WEBVTT - This file was automatically generated by VIMEO. Please email info@talestoolkit.com to report problems. Hi. Hello everybody. Um, and thank you for coming out and spending your evening with us. Um, I'm really excited to be talking with Sue tonight. Um, um, can you just put a little message in the box just to say that you're here and that you can hear us and that everything's working. Okay. Let's make sure everybody's in there. Hello? Hello, Natasha. Hello, Tina. Hello, Catherine. Hello, Carol. So everyone's coming in now. Um, I'm really excited to be speaking with Sue Palmer tonight. Um, I've been a massive fan of Sue's for a long time, um, and read Toxic Childhood a long time ago, um, before I started Tale's Toolkit. So it's been a part of the journey for us. And actually the first time I met Sue was a very scary moment for me 'cause I was doing a presentation which had a lot of things that had come from Sue's kind of background research and information. And I found that Sue was sitting in the audience. So it was a, it was a big day to kind of be presenting and doing a talk and have Sue there to chat with. Um, but no, I'm really excited about this, this presentation tonight and to have the chance to talk with Sue. Um, and I think anyone who knows toolkit knows that we're a massive fan of play, um, and kind of working at the level of where the child is at and also of alleviating any kind of pressure that we can for children and for teachers. 'cause I think there's a lot of that and that's gonna be a big part of what Sue chats about today. Um, so Sue has been a primary head teacher. Um, she's a literacy specialist, um, an author of many, many books. Um, some of the most famous will be the Toxic Childhood one that I mentioned. And also, um, the upstart book, which then went on to create this movement in Scotland, of which, um, Sue is now the chair of Upstart. And this is all about kind of, um, there's a lot of countries in the world where some of the best results are coming from children where they start formal education at the age of seven. And we all know that children need more opportunities to learn through play at that very young age. And it's about starting their education later and creating those opportunities for play that they all need. And Sue's gonna tell us a little bit more about this today. So Sue has Sue, oh, sorry. Um, Sue's written many, many books like just some of them outlined here. Um, she has been a consultant for many fantastic companies like the natural, uh, national Literacy Test, the basic skills, um, advisory work for the Department of Education work for the BBC. And also there's lots of stuff going on at the minute with the second edition of Players The Way coming out. So I know that's gonna be something that Sue talks about again today, um, where there were 16 leading experts that came together to talk about the importance of play. And we're hoping that this book can be a real kind of game changer in terms of what happens with education. So I'm gonna pass it to you Today, Um, but I've got another pen here. Um, and what we can do is, um, if you type in the comments, any questions that come up, anything that you'd like to ask Sue, and I'm gonna make notes and then we can have a chat with Sue and I can throw out some of the questions that you'd like to know. So type away while Sue's chatting, and I can, I can note all those down. So over to you, Sue. Really excited to have you here this evening. Thanks very much. Um, when Kate first asked me to do this, um, I had to think up some sort of interesting title and I came up with that, which, um, was because at the time, oh dear, it was, um, there was something going on in Scotland and it looked as though the sort of target driven culture was gonna get in the way of all the good work that's been going on. Um, and, um, that's the type, actually, it's not nothing new. I used that as a headline in a Guardian article in about 2004. Um, when I started thinking, well, what am I gonna say? I actually started thinking back to those days and I'm, I'm afraid I'm gonna give you a tiny wee history lesson to begin with, because actually the story of this is, it's really quite depressing. Um, I dunno whether anybody remembers that gentleman. Um, he was the man, you've gotta be quite old, really, because he was the guy who set up the thing called the National Literacy Strategy way back in 1998 for the labor government then. And, um, he was the man who invented targets as I was actually working for the strategy at the time. I, I did icount later and felt very guilty about it. But I was actually, um, one of the, the people working on the government's behalf. Um, and I think it was probably when Michael invented the targets that I decided it was about time I left. Um, the reason he did it was that loads and loads of materials had gone into schools and loads of resources and, and in service court and things. And they thought, gosh, we've gotta be accountable for all this money we spend. So he said, uh, okay, so let's have ums to accompany the, the SATs and you're gonna have to get so many through EV every year, year on year on year. And that started happening around about 2000, about 2000 I think. And, um, in 2002, we got the first international surveys of, um, literacy and numeracy. Well, the first one was literacy. And then because we haven't done Frank well, they decided they were gonna have to be more targets and more targets. And eventually we were just target mad. Everything began to be driven by data. It went on, um, became, um, made him famous and he, he went onto the number 10 policy unit and, um, gave targets to the police force and the National Health Service and everybody. And, um, that way madness lies really. But it got even worse because America joined in. They started with their No Child Left Behind thing at the beginning of 2000 that got changed into Race to the Top. And it's all about teaching children to do faster and faster and progress and progress. And it was really only schools to start with. And then they discovered the famous Heartly research, which was about little children's language development and the Heart, heart and ly speech and language in America who'd found out that, um, there was a real gap by the age of about four or five between the children from disadvantaged homes and the ones from Advantage Homes. And that meant that Michael became quite interested in very, very little children. You'd get targets for them. Um, it's made even worse in many ways by the fact that something else cropped up called the Heckman Equation. That was a Nobel Prize winning scientist who found out that if you put money in at the beginning of children's lives, you would get returns towards the end because you'd have to spend less on special needs, less on social workers, less on police and criminal justice for the kids that went wrong. It was Penman equation was supposed to be helping to support little kids. But suddenly it became interesting to the education people. It just so happened that that came at the same time that we were setting up our, um, our foundation stage, which was initially just, um, from three to five, I think, but then became the early years foundation stage right through, um, again, that was great at the beginning because it was done by early people. You knew what they were doing. And there was a super, um, report going on called the Epi Report, which was effective as a revision of preschool education. I hate that word, preschool. Why I talk about kindergartens these days. 