crazy setting up in the morning, what we’d refer to as “the stuff out on tables”, from which you’re already telling children what you’d like them to do. It sends a conflicting message that, yes, we’d like you to find your own interests, however, we’ve got something out and that’s what you’re doing. We felt we were going against our ethos.’
UNDERPINNING ETHOS
The nursery’s underpinning ethos is that if a child is interested in what they are doing then they can be taught anything. Having previously worked with Dr Julian Grenier at Kate Greenaway Nursery School in north London encouraged Ms Barrett to focus staff on how that ethos should work in practice.
Children with a very wide range of abilities, backgrounds and cultures attend Vanessa Nursery School and have various attendance patterns. By basing the curriculum around core experiences, it is believed that all children, whatever their ability, can access the curriculum and thrive.
‘Our core is that we want children to be independent and resilient and to have great language skills. We want them to have all that grounded, underpinning knowledge they need to be able to take risks and make thoughtful decisions about what they are doing, so when they go into the big, wide world they can make risk-benefit decisions and think about the impact of what they do,’ says Ms Barrett.
‘I have no idea what our three-year-olds are going to be doing for jobs and they will probably have over ten jobs in their work life, because the world is changing so fast. We want them to be able to manage that by applying what they know and being able to think differently.
‘Of course, I work closely with our primary head teachers, so when children start Reception they have their basic reading, writing and maths skills, but that’s not our main priority. Our main priority is creating strong independent learners, who will then approach more formal learning with confidence and acquire skills and knowledge quickly.’
Staff wanted to ensure children could always absorb themselves in the experiences they are naturally drawn to; for example, block play. ‘If a child is playing with blocks on Monday then they don’t want to come in on Tuesday and them not be there. We want those areas that children can go to every day, have ownership of the environment and stay for long periods of time,’ explains Ms Barrett (see box, overleaf).
‘Children can come and access the same resource over and over again, and it allows the adult to keep stretching them. There is a whole train of thought of “What if they never use the water?”. But so what if they don’t use the water; what can they learn at a water tray that they cannot learn somewhere else?’
WHAT CHILDREN ARE LEARNING
Developing the core curriculum has taken many years. ‘Creating this type of learning is neither haphazard, nor does it occur by chance,’ says Ms Barrett. ‘It is a very thoughtful process. Everything we do in the nursery comes down to having people who are reflective and have knowledge of child development. All staff – teachers, with degrees or post-grads, early years educators, some with degrees, apprentices and learning assistants – bring in skills so that conversations around learning happen all the time. It is not about what children are doing, it is about what they are learning.’
The core experiences curriculum is a synthesis of a number of aspects, including:
Using the provision appropriately
A key aim is to provide an uncluttered nursery environment inside and outside, that has been carefully thought through to enable children to ‘wallow in their learning’. Resources are clearly labelled so everyone knows where they are kept.
In the first term, there is a lot of focus on introducing children to the environment – how things work and how they can own it, and developing the skills to use resources effectively. For example, the wooden blocks may be stacked beautifully, but children need to understand they can get them out, build with them and, importantly, then put them away.
‘Some children when they start just want to pull everything out, have a look at it and then move on, so that’s not really conducive for your environment or other children,’ says Ms Barrett. ‘Equally, we get children who wander around thinking what they can do, because we don’t put things on table-tops. We want to give them ownership of the environment.’
Providing progression and challenge
Staff aim to have a big adult-focused activity each day that excites children and makes them feel ‘held’ and thought about, then the other adults join in with child-led learning where the children are, rather than remain in a particular area. There is a rota detailing who is inside or outside, but if all the children happen to be outside then the adults will be too. Ms Barrett says it allows staff the freedom to observe what children are doing closely and to join in.
‘Adults are the best resource,’ she says. ‘At the end of each day we do an evaluation session. Someone may say, “I’ve noticed that the children are doing this a lot in that area but they haven’t got the resources to do that…”, or “they are going to need the skills to do this or need to learn to do something”. We then put an adult in to do that, or sometimes it happens on the spot because the adult is there. We are able to take children’s interests and build on them, we’re not deciding what they want to do.
‘It is the child’s decision if they want to make vehicles out of loose parts, but the adults will think: What teaching can I do with that? Where are the skills that fit in with it? How can I develop and extend it?’
Capturing teachable moments
Rather than modelling, adults are teaching by capturing teachable moments. For example, rather than sitting a child down to show them how to use scissors, they will wait until a child shows an interest in scissors and has a go themselves.
‘It’s then much easier to show them how to use scissors correctly because it is purposeful and meaningful,’ says Ms Barrett. ‘Because children have a need to use the scissors for something, they can generally learn to use them in five minutes.’
Thoughtful interactions
Interactions between children with adults and other children help them to be articulate, deeply engaged and active learners who create and think critically about what they are doing. The interactions between everyone, from staff to staff, from staff to children, from child to child, and from family to school, is based around a concrete notion of positive relationships.
Rather than a behaviour policy, the setting has a relationships policy because it is believed that helping children to manage their responses to challenging situations is handled through positive relationships.
