Early Years: Nick

The end of the year approaches, the first degree ceremonies are over in UK Universities – although here at Oxford Brookes the major push for such things is in Early September – and in a cycle that has something to do with saints’ days, something to do with harvest time and now a lot to do with holidays for students and staff, people move on academically. September sees professorships awarded, (with professors being given chairs, installed or just plain appointed ), and small children move from home to early education and daycare, from early years into Big School, and then in a very few years’ time from Key Stage 2 to 3, and so on.

It is interesting to observe that business is growing in the US and worldwide around graduating young children from their earliest educational experiences. One site  with the catchy but curious name of Rhyme University sells whole packages for gradation at affordable prices. The company’s website states that “we’ve been able to successfully grow from 121 customers in 1954 to over 20,000 schools worldwide.”

The “About Us” section has a telling story to set the tone about a child’s pride in a scrappy diploma, and notes that
“If early learning provided the keys to greater success later in life, then the transition from preschool and/or kindergarten should be marked with no less importance.”
Rhyme University’s deluxe package ($23.95) comprises a cap with tassel, a gown, a sash, a ring and a diploma.

While this site – Kindergarten lessons – seeks to minimize the ritual elements, this site is more specific about what graduation might mean and might entail:  suggesting that “[E] ach year of graduating from one grade to the next deserves a special celebration” and that this is “a time to honor their achievements, let them know they’ve done great work and have accomplished the goals of moving on to the next stage of life.”

And this leads me to the thought for the day: at what point is progression the same as graduation?

Another student comes today to talk about the job she’s got in Foundation Stage, despite her training being in the Primary phase. Why am I rattled by this? Is it the misunderstanding of the students that they will be OK, or the heads’ misunderstanding of what might be needed – or my fundamental misunderstanding of how un-precious EY pedagogy really is?

There is, of course, the embattled group syndrome, real Sherif intergroup stuff (this link is to a quick and easy overview) ,where EY people would somehow like to believe their work –our work, my work – is so specialised that no-ne dare set foot in the door without highly detailed understandings of child development and effective pedagogy . It’s true in one way. We do need –the research is at least clear on this – well-qualified people. I take this to mean people  with graduate attributes   ( for one table of attributes linked to employability see this fascinating article fromn BeJLT) who understand their job, who understand children; despite admiring his on-the-hoof work towards child-centred learning, we don’t want to replicate the experiences of Wilderspin.

EPPE is after all very clear:

High quality pre-schooling is related to better intellectual and social/behavioural development for
children.
Settings that have staff with higher qualifications have higher quality scores and their children make more progress.
Quality indicators include warm interactive relationships with children, having a trained teacher as manager and a goodproportion of trained teachers on the staff.
Where settings view educational and social development as complementary and equal in importance, children make better all round progress.
Effective pedagogy includes interaction traditionally associated with the term “teaching”, the provision of instructive
learning environments and ‘sustained shared thinking’ to extend children’s learning.

But there is another side to this: the idea of some school leaders and parents that “anyone” can teach in Early Years, the feeling that it is not a job that requires immense amounts of trust or expertise. It is bound to rankle.

The third point however, has to be where I point the finger at myself.

At what level does the teacher, or the teacher-trainer or (in my case the learning and development leader for a team of teacher-trainers [as in this epigram from A B Ramsay] need to recognise that the fine-tuning between the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 is just that? That’s not to say that there isn’t some poor practice “out there,” and Julie Fisher’s excellent new book, Moving on to Key Stage 1 (yes I did write an endorsement) is certainly written with a need in mind here, but when faced with the need to give guidance to teachers – or students – themselves faced with impossible demands, should we – I – be so quick to draw lines? Where do principles need to come in to play?
Perahps the answer lies not so much in the Pauline notion of “integrity, gravity and sound speech” as the idea of St Benedict; the teacher trainer may have principles but should also be aptus… ad lucrandas animas, skilled at winning souls, “qualified to win souls,” as this translation has it.