'cause preschool, it sounds as though it's all just getting ready for school. But it was actually an excellent report. And it was about, you know, what was great things to do in, in the, the, the early years before students started school. But Michael wanted targets. Um, so eventually the, they, the early years people said, well, could we just call them desirable outcomes? Because early years isn't something that works in a linear way, it's a holistic thing. Um, and we know what we'd like, but we dunno that we don't wanna push them in in certain directions because that might be harmful, but no, they wanna targets. So, um, eventually it was agreed there would be goals for literacy and numeracy by the end of the reception year. And, um, that was decided at a meeting in the department for education. I was there on the day, I was in another office doing something else probably to do with grammar. And, uh, some of our friends from the strategy came in straight from the meeting, the foundation fate, and they were grinning all over their faces and saying, we won. We won. But there were blood and feathers on the floor. And I, I think at that moment, something clicked inside me and I thought, I think I'm in the wrong place. And it was when I started going off and researching child development and already started becoming interested because the teachers I was meeting when I was going around talking about literacy were sort of saying, there are some changes in our children. This would be the late nineties again, that we're noticing they're finding more difficult to concentrate and the behave more little behavior early choose, and not getting along as well in the playground and in the, in the disadvantaged areas of the country. People were saying language is going down year on year. And I, I started thinking, is there something going on that's making a problem? Because that, that part research, we had a woman called Barbara Tizard who'd done research on children's language development back in the eighties. And she'd found that there wasn't a particular difference, you know, working class kids was developing language, much like children from middle class homes. So thinking, is it something that's happened more recently? And there was more research coming through from a woman called Sally Ward suggesting that yeah, children's language in the disadvantaged areas was getting worse. Um, so eight years of research, and I ended up publishing the book that Kate mentioned, toxic Childhood. It took eight years because I was looking at sort of every aspect of childhood. So I had to do a chapter on each of those, and I had to talk to like famous experts on all of them. And, um, they all said, yeah, there, there are elements in what's going on. The, the changes in children's lives, which we're getting faster and faster because of technology. The changes in children's lives are meaning that we're, there's little, there's problems. So, um, about 12 of us in 2007, was it 2007? No, 2006. It was, um, we wrote a letter to the Daily Telegraph. It was lots of the experts I'd met and other people in early years and, um, other teachers. And actually a whole load of children's authors joined in. We got Philip Coleman to sign. Um, and we sent the letter to the Daily Telegraph. And usually something like that, you know, it gets published and that's it. But actually it was a slow news day. And so we got the front page and it got picked up by all the media and there was this sort of total storm, and I got known as the woman that says Childhood is toxic. Um, this was the letter, this was the beginning of the letter, as professionals and academics from a range of backgrounds were deeply concerned at the escalating instance of child childhood depression and children's behavioral and developmental conditions. We believe this is largely due to a lack of understanding on the part of both politicians and the general public of the realities and subtleties of child development. And these were the three, the four things that we specifically mentioned. I'd got so worried about changes in children's play that, you know, it, it was normal until the late eighties for children, whenever they weren't in school or in bed or eating to get outdoors, playing with their mates. But of course with traffic buildup and so on and, and changes in communities and more moms being outta work and everything work. So of course they could increasingly be taking advantage of all the new screen-based entertainment that was available, which meant they were leading a much more sedentary life and being exposed to a great deal of commercial influences through the screens that were sort of saying, eat this stuff that's bad for you. Um, you know, you need this toy, which isn't really good for you. Drink these drinks, which aren't very good for you. Um, you really need trainers. You know, you need fashion items, stuff that kids have never been bothered about before at all. And then all that was underpinned by what had been going on because of Michael's targets. The change from schooling being reasonably un pressurized, even the SATs weren't that pressurized. You got the targets involved as well, had now become hyper competitive with putting enormous stress on kids and depriving them things that they name. Um, so the book went intersect in edition in 2015, and as Kate said, I was at the same time I was writing another book because suddenly occurred to me, I've gotta stop saying what was wrong and start saying, how can we put it right? I mean, there's no point in just pointing to things. Parents just get anxious and they were, parents could get more and more anxious because there was so many pressures on them and the children. So, um, that was when I thought we really ought to do what they do in the Nordic countries and have a proper kindergarten stage where it's outdoor in its play. Um, and as a result of writing that book, I ended up being the chair of, um, upstart Scotland, which launched coming on five years ago now in Scotland. Um, asking for rights focused relationship center play kind as often as possible outdoors. We also stress. And the reason for that is basically evolutionary biology, because we didn't get to this position on earth by, you know, just hanging around. We have developed this incredible capacity to learn and adapt. We are the great learning adaptable creature, but that does depend on children having the opportunity to develop the skills and