The introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provides a useful opportunity to focus on the meanings of words and phrases commonly used in early years as well as any that are less familiar so that meanings are clear.
This article focuses on terms that reflect organisation for play and learning. However, it is important to remember that whatever words we use to describe our practice, the most important thing we do in our work with children is to ensure that they feel secure and safe in our care so that they can benefit from and enjoy all their experiences, developing, playing and learning at their own pace.
Early Years Foundation Stage
The purpose of the EYFS is to give every child the best start in life because it is firmly recognised how much early experiences impact on children's future chances. The EYFS is made up of the following documents, some of which are mentioned below. You will find it helpful to have them handy when reading this article:
- Statutory Framework
- Practice Guidance
- Principles into Practice Cards (PiP)
- Wall poster
- CD-ROM
A Unique Child
The EYFS talks about every child as A Unique Child. This is because every child has an individual experience of life. That is, all children may be a similar age and even live in the same locality, yet they will be from differently constructed families, they may or may not have siblings, they may speak several languages or only one, they may have specific needs and they may have particular talents.
All experiences are seen as equally important and because every child brings something different to the setting, the EYFS encourages us to focus on the importance of knowing the child - the art of judging how to use what we know is that of the pedagogue or teacher.
Positive Relationships
Positive relationships underpin the EYFS: relationships with children and adults, especially parents and carers who are children's first and most enduring educators. The EYFS also states 'a key person has special responsibilities for working with a small number of children, giving them the reassurance to feel safe and cared for and building relationships with their parents' (PiP Card 2.4).
Everything discussed in this article is based on the assumption that this requirement is fully understood and operational. This is because one of the most important things that influence a child's learning and development is the satisfaction of their emotional and social needs for love, warmth, care and understanding.
When adults work with children and help them to play and learn they engage in pedagogy: the art and science of being a teacher. Pedagogy literally means to 'lead the child'. Leading children involves decisions about ways of interacting, teaching and learning.
Enabling Environments
The important role of the environment in children's development and learning is acknowledged in the EYFS. To be enabled is to be made able to do something - so the use of this term emphasises the contribution the environment can make to a child's learning and development.
It is with the intention of supporting children's independence that resources are presented in different ways - and terms such as 'continuous provision', 'enhanced provision', 'workshop' and 'free-flow' are sometimes used to describe these approaches. So what do these terms mean?
- Continuous provision describes the daily fare on offer in most early years' settings. This 'diet' usually includes provision of outdoor and indoor experiences; sand, water, small world, role play, construction, imaginative play, mark-making and so on.
- Enhanced provision is often used to describe the additions made to continuous provision to support individuals or groups of children with a particular interest. For example, a practitioner might observe that a child is intent on finding out about minibeasts. They may enhance the basic resources such as magnifying glasses by adding extra things like specimen jars, buckets, information books, cameras and clipboards to support a particular interest.
- Workshop set-ups share some of the features of continuous provision, as they also provide easy access to a range of resources where children can help themselves and follow their own individual interests. However 'workshops' more accurately describe not only the layout of the space but also the philosophy behind the approach.
- The term free-flow can be viewed as a way of offering unrestricted experiences to children. However, it is also used as an adjective to 'describe the focus given to play', according to Bruce (1991). In her view it links most readily with 'imaginative, free or creative play' (p2). It is suggested that when children engage in free-flow play, they are able to learn at their highest level, suggesting that play allows children to identify particular interests and follow these through in ways that are meaningful to them. And because this is intrinsically interesting to the child, these experiences lead to deep-level involvement and good learning. It is important to remember the need for adults to get involved because 'Adults who help children to play are adults who help children to learn' (Bruce and Meggitt 1999).
Learning and Development
Research for the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education Project (EPPE) (Sylva et al 2003) confirmed the central role of play in learning. The project concluded that there needs to be an appropriate balance of adult-directed activities (which may be playful, but which are not true play because they are instigated and managed by adults) and children's self-chosen play, and that learning is promoted through shared, sustained thinking and conversation' (see below for definition) (David 2007 Effective Practice Play and Exploration: EYFS). These occur in different contexts for learning.
Contexts for learning
'Contexts for learning' is a term used in Play and Exploration (PiP Card 4.1). This card states: 'Children's play reflects their wide-ranging and varied interests and preoccupations. In their play children learn at their highest level.' This strongly confirms that for babies and young children learning occurs as an outcome of appropriate play provision which is supported by adults.
These opportunities are described as contexts for learning because from the moment a child is born they begin to learn. So, contexts for learning are made up of the time, the resources, the space and the many opportunities for learning that occur, which are constructed by the child and the adult together.
Within early childhood settings we can provide many different contexts for learning, although we might say that in reality the child's world is the context for learning. Some of these contexts are created as a result of children leading; others as a result of adults leading or assisting. Terms used to describe this include child-initiated and adult-led. What do these refer to?