Qualified. I’m back to where I started.

In one short sentence, the authors of this report on EYFS sum up so much.   Here I am, in a cold study with the snow pelting down and the light fading,  struggling with what to say about Early Years and Health, and they give me the answer.

Let them say it themselves, then – although the emphases and editing are entirely mine.

Enhancing children’s development is skilful work, and practitioners need training and professional support to do it well, including making decisions about children’s individual needs and the ways to ‘personalise’ their learning.

Talking about feelings has beneficial effects. Although this has been a self-evident truth for decades, new research on ‘Social and emotional aspects of learning’ for children shows how it benefits learners of all ages, even children under four.

Formative assessment will lie at the heart of providing a supporting and stimulating environment for every child. This may require professional development for practitioners and liaison with individuals and agencies outside the setting.

The art of early years practice is getting the balance right between guided and self initiated learning, either in homes or in settings.

Skillful work. Art. Balance.

The excitement of helping a child melt a handprint into frost.

Knowing when to swap the sand for cooked spaghetti, or to put a plastic penguin in a tub of water in the freezer for tomorrow.

And from the point of view of ‘health promotiong activities?’

Is the In Depth section for EYFS Health and Well Being really sufficient?

I really want to be writing about the Sandra Beckett book I’m reading, but instead, a brief word on the Cambridge Review. Not this one – tempting though it might be – but this one.

A compare-and-contrast with the Rose review would be tempting if time-consuming, and would feel like Harry Hill’s TV Burp where two improbable ideas or characters are represented in a playground fight….

So for now here are the links without too much comment, except to note the follwing reactions -  from Julian Grenier (as one example from the DCSF site) and Diane Hofkins (linked from the Cambridge Primary site)

Just looking back at previous posts, notably this one and this, exploring notions of pedagogy in the early Years, I am struck by the poor structure of the new FS website.

Look at this link. I had thought this would take me to the stuff it “used” to, about assessment in Learning and Development, but it’s now taken up with CPD issues. I have no earthly reason to dislike CPD really, but where is the rationale for the structure?

And where do I find those fantastic clips of children playing that are so illustrative of the kind of good practice in EY? Surely this is clumsy planning, not a real philosophy of education that equates CDP with high quality play and meaningful interaction with children?

So, after a bit of a hunt, here are:

A video (2 and a half minutes) of a real observation session – all the more valuable because the practitioner is hard pressed to keep her observation and the conversation going!

Another of outdoor play (about the same length) and another on a wet day in the sand pit.

I do like this last one. Maybe the interaction isn’t perfect (I’ve yet to see real footage that is), but it does underline the importance of talk wherever and whenever it’s needed. Even huddled under a rain-spattered awning.

And I have to go back to Ellis and his trap for baddies http://testsandexams.qcda.gov.uk/19384.aspx

Context

The context for these reflections, as it was for the work in first place, was a Spirituality and Young Children module for undergraduate students in Early Childhood Studies.

ECS students focus on the early years of a child’s life from (Pre) birth to approximately 8 years of age and the field, according to our handbook, draws on a number of academic disciplines to give you a broad and reflective understanding of early childhood. ECS students study some modules that focus on child development from a psychological perspective, others that consider more sociological aspects including the role of family and culture in development. “You will be encouraged to consider how childhood itself can be viewed in very different ways by different people. “

In other words these are not theologians or students of the phenomenology of religion, but they are people with experience and a theoretical understanding of the phenomena of childhood.

Exploring contemporary definitions of spirituality meant looking at the literature

From a more or less conservative Christian standpoint (or at least resolutely within an incarnational standpoint in Christian Theology) the work of Kees is important: he would place the study of spirituality at an interdisciplinary level amid anthropology, psychology, sociology and the social sciences, encompassing professional understandings, theological insights, textual and theological study)

Eaude says it is inherently elusive and contested - something EC students are strangely familiar with in another context, since they have grappled with definitions of play since their first taught session in the Univ. – and this has a further echo later in this paper.