capacities that underpin that learning and adaptability. Um, they need that before we really start formal education. You need that just to be a human being. That works. Um, and it's really the first seven years or so at a really precious, this was a piece, a piece I found in a, an academic journal. Um, just explaining it in terms of what they call biologically primary knowledge. Um, as they say, it's a very important category of knowledge because it covers all sorts of stuff like, um, talking, being able to get, recognize, people, pattern recognition, engaging in various social functions, solving problems, using the information you've acquired in new situations, making plans, regulating your thought, prejudices to correspond to your environment. Basic things like that, focusing of attention, self-regulation, empathy, social skills, all those things. Humans must learn to engage in these very complex cognitive capacities, but because of their importance, we've evolved to acquire the necessary skills effortlessly and automatically. And this was my favorite line, they cannot be taught. Most people now, we've grown up these days because we're so, you know, it's so clever with and computers and everything. We think we've gotta teach the kids everything that basically they're designed to learn it themselves by nature, as long as they get the bright sort of nurture. And I've had 20 years to work out what are the important ingredients in that nurture. And I've got it down to two now. I'm sorry about this thinging. It's because, um, PowerPoints, we work on the interface and they have to do clever things for my presentation. So it does work, but it, you, we have this little sort of glitch every time. Uh, you're waiting to find out what the two things are, aren't you Right? Hard. They need love from the adults. That's the nurture. We need to love them when they're little. You know, little kids are lovable. They're made that way because we have to love them. And that'll help make sure we feed them and clo them and keep them safe. But it'll also mean that we convey that we love them. They children feel loved, then they also feel lovable. They feel they're worth, as the proclaimers put it, they're worth their place on earth. They feel a sense of self-esteem, self-confidence. And that's really, really important. If they're gonna thrive. Um, the play isn't our problem. The play comes from the children. It's their inborn learning drive. And having become a granny now, I've had the opportunity to watch it on the very first hour of a child's existence. They're trying to find out about the place that they're in. And, um, I I, I'd seen on a thing that if you put your tongue out at a newborn baby, it'll put its tongue back out at you because they're born to imitate. And I gotta stand there with my newborn granddaughter just minutes after she'd been born and sma tongue out and she a little face when, and finally the tongue came out so that she was playing with me from the minute she was born. Um, and they'll do it with whatever's around with, with people that they meet, but also with any things they can get. They wanna explore, they wanna experiment, they wanna create, they wanna brilliant. It comes from them. And we've, um, other countries do know this. This is, um, it says Uno and it's about early childhood care and education. The United Nations Convention on the rights of the child has a general comment, seven, which this is more or less summing up. And you may note that it points out that early childhood is from birth to eight. Now we're sending children to school when they're halfway through their early childhood in this country. It's insane. What we should be doing is what they say here, more than a preparation for primary school. It should be the holistic development of their social, emotional, cognitive and physical needs to build a solid and broad foundation for lifelong learning and wellbeing. Not just so that they'll do well in school, but so that they'll thrive in life and so that they will have positive physical and mental health. Now we have this massive problem in this country now of children and young people's poor mental health. And I think we're actually helping to create it. I'll just leave that for you to read. I found it on the internet recently, and it is such a super quote, I think we're depriving our kids of childhood. So Michael, your answer with those targets was simple but wrong. The really important answers are complex like child development, and you've gotta take your time over them. Um, I'm thinking about that target if in those first seven years I want children to develop to the full, their physical, emotional, social and cognitive capacities. I've got to let that happen through positive relationships with adult and children learning through play. I can do things like creating environments that are literacy rich and numeracy rich. So that, and, you know, giving provocations so that helping with the play, you know, rebel and Montessori and Steiner and all sorts of other people have given us, and Regie Emilio have given us a lot loads of ways that you do that you don't interfere. Um, and I, when we first set up upstart, someone had just say the children or something had just published a, a document, it was called Read on, get on. And it started off on the first page by talking about we've got a look at children's communication skills. And I thought we're moving into targets here because it's not, this is a, the, the, the development's all mud up. It's, it's not something that happens in a linear way or that you can something out. It's all mixed up together. I suppose communication is is relatively wide because if you think about it, that is critical. Uh, if you ask a speech to language therapist, they'll tell you, I think it's something like 75 to 80% of communication is nonverbal. It's things like eye contact, facial express, yes, facial expression, body language, um, tone of voice, uh, the spaces between the words, the context in which you're talking. It's all to do with relationships. So it's, it's a big target, that one. But it's still compared to the whole of physical development, you know, physical fitness coordination, control as, um, emotional resilience through, you know, learning your problem solving and all that sort of stuff. Um, all the different social skills you need in the world. Uh, it's and, and general cognitive development. It's, it's still only a very small bit of it. By, by by about page three, they've stopped talking about com communication and they've moved to language. Now that's an element of communication. Indeed. It's much more focused. And I think it was one more page and they've moved to reading because of course, once you can talk, start reading, can't you? So we've got this really tiny target and yeah, okay, we know we can do it. We can sit them down in reception class or primary one and we can teach them phonics and um, we can probably hit a target that someone set us. But if you go