Child initiated
- When a child (of any age) engages in a self-chosen pursuit we describe this as child-initiated activity, valuing the child's choice and recognising and respecting the child's purpose. Indeed this is a specific legal requirement for Organisation in the EYFS Statutory Framework (see p37). So a two-year-old might elect to play with a fire engine - fitting the driver behind the steering wheel, extracting the driver, replacing the driver, throwing the driver back into a box and introducing a different driver.
- Another instance of a child-initiated choice may be where a child takes ownership of an activity and 'subverts' it to a different purpose than intended. For example, a child might prefer to pour water into a hole to make a puddle if they have lost interest in helping an adult to water the plants.
- Other child-initiated activities may be instigated when the child brings something to the setting - such as, an experience of having been on a bus; or an event that has developed from visiting hospital or watching a parade. This might lead to the provision of resources, stories and pictures to support this interest. Alternatively, a child may bring a spider from home that was found in the bath or a picture of their pet. Whatever children bring is an indication of their current interest and should be supported.
Adult led
It has been argued that terms such as adult-led/adult-directed, adult-initiated or adult-supported are terms more suited to provision for older children, however even adults working with the youngest children and the smallest groups will at different times adopt some of these approaches.
- An adult-led/adult-directed activity or experience suggests that the adult has selected this time or opportunity to encourage or develop a particular aspect of learning. Small group times fit well with this description - periods set aside for adults and children to share some time together, perhaps thinking about how to solve a problem.
- An adult-initiated activity or experience may be one where the adult introduces a particular material, skill or strategy so that children know what is on offer or how to access something. Here the adult is acting as a mentor and guide, sharing knowledge and expertise in order to support children's development and learning.
- Adult-supported activities or experiences suggest that the need for the adult's involvement varies over time, moving from high to low. Take, for example, a child who has been weaving successfully on a large scale outdoors and who suddenly seems keen to 'sew' using a smaller square of light plastic and a lace.
- Here the immediate support of the adult may be vital in showing the child how the lace can be woven in and out of the smaller square, building on their previous learning. The level of support needed reduces as the child develops the skills, confidence and knowledge to undertake the task unaided, until the point where they have mastered it and wish either to practise their new skill or move on to another interest. This sort of involvement is illustrative of the sustained shared thinking process described in the EYFS, which involves 'the adult being aware of the children's interests and understandings and the adult and children working together to develop an idea or skill' (PiP Card 4.3).
The adult's role
When key people engage in these types of interactions they are frequently doing several things simultaneously: sensitively observing children's behaviours, skills, interests, learning and development alongside reflecting on their own practice and making informal assessments of where children are at in their own individual learning journeys. What do we mean by these terms?
- Sensitive observation refers to the manner in which observations are carried out by adults - it involves respectfully trying to understand the child. The key person gathers information from the child, their parents, other carers and any professionals involved with the child and their family in a way that the child and family feel respected, valued and included.
- Reflective practice describes the process, often informal and personal that practitioners do much of the time they are involved with children and some of the time when the children are not present. It is a way of reviewing the how and what of work with children and their families. It includes all the questions they are left with about what they provided during a particular time, the plans they had made and, most importantly, it helps them to evaluate their own actions and interactions and the impact of these on children's development and learning. Reflecting on our practice helps us focus on how we can work more effectively.
- Formative assessment is another ongoing and informal process that practitioners engage in as they work with young children. Formative assessments feed into the more formal record-keeping process. Decisions such as whether a child is tired, or hungry, or keen to play outdoors or is really interested in making marks are the minute-by-minute formative assessments that practitioners mentally note and then use to inform their decisions about ways to support children's development and learning. These eventually lead to summative assessments as children move from one setting to another or from one stage to another.
- Learning journeys describe both the exchange of information that takes place about a child and the process of every child's development and learning. These are set out by key people such as parents/carers and staff in settings and schools as a story of their development. The learning journey will start where the learner is at - a baby's learning journey may begin with narratives about the way they like to sleep and be held, or the songs and sounds they enjoy, while a five-year-old's learning journey will contain many chapters - telling a lengthier story about who they are, what they like to do and their achievements, all the things that contribute to creating a real picture of the child.
The language of the EYFS is built on and has developed from a tradition of child-centredness - whatever words we use our purpose is to lead all children, right from the start, to develop positive dispositions to themselves and others and to their play and learning. In this way children are enabled to lead fulfilling lives.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Bruce (1991) Time to Play in Early Childhood Education Hodder & Stoughton: UK
- Bruce and Meggitt (1999)The Role of the Early Years Worker in Encouraging Play, can be downloaded from www.surestart. gov.uk/_doc
- DfES (2007)The Early Years Foundation Stage, HMSO: London
- Sylva, K, Melhuish, E, Sammons, P, Siraj-Blatchford, I and Taggart, B (2003) The Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) Project, DfES/Sure Start: Nottingham
- David, T (2007) Effective Practice: Play and Exploration: EYFS (2007) CD-ROM.