What does the literature mean by Spirituality? – and can this ‘biographical’ construct be applied to young children??

We used the work of Andrew Wright quite heavily, esp by mid-point in the Semester. when I felt it was time to look at academic definitions of Spirituality:

Universal search for meaning – common theme in modern writing on spirituality, and I’ll return to it in my final section. Spirituality is an elusive and dynamic concept whose complexity is revealed when viewed in the light of: a mind–matter dualism; the contrast between the sacred and the profane; and the notion of spirituality as the cultivation of self awareness.

Despite their differences, these three routes have in common a concern for the ultimate meaning, purpose and truth of human existence.

Eaude again:

In many ways, the term ‘spirituality’ poses similar problems. This has, for me at least, the connotation of being primarily interior and individual, based within a religious tradition. Yet what I seek to describe is something more basic, and wider, than religious faith or commitment, rather more akin to a universal search for meaning and identity.

Approach

What ways did I use (and how successful were they) to explore concepts of Spirituality? – what did the students think about defining spirituality

We began not with the literature but with three clips: from Into Great Silence; from Kundun and from the Snowman.

Their responses were very varied:

from

The Snowman was the most striking for me, particularly because of the music factor. The visual also played well with the music and it did have that effect of kind of an ‘out of body’ experience.
I felt that the most relevant clip for me was The Snowman as well because I think it got all the areas that I believe spirituality to be in. (Music, Nature, Soft/Quiet places) Though the Dalai Lama film was interesting, I think I couldn’t get past that they were actors and it was a film (silly I know since The Snowman was a cartoon, of all things) BUT I felt it had to do with more of the religion-y things than something more spiritual-though religion and spirituality do go hand-in-hand at times. Die Grosse Stille did have a “dark factors” that I didn’t particularly like, but the music was soothing and I can see people going into a tra[n]ce over it and reaching into something more spiritual for them.
Like C, I really think it is hard to give a general idea of what spirituality is that will satify a large crowd, BUT, to me, it is (on very simple terms) to feel and be aware of something greater than ourselves. If things can provoke this feeling or awareness, whether it be via music, nature, quiet, or whatnot, than I would say that that is all that matters. For me in these films, it seemed to go down to the music (which all films had) and that is what does it for me.

to

to me the dali video struck me as more spiritual except i wonder how much of that was to do with tradition and story telling. The monk film i felt i was to involved with how hared the life seemed it was an extreme to me. You would need to be very devoted to the religion. but that may not be the same as spititual (not to me anyway)

and

I found the most striking clip was the snowman, and perhaps the most spiritual. However this may be because it brings back many childhood memories so i can relate much more than i can for the others. I feel its a very powerful clip particularly with the music. I also find it a very pensive clip which personally i think contriubtes to something being spiritual.
I think they can all tell us something about spirtuality in different ways depending on what you think is spritiual. The issue of religion may also be important; i personally do not think spirituality is always associated by religion.

perhaps the most well-reasoned of the responses was

This clip (Kundun) struck me of more for it involved a child which is my areas of interest. However, I asked myself is ‘Children’s spirituality’ different from “adult” spirituality?
Spirituality has different meanings to different people depending on their world view or philosophy of life
These clips description of spirituality demonstrate how culture, religion and spirituality are intertwined and are therefore all relevant to anyone belonging to one of either. This may as well show us that children are socialised into whatever spirituality notion or belief they are brought into.
How the child may express his or her spiritual beliefs will undoubtedly be influenced by, and may parallel the child’s cognitive development
Like adults, children draw on previous experiences of life including religious and spiritual beliefs to make sense of life events and to cope with crises. They will have a range of preconceived ideas, fears, concerns and fantasies which are usually linked to their stage of cognitive development and prior experiences.
May we say then, that the child’s spiritual development grows when they make sense to their experiences in relation to the adult’s meaning of the notion of spirituality?