back to where we started, that target is plunging deep into the heart because you're not concentrating on what they need, which is the holistic development of physical, socially emotional and, and formative skill. So it sort of distracts everybody from what's really important. This is this year, they've missed out on a whole year. These kids in primary one in Scotland, reception year in England, they've missed out on a whole year part a quarter of their lives of normal life. They've been exposed to stress in all sorts of ways. Their families have been stressed. Some of them have maybe seen death in the family. Everybody's been a lot of the time banged up indoors, um, under a lot of stress. So what are, are leaders saying the kids have gotta make up for the lost time. They've gotta catch up. That BBC article listed five things that we might do to help them catch up with the targets. There is a little bit of a mention at the bottom there about increased wellbeing support, but what it actually means is counseling for those poor kids who are already having nervous breakdowns. But Bishop Tutu said something very, very wise, yeah, we've gotta provide mental health services for our kids, but there comes a point when we need to stop pulling people that as a river we need to be going upstream and finding out why they're falling in, falling in because they're being robbed of their, which brings me to the good news in Scotland. Um, we do like to think that Upstart had a little bit to do with this. I mean, we weren't involved in writing it, so we can pri praise it to the skies because it's not us. It's early years. People in Scotland were commissioned to write new practice guidance for the whole of our early level, which takes it right through from three, well actually it's from right from birth. Um, but it goes right up to the age of six. And it is spot on. It's beautiful development, supplemental science. It is very accessible. It is a really brilliant piece of, and that was published in February last year. It's been re received with huge enthusiasm by the earlier people in Scotland. Um, the only trouble is I'm afraid that the, the policy makers haven't read it and they're still wanting to test them in literacy numeracy when they're fine. Um, and parents of course don't understand it yet. Everybody outside early years in many ways is so used to, you know, rushing them through that. They, they, it's gonna take a while to embed this in England. I know you've got people writing the same thing at the moment and working on the, the birth to five, which again looks as though it's terrific. My only complaint about it is I think it should be birth to seven, but it's, I'm in Scotland now. Um, and people said, well, we've got to link it to the statutory requirements as they're at the moment, but it should be birth to seven because we should be giving them a lot longer, um, to, to, to spend time learning in the way that, that they learn best during that particular phase of development. Um, so Upstart produced a book over this summer, which we're incredibly proud of. Um, and Kate mentioned it. There's, um, 16 authors now. Yeah, 16 authors. Um, because we did a second edition. We haven't got a chapter on diversity and equality and, um, I got taken, we've been doing so many reprints because it was selling so well that they said I could actually have an extra chapter. And, um, we commissioned another one. So we've got 16 authors in there all coming from different directions. We've got public health a aspect, we've got children's rights aspect. We've got, um, we have a wonderful attachment theorist in Scotland. She on a chapter which also looks at the way culture operates in terms of early childhood. We've got, um, people from local authorities. We've got one of the authors of, um, realizing the ambition, working with two academic colleagues to look at the, the status of the early years workforce. Look parents, um, environmental sustainability, oh gosh, every, oh, the CEO of play. Scotland's written a chapter about the science of play. So it's, it's got, it's got loads in it and we're very, very proud of it. Um, so proud indeed that Kate, who is our, um, our vice chair, Kate Johnson, she decided she was gonna set up a proud funder to get enough money to send a copy to every single, uh, member of the Scottish Parliament and every single director of education in Scotland. And she raised the money within three weeks. So, um, she and I turned up just before Christmas. We turned up outside our parliament with a sledge full of books in SS and boxes. Um, so they went to the, the parliamentarians and the, and the directors of education got them as well. And, um, I dunno whether it because somebody actually, actually read the book, but last Sunday, Scottish Greens, um, announced that a kindergarten stage for three to seven year olds who had been a part of their manifesto for the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentary elections. Uh, which was great because actually the, the Greens have a lot more influence in Scotland than they do in the UK in England. Westminster Common, um, because they're the other Independence Party. So the, if the Scottish nationalists don't get a majority, which they probably won't, and a huge majority, the the Greens get the casting votes. So they get quite a lot of say. So we are really thrilled about that. Um, and I didn't want to finish without mentioning this lady because she's been really important in Scotland lately too. She's called Kathy McCulloch. She wrote the chapter on children's rights in Phase the Way, um, she set up 25 years ago, something called the Children's Parliament, which was a way of informing children about their rights under the U-N-C-R-C. And along with other organizations, they've been campaigning to, um, get the U-N-C-C-R-C made into, um, sorry, incorporated United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Incorporated into Scott's Law, which would be a terrific move forward. And it's now been agreed that that will be done this year. So Kathy has persuaded the Scottish government to make this year, the year of childhood. Um, so we've all got our tails up a bit really in Scotland. There's still a long way to go. We've got a catch up problem too. We've got a professor of education saying they all ought to be in during this summer and all of it, but we're, we're working hard on it. And, um, we had a first meeting of our book group last night for, um, players, the way we're doing book group meetings on it, because so many people have read it. Um, and, um, it was absolutely fantastic. Kathy and Suzanne ZI spoke at that. So if anybody's interested, the recording should be available on our social media probably by the weekend. It was a brilliant meeting. Um, so that's our message regarding what should happen when they go back to school. They need time to recover. So reconnect, which is the big thing, is connection with the, with people with the world and playing in it so that they