In addition, the school has developed an ‘expert body’ of practitioners who can create exceptional learning. ‘Our adults are our main core provision,’ says Ms Barrett. ‘If you have got a creative, thoughtful adult, then they can make something out of nothing. Having nice resources helps, but there’s that thing about really valuing what children bring into the nursery and really valuing children, which is much more important.’
Deep knowledge of each child
The transition into the nursery is managed carefully to take into account children’s individual needs when settling. There is also a rigorous planning and assessment cycle that enables each adult to know each child really well.
They use a key person approach to build strong relationships and ‘be their children’s voice’ during planning sessions and training.
Observation and planning
Next steps for learning are planned:
- in discussion between staff
- through informal and formal planning
- with identified and agreed next steps that are shared with parents.
‘We moved away from doing snapshot observations in profile books because we felt that they are telling you what children did, which is not so useful. We don’t need to do weeks and weeks of planning or tick boxes; instead, adults are free to teach,’ explains Ms Barrett. ‘We have a method of people taking notes of children, or seeing something interesting and sharing that at the end of the day in evaluation.’
Children have profile books and each half-term, staff record a ‘meaty’ observation in them – perhaps a narrative observation from being with the child all morning and realising that a lot of learning is happening, or a collection of observations – along with no more than three relevant photos.
At the end of each half-term, adults analyse the learning from the evaluation notes and observations for each child so it is holistic. Any areas where children are struggling lead into next steps for learning for that child which become their focus point. Each child has access to an adult to help them with their focus.
‘Everything that we do absolutely comes from the children, what interests children bring, however unusual or random,’ says Ms Barrett. ‘Interests overlap, so we are not trying to plan individually for 125 children.
‘Children are able to really bring their interests and know they are going to be listened to and supported. When we review in the summer term, we are able to track children right back to the beginning.’
By the summer term, children are not just making books independently with clear writing and dedication, but they are making their own laminated story props and using them at group time, with little adult focus. ‘That only happens because these children have months and months of real adult support in learning all of those skills,’ says Ms Barrett.
What curriculum?
The Government’s latest minor amendments to the revised EYFS make it clear that ‘it is up to providers to decide how they approach the curriculum’ (https://bit.ly/3cOhZ7W). That is reflected in Ofsted’s Education Inspection Framework (EIF), introduced in September 2019, which puts the onus on individual settings to develop their own curriculum. It is widely believed a curriculum should be lived by the children and be an overall experience, instead of a tick-box approach to imparting knowledge.
Rather than following a ‘one size fits all approach’ under the EIF, inspectors want to see that practitioners have a clear understanding of their cohort of children and use the EYFS as a broad guide for building their own route to support children to develop identified skills. The focus is on curriculum knowledge and delivery – with staff questioning why they are working in a certain way and developing their practice according to children’s needs, rather than doing something because they always have.
Process baking
The concept of process baking with early years children originated in New Zealand and encourages autonomous and active learning, which fits the ethos at Vanessa Nursery School. It introduces children to baking – with all the science and maths skills that involves – by following pictures showing simple steps:
- Wash hands.
- Get a bowl, spoon and apron.
- Picture of the first ingredient along with number of spoons needed, and so on.
Children move along the worktop with their bowl as they follow the pictures in order. Adults will follow the instructions alongside the child the first few times, point at the pictures and help them with simple recipes, such as topping mini pizzas or fruit kebabs, with three stages before children do it themselves; more complex recipes are gradually introduced with more stages, such as fairy cakes or biscuits. Anything needing baking is left on a tray for staff to put in the oven.
‘Process baking makes it purposeful, rather than children waiting their turn to stir the bowl,’ explains Ms Barrett. ‘It is much more about the process than the finished product, so children will eat it rather than take it home. It is giving children responsibility and helping them to understand the process. If it goes wrong and tastes awful then it doesn’t matter because they can understand that sometimes things don’t work and then think through what to do next time.’
Having simple, visual signs to enable children to independently complete tasks by themselves is also used in other areas of the nursery, from mixing their own coloured paint – children soon learn how to stop it from becoming watery and brown – to making playdough.
‘It is all part of getting the children to do things that adults are often relied on to do for them and giving them responsibility,’ says Ms Barrett. ‘It is helping them to become very independent learners, learning through experience.’
Core experiences
Children at Vanessa Nursery School always have access, often both indoors and outdoors, to:
- block play with Community Playthings wooden blocks and other construction according to age and development
- music such as musical instruments and CD player
- sand and water play
- creative area
- woodwork
- home corner because ‘all children know how to be at home’.
Other role-play areas are sometimes developed in addition:
- Small-world play with animals, dinosaurs and people along with natural resources.
- Writing and book area with a core set of high-quality books used across the year
- Malleable, with sensory play being particularly beneficial to the 48 per cent of children attending with a special educational need or disability.
- Gardening.
- Linked reading and writing opportunities are offered in all areas of the nursery.
Children often move to Reception with above-average reading and writing skills despite never being sat down and directly taught in a formal way. ‘We teach phonics in a way it should be taught, through a love of stories and books,’ says Ms Barrett.