This has an echo for me in the work of from Ping Ho Wong’s “Conceptual investigation” (2006): the success of the spiritual education of the common people still depends to a large extent on a spiritual social ethos, picked up by one student who summed up her argument:

I do agree that the issues raised are rather crucial. I was pondering on the question about culture and first thought maybe looking at a country like India one can say that the spirituality is embedded in their culture. I would say that it naturally feels a more spiritual place which I can’t say about the UK.
On the other hand, I also thought that we as humans are always striving, or constantly looking for something, looking for eternal happiness or maybe we are looking for something much, much deeper!

In order to explore something of the phenomenon of religion we also made two visits to places of worship (we had intended a third visit to somewhere non-faith based but snow necessitated a change in timetable). Of course we’ve come into the domain of RE/RS here in order to hep students meet the aim of looking at religious identity. In the first – a Roman Catholic Church on a modern monastic pattern – the students were left to ask questions and they did so largely around the function of furniture “What is this for?” Questions of children’s participation were raised, mostly around “Can they see?” and “What do they do all the time.” This latter question came up in our second visit – the local synagogue – where we were guided through the artefacts, layout and practice by an eloquent and plain-speaking guide, who said “I’m not sure Judaism has much to do with spirituality: it’s about practice, about keeping God’s commands –“ something the students picked up on next week in the University-based class.

Perhaps we failed to grasp fully in the taught session the significance of Eaude’s three-part question:

• what is distinctive about spiritual development?
• what is the nature of children’s spiritual experience?
• to what extent can and do young children engage in spiritual experience?

It should be noted that many of the final assignments looked specifically at these issues.

A codicil:

What is my own construct as (in some ways) a ‘Christian educator’?
I am still uneasy about the wresting of spirituality away from traditional faith communities, if only because it seems to me that too many of the definitions we are left with are about ‘meaning’ and ‘life stories’ which seem to me to be less appropriate for young children – as in “…that which enables, or enhances personal integration within a framework of relationships by fostering exploration, conscious or otherwise, of identity and purpose…” (Eaude, 2006)

– and I worry there is sometimes (by no means always) a lack of honesty here: does use of words like character, meaning &c stand as shorthand for bigger words and concepts like transcendence and God or are they an attempt to make spirituality applicable to as wide a range of people as possible?

I am, perhaps, happier with the notion of transcendence as being capable of being all-inclusive – multi-faith, agnostic, perhaps even humanist – where, for example, Ping Ho Wong draws on Hay’s work to talk about ‘mystery sensing’ ‘value sensing’ beyond the material, and states that spirituality comes in different degrees and shades, like the colours in a colour circle, and for some purposes at least, no radical break should be assumed to exist between spiritual and unspiritual states

If they aren’t – if spirituality is as Champagne (2003) suggests Being Alive categorised in three modes sensitive, (perception) relational (interpersonal) and existential (choices, games, symbolism) – then I’d suggest that at the heart of children’s spirituality is play. If as Bruce suggests, play “is an integrating mechanism that brings together everything a child knows feels and understands” then it is , in some ways a spiritual experience. There isn’t time in this paper to explore this notion, but in discussion with the ECS students it was one that had some resonance: play as “dizzy” (Kalliala, Caillois) , and a reflective and integrating practice (Bruce) play in which a child is “a head taller than himself” (Vygotsky).

Play as spiritual practice for young children: perhaps the title for another, more reasoned, paper.