rediscover the joy of being a child. Um, and then when they get to seven, they're, they'll be able to self-regulate, focus attention, get along, do all the social stuff, settle down in a classroom, and hopefully learn efficiently for the rest of their lives and also be quite happy and well please God. So that's us. If you're interested, um, the Facebook is Upstart Scotland, I tweet as Upstart Scott, which must be one of the best Twitter handles in the handles in the world. And that's me down at the bottom if you wanna, where you can find me for anything. Um, but I do honestly do recommend if you do log onto one of us Facebook or, um, Twitter. That meeting last night was fantastic. They're two brilliant ladies and they did a wonderful job. So that's me done Kate. Mm-Hmm. Yep. Brilliant. Um, a lot of people are very, very excited about your message, Sue, and really behind the upstart program and all the work you're doing. Um, some of the things that people were chatting about, there was a lot of people talking about outdoor play that they had children and just playing out on the street and on your bike and sitting out on the curb and, and they were kind of saying about like the stuff that was happening in there when they were younger. But I was wondering, what are the kind of changes that you think we're gonna see by the loss of that and what, 'cause it's, I mean, in such a short time from the fact when we were young to the, the way it is nowadays, I mean, when I was working in schools, there were children that could see big parts out the window and never set foot in them. And like, what do you think are those changes starting to come through and what are the kind of things that See Absolutely. I mean, you saw that letter we'd written. Yes. Um, I've noticed that over my teaching career. I've, I started to train as a teacher in 1970, so I've been around a very long time. Um, and I've noticed I'd really noticed an increase in developmental conditions. Dyslexia. Yes. Um, you know, that a DH ADHD wasn't invented till 1980. Yeah. Uh, And the same with autistic spectrum disorder. You, you, you know, you, you would, you were seeing some incidents of it, but, um, you know, most kids, even if they would nowadays be on the spectrum yes. They'd usually be able to get along fine most of the time because they got pay. Yes. Um, so we, you know, we, we we're really causing, I, I mean okay, so for instance, a SD it's gonna, and, and probably all the other developmental conditions, they've all got a genetic predisposition at the bottom. Yes. But they, the gr the thing is then particularly what happens to you in those early years is gonna affect how hard that this predisposition kicks in. Yes. So yeah, we, we saw that there were issues in, with developmental conditions getting worse, but also we were beginning to see Right. Back then at the beginning of the two thousands, that there were more mental health problems. Yes. Yeah. And that has excluded Yes. Even Before. Massively. Yeah. We can't even make the provision, the, the children and and adolescent mental health services Yes. Are absolutely overwhelmed. Yes. And schools are now being asked to bring in counselors and so on, but, you know, we've gotta go upstream and work out what it we're depriving children of their childhood. Yes. And play is such as you say, outdoor, social active. Yes. Particularly if possible within nature. Yeah. But I have to say, I was reared in sulfur and we just played on bomb sites. Um, you know, I was in the middle of the city and we just played where we could. And the bomb sites were great. We were talking about we and that kind of like playing the city and playing the country and that wherever you were, it was just finding whatever resources that were available and making from them and making and being creative and Yeah. We did as children. Yeah. Well, the, the, the whole loose parts thing now is sort of trying to reproduce that, you know, and, and we can, and that's the great thing, you know? Mm-Hmm. The, the people Play England, play Scotland all they know a lot and they come up with great ideas. And the early years people know a lot and they come up with great ideas. But this is still very much the preserve of the people that know about it. Yes. Parents think we've gotta get them reading and writing, we've gotta get on with it. You know, it's a, it's a race. It's a, it's, oh gosh, gotta push. And the, the, the educational establishment is obsessed with tests and them on as quickly as you can. So all these poor kids are just not getting what those very basic, biological primary experiences that will help them get the capacities that they need to survive and thrive. Yeah. It's true. It terrifies me. Yes. It's because we, I don't think we really know what the, the true impact is gonna be. 'cause I think things are getting worse too. So, um, one of the, well, Let's hope Covid actually does, I I I do think it might be a bit of a wake up call to people because certainly, I mean, there was a program on the BBC yesterday about children's mental health and the effects that Covid are gonna have is gonna have and we'll see effects. Yes. I mean, they, they went back on Monday, um, in Scotland, primary one to three, and the teachers were so delighted to see them back. And the kids one, one of the teachers said it was bringing tears to my eyes to watch them reuniting with their friends. Yeah. And the kids were horribly over excited and happy. But what we found, if, I dunno whether other people found this, but what people found after the first lockdown was the kids was thrilled to get back to school. But it was a few weeks later you started seeing the behavioral issues starting to emerge. Mm-Hmm. So I think we're gonna see issues and, and maybe since there is now so much expertise out there Mm-Hmm. Um, in terms of the, I mean the British psychological as association, no BPS society anyway, the, the main psychologist, it wrote a letter, um, to the, the press this week saying, we've got this pushing the catch up, the children need to recover. Yes. So maybe, maybe we'll see it. I just, I just worry for you, I think we've got more chance up here, but I do worry for you lot because you've got all those map people running your government. It's true. Well, one of the things, um, that came from Helen, she was saying, uh, in the chat that there's a real kind of feeling in schools of this becoming of what are they gonna come, you know, are they gonna become later on? How are they gonna fit the targets for next year? How are they gonna meet this? Whereas she feels that like, coming from other countries and messages that they're hearing from places like Sweden is, it's about value in the humans that children are having. