WEBVTT - This file was automatically generated by VIMEO. Please email info@talestoolkit.com Hello and welcome to our chat tonight. I'm a big fan of Greg, so super happy that he's speaking with us today. He's got such a passion for early years, and his head is constantly buzzing with ideas. Everything he does comes from his heart and for the good of the children, and he's a way of connecting people and inspiring that fun and creativity and playfulness and putting this at the heart of early years. He's a former assistant head and early years lead. He's an early years specialist and he is a speaker now at Events Worldwide. And he's also author of bestselling book, can I Go and Play Now? Um, the Book School and The Magic of Children and Co-Author of Love Letters to Play. He's super passionate about the magic of children, and Greg's books have kicked off lots of discussion for schools to embrace that creative and imaginative play. You might know Greg as the creator of Play Projects, adventure Island, the Message Center Drawing Club, and this is just to mention a few. There's lots more. And he's creator of Adventure Island TV with the help of his dogs, Effie and Bonnie. I know that our message just resonates massively with what you do, um, and we have lots of chats about creativity and play in schools, so I know that what you're gonna talk about is gonna fit hugely with that. So, um, so yeah, I'm gonna hand over to you, Greg, and, and we'll kind of go from there. So it's great to, um, have your company and, um, yeah, you're right. It's, I, it's, it's always, I I often talk about the play people and the, those, those are the people that kind of, you know, advocate really loudly for childhood and for all its creativity, um, and are, you know, doing all the wonderful work to, to ensure that play and childhood aren't sort of lost within the mix of everything. And, um, you know, I'm always, I'm always delight to see, you know, tele toolkit work you guys do. Um, 'cause yeah, like you say, it kind of, sort of resonates very much with kind of the work I'm, that I'm trying to sort of do the, the message that I'm trying to put out there. And, um, yeah, so it's always good. It's always good to chat. It's always good to kind of sort of just pick things and, um, the directions that, um, that we, we feel that, that children should kind of be heading in. So, so what I want to talk today was around, uh, two things. Um, the first one being malevolent. Now, it might sound a bit strange about being malevolent around children. I don't mean like showing them horror films and, and being horrible to them. What I mean is, is that the children find malevolence fascinating in terms of the stories that we share with them. It's really interesting when, again, so I often talk about this, this idea of the adult world, and I talk about the, the world of children, the world of play, people, the adult world can get a little bit, um, bit anxious around, around, you know, malevolence and scaring children as such, and of course, rightly so. But the mild malevolence I'm talking about now within books, it's really interesting. I often find, as you probably know with Tale's Toolkit, is that the, the, the majority of books that pull on children are ones with baddies one. One of my, one of my most favorite books, I think is probably not Now Bernard, which must be like 30, 40 years old. I love, not Now, Bernard. Just the, the whole, the whole idea of, you know, a monster coming and eating a child Mm-Hmm. Which you would think, you know, if you, if you explain that to someone, you'd think that would be really quite kind of shocking. Yeah. But you know, I've never, you know, and I've read that, I've shared that book a lot with children Mm-Hmm. And I've never met a child that's even bats an eyelid when it happens. And everyone always so calm about it. Yeah. And then, and then the monster at Bernard. Oh, right, okay. Let's quite don't they, they Just accept it and go, yeah, why wouldn't he? It's like, hang on a minute guys. He's just the monsters eating burden. We've only just met him and he's like inside the, inside the monster. And, and it's that kind of thing is that, that's, that is what children want. They want, they want to have some kind of, um, you know, and again, it is mild of course, but it, it's the idea of when you, when you share, um, traditional tales with them, um, you know, if you, if you, if you read the story or share the story of Little Red Riding Hood Mm-Hmm. No one cares about Grandma. It's, You know, and, and I've, and I've I've, I've told that story where, where some children are like incredibly disappointed in the woodcutter 'cause they're like, no, I don't want the wolf to kind of, you know what I mean? Yeah. Um, and you know, if you tell the story of, you know, and like if you do tell the, the, the proper traditional tale of of the grandma being eaten by the wolf again, children are like, yeah, he ate grandma. Yeah. Yeah. That's what they do. In the same way, like with, um, Binny