Champagne, E (2003) Being a Child, a Spiritual Child International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, Vol. 8, No. 1

Eaude, T (2003) Shining Lights in Unexpected Corners: new angles on young children’s spiritual development International Journal of Children’s Spirituality Vol. 8, No. 2, August 2003

Eaude, T (2005) Strangely familiar? – teachers making sense of young children’s spiritual development Early Years, Vol. 25, No. 3, November 2005, pp. 237–248)

Eaude, T (2006) Children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural Development, Exeter: Learning Matters

Waajman (“Spirituality: a multifaceted phenomenon,” Studies in Spirituality 117, 2007)

Wong, P H (2006) A conceptual investigation into the possibility of spiritual education drawing on a Confucian tradition International Journal of Children’s Spirituality, Vol. 11, No. 1, April 2006, pp. 73–85:

My initial thoughts (selfishly) after this, my third trip to the Gambia, is about HE pedagogy.  It was challenging (refreshing, positive) to have to teach – direct teaching – without recourse to the law of the rectangle, the whiteboard, the interactive WB, powerpoint, video footage. How do we manage without the technology? How does the technology dominate the teaching – and does it affect the ‘message’?

So here’s the song (to the tune “London Bridge is falling down”) I made up and I’ll ponder its significance at another time:

Watch the children every day, every day, every day;

Watch the children every day: Observation.

See what they can nearly do, nearly do, nearly do;

See what they can nearly do: that’s assessment.

Of course the idea of teaching “without” these things already presupposes a negative model of teaching in Gambia College. It wasn’t like that at all. What I had as ‘raw materials’ (if we can use that image, and I’m not at all sure I like it) was a sense of committed good will that was forgiving of my foibles, and a readiness to work.

This http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oom2EPuNP… is well worth visiting, even if there’s no decent visuals…

Without comment for now, this link takes you to the Oktaikon web pages, and  this is the short YouTube intro, Marcus on Okki blocs

It seems to me that, while I can pick out what interests me the most – play and outdoors – and have done so, to some extent in earlier entries, the bundle of documents in EYFS is so wide-ranging that we might just as well pick out safeguarding and learning. What really are the Key Themes?

Well, we have the documents’ own four key themes, and I must say I like the layout on line that gives us a page like this one,  with no nonsense.

But is the learning and development section so overarching that, despite all the other words, teachers will still focus on outcomes rather than provision? When staff and governors at my old nursery school, Bartlemas, chose “Investing in the Whole Child” as our mission statement, someone pointed out to me how interesting it was that people working with young children tend to go for statements to do with what adults provide, and schools for older children, or with a more ‘top-junior’ ethos perhaps, emphasise what the children will do. I’m not sure if this holds water, but it’s interesting to reflect on this huge divide between the philosophy that looks at education as input and the one that looks at it as output.

So if we look at EYFS in terms of output, the learning and development sections are the place to be to find key themes – or is it? Teachers might look to the ‘development matters’ section for things to identify as learning objectives (although some – most- are so broad as to be unusable on their own) but they are only one strand out of four. Planning and resourcing is to do with adult investment of staff time and interest, focus, even money; look, listen and note is again about investment of attention, focused attention; effective practice speaks for itself.

So we have four key themes, one of which might get grabbed by the hesitant educator as the real business of EYFS; and within that one theme, one column concerns itself with outcomes, and even that is tempered with statements like this last one:

The challenge for practitioners is to ensure that children’s learning and development occur as an outcome of their individual interests and abilities and that planning for learning and development takes account of these.

http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/eyfs/site/4/4.htm

And maybe Ellis and his friends, whom I mentioned in the previous entry, give a good exemplification of this way of working, of looking at and providing for children’s learning.

I come no closer to identifying them, these central ideas, apart from identifying my own bias, which comes from my experiences with my own children, in my own practice in schools, and seeing practice as I visit other settings. Perhaps we really do have to take the document at face value, and say that, whatever might be made of them in poorly provisioned pre-schools or lacklustre reception classes – not that this is the whole or dominant picture – the EYFS is founded on principles of each child’s unique development, where genuine and positive relationships work with good provision to enhance a child’s life chances. Voila: the four key themes all in one sentence without a bullet point in sight.