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Which is really true. And I think, like you said, I think with that covid that some people were saying about, well, with that kind of back to school and that pressure of having to catch up that gap, what can they do? Like what's your message to teachers in schools where there's that top down pressure where there's kind of like, meet the target, you know, we've gotta get them, we've gotta fill this gap. What, what can they do now to support? I have to say, this is the reason I've stopped doing much work in England because I found it really difficult teaching speaking to, because I'm saying, well, this is what we've got do. And they're sort of practically breaking down sometimes and saying, but we can't because we've gotta do this. Yes. Um, I know certainly that if I were in early years in, in England, I'd be, you know, following that birth to five Matters crowd and, um, keeping early years unique and the people that worked together there work together there because they need, they need the strength in numbers. They need pe other people to be with them. Yes. And I, I think this is a time, it really is a bit of a crunch time regarding whether you take the official guidance or whether you go with the, the stuff that's actually been written by early years experts. Yes, it's true. Yeah. And someone said keeping, keeping early. Um, so kind of like there's programs like that that are trying to push this forward and then also trying to be creative within the boundaries that you have. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you, secret teaching, I mean, in the 1970s when I was teaching, we weren't actually allowed to teach the tables and we weren't actually, you know, it was, it was all supposed to be, you know, get out into the things, set yourself free. It was all very, um, and I actually thought, well, you need your tables, don't you? So, and they need to be able to spell a bit. Mm-Hmm. I used to do secret teaching. Exactly. The things that now you've all gotta do all the time, but you need to do secret teaching. Yeah. I think there's a lot, I used to do a lot of secret teaching when I was teaching, actually. There was expectations to do things and you'd be like, yeah, yeah, I've done that. Shut the door. Good thing about teaching Yeah. Is that, you know, you've get the kids on side because otherwise they'd on you make really good. You'd be like, we did do that yesterday, don't you remember? Yeah, it's true. So, no, it's good. Um, one of the other things is, um, uh, Ingrid is saying that she was, um, out with her children who were in their twenties and they were playing on swings the other day. And she said that she feels that those childhood games are kind of needed and often go on for much longer than, than we think they should. Um, can we repair the damage for some of those children that may have missed that play? Yeah. Find ways to get 'em up and doing it. Yeah. That's why that, as I say, that's why we should not be concentrating on the academics at the moment. We need to be making sure that they get the chance to recover. Mm-Hmm. Um, but I, it's almost as though the concept of childhood is just gone. Yes. You know, it's, it's, it's not a race. It, it's a biological phase in human development in which they need to play. And to have the adults that are caring for them, not judging them all the time, you know, and, and trying to make them do things that they're probably many of them not ready to do. Um, it's, it is weird. And I, I, I mean, I assume that like all mad things, eventually people will go, hang on a minute, we've been mad here. Yes. For a long time. For a long time. Yes. Again, we do have a pretty bad record in the uk. I mean, we've got, we've a really bad record until the eighties of hitting children in school a lot. Mm-Hmm. You know, we used to beat the hell out them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I mean, we stopped doing that, we stopped doing that. We learned that that was not a good thing. Mm-Hmm. Um, I mean, Suzanne Zedi points out, there's so many instances where, you know, back in the fifties if a child went into hospital, the parents were told they mustn't visit perhaps once a week, but if they visited, the child wouldn't settle, you know? Yeah. Um, and, and well, everybody sussed out that that was a bad idea. Yes. So, you know, I just pray that we will eventually get it. And I think things like realizing the ambition for us for that to be a, a document published through the government Mm-Hmm. Um, it is, it's wonderful. Six, well, actually you could take it into P two. So four, seven. It, it, it, in fact, if that had been out five years ago, there wouldn't be an upstart. Yeah. Yeah. So we're just, the, the big thing is, you know, to, to get the politicians who have now introduced testing in primary one A, a literacy and numeracy to say, to realize that that's not a good place to start. That leave it for a couple of years if you absolutely have accountability, um, culture in UK schools. But, um, at least give them, and, and you see that there's, there's another indication Singapore Mm-Hmm. Which is math, the testing. Yes. Absolutely. Loves the test. Does Singapore? Yes. It, uh, changed its policy about two years ago and said no testing of anything until they're eight. Wow. Okay. Uh, China Yes. Which again, loves a test. Yes. Um, it has a kindergarten stage to seven. Yes. Um, because of the sorts of pressures that were happening when we were looking at the USA and the uk, and it, it was starting the push down had started China, no specific teaching of literacy on numeracy until they're seven. And do you know why Singapore and China both said that about two or three years ago? Mm-Hmm. The World Economic Foundation. Mm-Hmm. Started looking at what was good for, um, early years. Yes. Looked at Finland in places and said, yeah, the research is clear. Yes. They do not need to be pushed and all the rest of it, they need to become that the skills they're gonna need in the future are gonna be social skills, creativity, problem solving, all that sort of stuff. Yes. They don't need to start the academics until they're done. So the World Economic Foundation says it. Yes. Yeah, that's true. So, and the, the American Academy of Pediatrics has released a thing called the Power of Play, saying that, um, you know, play is vital and it's particularly vital that they're out, wasn't active until the age of about seven or eight. So, you know, this, the pressure's coming from other places. I think our job is just to keep telling people Yes. Pointing and saying Mm-Hmm. So I, I do a newsletter for perhaps start every month, and I just try to put in it a roundup of all the, all the research. I'm on the six 65th newsletter this, this weekend. Uh, but stuff that's coming through, because when you start looking at it, the accumulate accumulation over just the, the five years I've been doing it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And I think often, like talking about play, I think often it's having that faith and having that knowledge that play will get you to where you need to go. And we know that, I think sometimes it's about educating people on that. 