goats gruff. Yeah. They, they don't seem to bother. And no one's bothered about the goat. It's, it's the troll. I, I, once I once told the story of the a version where I said that the troll managed to get out the river downstream and walk back up to the riverbank and then ate the trolls while, uh, ate the goats, while they were on the grass, loads of the children started cheering. Yeah. He made it, You know, and it's similar, you know, like The, the, uh, three Little Pigs, you know, it's like the, it's the wolf, you know, there's like a disappointment when he goes into the pan. They, they don't, they're not bothered about, you know, again, I guess it depends on what version you tell. Yeah. But whenever I've told it where the wolf get, where when the, when the pigs get eaten Mm-Hmm. They're like, yep, whatever. Yeah. But they don't like it when the wolf goes in. So there's, there's this really strange, you know, it must go back to, you know, in our kind of core memories around traditional tales that were like the warning tales, weren't they? I guess. Yeah. Um, you know, and, and it's kind of, and it's funny 'cause it's kind of, sort of stayed with me. 'cause even when, even now when I watch films Mm-Hmm. I always feel sorry for the Badie when they get Got You. What I mean, it's like, I remember, I remember one of my favorite films is Er A Kill. Yeah. I'm not a massive James Bond fan, but, but er Kill, I, I love, I think 'cause it had Duran Duran as the, um, did the, the, the, but I remember when, um, who's the guy? Christopher? Oh, I forgot his name. Christopher Kin, yeah. Paddy, when he falls off the Golden Gate Bridge, I remember being absolutely distraught because you what? I mean, I wanted him somehow to get away. That's it. Living of the day, Live the day. That's it. Um, but it, it's, for me, it's what I tend to do. And this is the thing that maybe, maybe maybe teachers do already, but often when I share these kind of stories Mm-Hmm. I, I mean I always, I I I'm normally drawn to the ones that have got baddies in I Yeah. I, you know, if there's a story about, let's say, I dunno, whatever, let's say the book, whatever next. Yeah. It's a lovely, it's a lovely book and I might share that at home time. Yeah. But if I was going to do something kind of, let's use the word literacy or English with, with a, with a story, I probably wouldn't choose that one. I, I normally choose something that's got something, you know, like a proper bad in. Yeah. And, um, I used to do quite a lot of asking the children whose team they were gonna be on. Okay. And that's quite interesting. So again, so in my practice, I wasn't necessarily about setting children up to go and do a task. Yes. It was more about you might like to, so what I, and I did that 'cause what I wanted to discover was have I sparked you? Have I I've shared this book. Yes. And you know, there, there might be something like a little bit of time together that I might have with children doing something Mm-Hmm. So, you know, it might be like, you know, let's take a tools tails, toolkit example. You might then do something with some children around that because you're trying to ultimately share the magic of story. That's what you're trying to do. That's what you want to do. But when they, when the other children, you might say, I was very, I wasn't, I was never really like, you know, do this, do this. It was much more like, you might like to, and one of the ways of doing that was just saying to the children, I wonder whose team you're going to be on. And I often found that kind of sparked a whole load of different kind of creativity. Because children, I would just say, well, yeah, but how will we know if you are on Team Wolf, how will we know? And, and, and, and again, it's not saying you must that that they must do. Um, but nine times outta 10 most children would go off and do something around the story. 'cause they wanted to kind of show that they, they were on, you know, nine times out 10 most children would choose Team Wolf. Yeah. It's quite rather Than Team Pig. Yeah. So it's quite an interesting, I I quite like doing that with, with stories asking which team they're on. Yeah. Um, is it just kind of, sort of sets up role play a little bit and that kind of thing? Mm-Hmm. We do stuff with Tell Toolkit it where, um, we do swaps with the bags. So say you're doing Red Riding Hood, for example, and you've got Red Riding Hood as the character. And then the Wolf is the problem. We put 'em in different bags. So you'll put, uh, red Riding Hood in the problem bag and the Wolf in the character bag and talk about the story for like, the Wolf was really hungry and you wanted to eat, you know, grandma and Red Riding was getting in the way of that. So Yeah. And kind of getting them to think about the story from the baddies point of view. 