Inspired by my friend Jo Gilks @freerangeplay, I thought I’d reflect on the year that has just passed and what a year it’s been.

Whilst having a clear out recently, I found this book. I remember my Headteacher at the time coming back from a conference in about 2000 and giving me this as a present. It struck me that it's a question we're still asking ourselves in schools. "What about Reception?"

This is my dad, aged 13. He had quite an interesting life...

In the last week one of the people who had joined in at the beginning and had to go back to school popped in to see us. She said she wanted to end the term where she’d started it, and this prompted me to think of a quote from John Donne (because that’s the way my mind works).

“Thy firmness makes my circle just, 

And makes me end where I begun.”

This blog is really me playing around with ideas, “thinking out loud”. I know this is not something which is likely to happen, but I do think a conversation from different parts of the education sector about how it might or might not work would be really interesting.

I’d like to start a conversation. Tell me where I’m getting this wrong, and where it might be right (kindly of course). But let’s have a conversation. I’m sure lots of people will tell me of all sorts of issues that I haven’t even considered. I know that some of the schools I work with would be able to do this with relative  ease and for others it would pose a HUGE challenge

At the heart of all the difficult decisions that EYFS educators and managers will need to take is reconciling the need to keep children safe with ensuring that they have access to a responsive, supportive and appropriate curriculum.

The last three weeks have passed by in a blur of phone calls, emails, zoom chats, webinars, interviews, articles, writing letters, draft documentation and reviews, risk assessments, recovery plans.

A central consideration for an effective and responsible retransition in EYFS provision will be how the learning environment is structured and how leaders will strike the balance between the safety of children, their families and staff and the opportunities for learning and teaching. We need to be clear that under the current conditions it will not possible – nor responsible – to maintain a typical EYFS learning environment with multiple Areas of Provision all carefully equipped with a wide range of resources, tools and materials.

There seems to have been a lot of confusion caused by various politicians and health advisors who have referred to social distancing in briefings and in interviews. Last weekend Jenny Harries spoke about children sitting at “work desks” and Michael Gove seemed to indicate that he expected young children to be sitting at tables and staying away from each other. However, the guidance from the DFE states

“We know that, unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account.

One would hope that in an effort to support schools and settings to keep safe in a global pandemic, the government would ensure that the guidance for those working with the most complex sector would be clear and extensive. On Friday 15^th May, the guidance which came out late in the evening stated that further detailed guidance would follow shortly. We are still waiting.

What a week it’s been. This morning I woke up to the news that the children’s commissioner had said on the BBC that unions need to “stop squabbling” about opening schools on the 1^st of June.

The choice of words was interesting, and no doubt deliberate. Squabbling implies that this is something trivial and childish. The underlying narrative is “look at these people, they work with children and now they’re behaving like them”.

I have been asked on several occasions about the virtual staffroom. Is it an Early Years thing? Who can join? Is there an agenda? So I thought I’d share some information about it, in case you were thinking of joining but were too afraid to ask! 

Anyone who knows me well will know how much I love a BrewEd, so my initial response to BrewEdIsolation was, “Fantastic, I’m up for that!” quickly followed by, “How will that work?” and then, “Will that work?” As Ed said so eloquently in his opening talk, “The important people in the room aren’t the speakers, the important people are the audience.” BrewEd is all about connections! How would that work in the virtual world?

There are no right or wrong answers to this question, which is instantly liberating for the child. The Early Years teacher will not be unduly surprised by potentially random responses, they are after all part and parcel of working with young children. “I notice that you smell different today.” Or, “You’ve got nice hair, lady.” are answers I’ve been given to this question!

In this blog I want to explore one of the areas which I find is often overlooked in the early years classroom. The development of upper body strength and the development of the shoulder girdle.

In this blog I will explore proprioception - what it is, why it's important and what teachers and parents can do to help develop it in young children.

McPhillips et al (2000) noted that children who experience difficulties with reading also have difficulties with balance and motor control, so it is vital that teachers understand the impact of physical development on children’s cognitive development. Over the course of the next few blogs I will focus on different aspects of physical development, and how teachers of young children can support them to develop these areas so that learning is a pleasure and a joy rather than a pain and a chore, I hope you find them useful.

Some thoughts on BrewEDEY in Twickenham October 2019

Babies are not dogs. It seems a fairly obvious thing to say, doesn’t it? In fact, if you’d asked me what the title of my first blog would be, I don’t think I’d have dreamt in a million years of that one. Yet, here we are.