'cause I know in that top down kind of pressure in school where they want to meet those targets, they want to get those things done, they want to get the children ready. It's like, there's nothing that's gonna get the children ready more than this. Like, there's nothing that's gonna prepare the children for the future more than this. Like, this is what we need to do. And I think Covid, like you said, has maybe given us an opportunity to go, right, we need to evaluate what we're doing here. It's not about ramming a load of knowledge into them. It's about what they need to, to get to be and happy and safe and stable and able to be the human beings to go on to, to develop as they should. But yeah, I think, I think you're right. I think Covid has given us an opportunity to push. I think it's an opportunity. I think if actually if we don't see that we need to be a little bit kinder to our kids this year Yes. Then they'll never see it. Although I, I I, I, I don't, it does worry me using charge of the government in England. I, I mean, we've got in, we've got a few sort of problem ones up here, but No, it's tough. Um, We Talk a lot about play. Um, can you kind of, through your understanding of play and where people can go to, to help find information, to develop, play, There is a wonderful playworks de uh, definition. What is it now? Um, self chosen free, freely chosen self-directed Mm-Hmm. Behavior that actively engages the child. It's, it's from the child. That's the point now, you know, you're cunning early years. People know that if you put certain things out and about, sort of, they might be, you know, more productive than if they just, you know. But, um, it's basically that they did. And it really is amazing, particularly outdoors that the way it worked, because we were doing a photo shoot for upstart. We needed something for a leaflet. And I needed about six kids to have the photos taken. So we, I, I managed to get six people that, well, two, three families that I knew that had the right ages of children. They had to be between about four and seven. And, um, and on the night before every single one of them suddenly couldn't come. Mm-Hmm. So we, we stuck out an appeal on Facebook and managed to get seven kids who'd never met each other before in their lives with their moms. And I let this little gle into a wood Mm-Hmm. And everybody's standing there, and I said to the children, ran, ran. Yes. And we grown up stood watching, and within no time at all, they were meeting each other and working and starting things. And all sorts of things started up, we were there for about an hour and a half. I said, the other night was night. It was an hour and a half. The, the moms actually got a bit cold by the end of it. And we're saying, we've gotta go now. The kids won't come back. No. So, I mean, that's why the outdoors are so amazing. Yeah. It's where they, that's where we evolved. That's where they're meant to do it with other kids. Yeah. It's true. So It's, that's what I think plays, but at the same time, I, I mean, what a, a good kindergarten does is also create the sort of literacy rich environment. A a a kid from a, you know, a wealthy educated home would've had so that all children, if you get three or four years of that through your kindergarten, all children will have that sort of background. And the same with sort of numeracy rich, you know, that that just opportunities that will mean that the play can involve things that we've got Helen Williams speaking at our next book group about it, the bit, because I'm not very good on the bit. But, um, no, I, I mean, you know, the, the, where would you go to find out about this? Realizing the ambition? Mm-Hmm. Yes. Or one of these many wonderful books. Oh, Anna F. Graves book. Mm-Hmm. Anna F. Graves books. Yeah. Um, and, uh, go and listen to people like Kim Scott and Anna and, um, Catherine Sly, wonderful woman. Mm-Hmm. Um, I mean, that, I've just, I'm not early years. I just sit there swallowing it all up, you know, because all my stuff's been sort of basic background research. So it's wonderful for me to see them just putting it into practice. Yes. That's good. Yeah. I think looking, it's just endless the's stuff that you find. Like, there's so much stuff that you find, and it's just having that faith and going with it. So. Yeah. And I think, I mean, the other, with your tails toolkit, the other two things that I would say evolution requires children to have and the grownups usually stories and song stories and song stories and song. Again, all of these things have been in every time, every culture. Yes. But they're not you nowadays. They get things on telly. Yes. Yeah. And They don't get the constant repetition of the old songs, songs that, that, that children got in the past, which, and playground rhymes and things like that, which actually really helped hone your memory skills, which are so important. You know, your sort of, um, auditory memory span. Yes. So, yeah. Stories, songs and play and grownups who really like them and aren't sort of trying to, and basically there will be lots of kids who do start to read and write, um, way before seven. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, you don't stop 'em or anything, but you don't make big issue of it. You don't make it be the big be of all and end all of existence. Yeah. It's just something some kids like doing. Yeah. And by the, by the end of the time, if you've got a re literacy rich environment, most of them will be quite interesting in doing it. Yeah. It's true. I can't imagine one. Yeah. Well, I, I had a friend and he was about seven or eight, and him and him and his friends a secret writing club in school where they could write in secret because they knew that if they showed the teacher they'd be made to do more of it. And, and it was like a big thing for the teacher that she Yeah. And they had a secret club that they set up outside that they took away from the teacher because they knew it would become so formal, they'd be made to write about things that they didn't wanna write about. Well, good on it. Yeah. And actually that I, I had a, I mean, when I think about it, I should have known this all before, when, when I was actually teaching. I, I taught primary four, um, which meant they came in at seven, was it seven or eight mm-Hmm. Yeah. There must've, it must've been, there were seven and a half going on eight. And the beginning of one year, I got a little boy from Switzerland. Now they don't start school till seven in Switzerland. Mm-Hmm. So this little boy had not been to school. Um, his family had come over at the university. He was French speaking, and he'd never been to school. So I suddenly had this child in my class. He didn't speak English and hadn't had the three years that my kids had. Yeah. That child was speaking fluent English and writing perfectly well. Mm-Hmm. Within a term. Yeah. And reading English. Yes. Um, This has got all the background. Well, I remember actually the first time I heard you speak Sue, and you were talking about, um, you were talking about kind of like the difference between England and I think it was Sweden at the time. I can't remember which country it was. But you were saying that you'd been saying to some politicians about the fact that children in Sweden were reading and writing more fluently than any of our children over here, like a year before, like at that age. And that they'd said, well, no, it's different 'cause it's a different phonetic system. You were like, no, they're reading and writing back in our children in English. They can, they can, they can. Yeah. The Fin Finnish children learn to write and finish, which actually is phonetically very regular grammatically evil. Yes. Yes. Um, very, very grammatically complex. Um, but yeah. But within no time at all, they're not only reading and writing in, in Finnish, uh, in they, they can also read and write English. They can, they can all flip and speak English and then start reading it, huh. That's It. Well, You think about the whole of rest of the world learns to read English. I mean, it's, it's not nowadays, you know, you, you think to anybody from China and that they can read English. So it's not as though that this horribly phonetically difficult language that we go on about, you know, that we've gotta get them started early because our phonics are so difficult. Yes. The rest of the world come flipping do it. And they, you know, the Chinese have been learning in pictograms or whatever they called, and it's not pic. But anyway, it's, it's graphic language. I mean, it, it's Mm-Hmm. As long as you, you've got the basic capacity Yes. Phonological awareness. You need in those early, you need to develop phonological awareness during that early period. Mm-Hmm. But that's to do with being able to, it, it's to do with being exposed to song Mm-Hmm. And rhyme and story. Yes. To opportunities for pattern recognition. Mm-Hmm. Yes. You know, those things are, are natural within a, a natural environment for for for caring small children. Yes. But you don't need to start writing. No, It's true. You know, there's no god giving thing there. Everybody gotta start to read when they're five. The world doesn't even, not even in school when they're five. That's it. And one, one of the things I think has come outta this year with Covid that's been really lovely. There's been a lot of engagement from the families and the parents. Um, and I think with children going back to school now, and I think also I think a lot more encouragement of parents to play. So how do we continue that work? And what are your suggestions in terms of what people are doing now and how to carry that on and how to encourage parents and the message you'd like to get across to them? I think that one of the really important things is helping parents to understand what play is Yes. And how important it is. Yes. Um, and the people who can do that. This is one of the, the, the people that I learned so much from, I don't know what my audience is tonight, but, um, early years people no loads. Yes, yes. And yet when I was a head teacher, it never occurred to me to have one of the, the well they're called nursery nurses in those, they came in telling us anything. Yes. Um, you know, we just didn't understand that sort of knowledge was important. We thought the really important things once you get to the three, you know? Yes. So we really ought to be, well, I, I venerate them now the earliest people I meet and, um, we were talking last night and saying, need your, you need early years practitioners working in the early years of primary school, so understand, um, led play and Pegy. Yes. Um, and, um, the teachers, when that happens, we've had a few schools where they've done it and the teachers just love it. They learn so much from them. Yeah. Yeah. Letting the early years experts have their voice at last Mm-Hmm. Because they're the ones that still know about child development. And it seems as though the rest of the educational world's completely forgotten it. Yeah, it's true. That message that people have it already and the research has been done, the information is there. I think you, you're right. It's just about building that crowd and getting the word out there now and making it happen. Yeah. And, and also making alliances with people from other professions. I mean, doing toxic childhood was amazing for me. What I learned from people like speech and language therapists, physios, occupational therapists, OTs are amazing play workers. Mm-Hmm. Um, you know, all these people that I, I wouldn't have met normally within my nor, you know, you're stuck in a, in a classroom and in a school and you're doing education and you've got so much to do. Yes. But that those, they, you know, get them into schools and talking and talking to the parents. Yes. Because they know stuff too. Yeah. It's true. It's true. And I think also, like when you're talking about things like teenage mental health and stuff, like I think parents want their children to be happy and to do well. And I think if they can hear those kind of messages from the experts, and I think, yeah, I think those are the kind of things that will resonate with families. I, I think what's happened with, I mean, it really has been this century Mm-Hmm. I mean, um, and it, I'm, I'm sorry, but I, I do blame Michael extent. Um, but I mean, it, it's just spiraled into this hugely competitive and, and parents are frightened. So even the parents who are actually on side will say, well, yeah, I mean, I'd just love to let him play, but I don't want him to fall behind. And you're thinking, oh gosh, this is so sad. Yeah. So yeah, we need to start open conversations with parents. Oh, the other, the other thing that was fascinating last night, I mean, the two people, Suzanne being an attachment theorist, um, and Kathy being a children's rights person, and we really got into the business of the, of the U-N-C-R-C and children's rights was a really go in on it. The conversation was amazing. Yes. So, you know, come at it from different angles and health angle as well. We've got a professor of public health on the, on the upstart board, you know, um, there's, there's so much expertise we need to make these connections across because education's got really narrow. Yeah. It's lost touch with the real outside world and with a lot of people who know a lot of things about children. Yeah, that's true. Right. So it's, it's nine o'clock. It's just gone nine, sir. Massive, massive. Thank you for you coming. Absolutely. Thank you to you too. Thank you very much. No, it's been, it's been brilliant and I think a lot of people have been inspired tonight. So, um, and a big thank you to everyone who's come out and joined us this evening as well. But I just, is there any message you'd like to leave us with? Sue tonight? Plays the way, Lay the way. It's true. So follow Sue, get board, like get, get looking at Upstart, get the book, like get the information. It's really important. So big. Thank you, Sue. Thank You very much. Thank you.