'cause 'cause ultimately in people there's no bad is there in in that way? It's just people have their stories, don't they? Yeah. So yeah. Most Of them are, most of them are that good, good, good. Will overcome the bad Mm-Hmm. Yes. In most, you know, in most stories. Sometimes it's quite good to subvert that. Yes. And, you know, and again, it's just showing children that books are, are play. I think that's, that's the key thing for me is, you know, I talk about this a lot about how Lang language is play. Yes. Thinking is play. It's all, it's all play. Yeah. So actually stories that, that are there to play with. And again, with Tales toolkit, that's the, that's the prime example of how to play with stories, isn't it? Yeah. It's kind of going, well, actually let's, let's actually take all the parts Mm-Hmm. And then put them back together again. Introduce new parts. Yeah. Take it in new directions. And it's almost like, again, it's almost like books becoming portals. Mm-Hmm. Again, I'm really into the port port thing. Everything being a portal to something else, or a possibility of a portal to something else. And most of the time the portal that children want to go down is of, as, as of this mild malevolence, it's kind of, you know, because it's, it's more fun to be a witch Mm-Hmm. Than it is to be Hansel. And it's funny as well, seeing Ivy now, like my little girl Yeah. Friend doesn't know, um, she's 18 months and she's, she's really interested in scaring me. She's kind of very interested at this point. And only in the last kind of couple of months that she quite likes jumping out from things and growling at you and kind of seeing a response. And I think it's that feeling that they've got a power over, over making something happen or like elicit that kind of response from you. So, Absolutely. Yeah. And I guess it's also, you know, it's go, it is tipping into kind of role play Mm-Hmm. Being some, you know, again, that whole thing of like the mask being something else. It's so like the really early kind of sort of drama if you like Mm-Hmm. That's so important for children. 'cause actually when you're doing that, you are also, I guess you are also, when you are surprising someone in that way, you are also learning the empathy of what it feels like to surprise someone. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. How I feel. Yes, it's true. Yeah. All of that kind of like the, um, it's a bit like, so I often talk about, um, and this will be for our school colleagues that are, that are, that are watching around things like guided reading Mm-Hmm. And how, you know, we're trying to show children the joy of reading. And yet we have, you know, Sam's pot and you know, it, they're not the most joyful books in the world, let's face it. Um, but there is one which is, and I think it's a little bit older for older children, the hairy tow. Do you know that one? The one word? The do you know the hairy Toy to they sneaks with the house. Yeah. And I remember, I, I found, I, I read it, I used to read it a lot to my children. Yeah. Um, and so the very first time I did it, when the monster comes up the, comes up the stairs and the old one's like crouched in the bed and the last page of it has got the monster and goes, you've got it. Yeah. I, I, and I get it, I, I, I knew the particular child I was gonna do it to 'cause I knew that they could cope with it. Mm-Hmm. But I went, you've got it. And honestly, that you should have seen them jump. They almost, and everyone just rolled around laughing. Yeah. And they all wanted then to have the go. So again, even in that, this whole idea of malevolence Mm-Hmm. Is what it's doing is, is it's, it's kind of, there is a thrill in being scared. Yeah. There is, there Is a joy in being scared. 'cause you actually, you also know that it's pretend. Yeah. So those things are quite, you know, they're, they're really important for young children to, to explore, isn't it? It's kind of what does it feel like to be, because you could, you know, it it to to to be frightened. Yeah. Listen, I mean, as adults we enjoy that. Like you saying about, I know you've talked about kind of like how that translates into adulthood. Like I'm not one for watching horrors. I'm a real chicken when it comes to anything like that. But oh my God, I love a visit to the London dungeon when you don't quite know if anyone's gonna jump out at you. Like, like I love that. Like me and my friends, like when we go, we come out in hysterics. 'cause it's just really good fun to be scared and not quite know if someone's gonna jump and grab you at any point. Yeah. But yeah, That isn't it, it's a bit like, you know, when you, when like say in the hairy toe book, it's kind of what you are doing as you're listening to that being read to you, you are putting yourself in a situation. You can feel that hairy toe in your hand carrying it back. You can Mm-Hmm. You can send your, you put yourself in that position. Yeah. You know, the book, it's coming up the stairs and it's creaking and you can see the children, they're just like, they, they know what's coming, you know, what's coming. Yeah. So it's kind of, you know, again, it, with that, it's, if we said to the children, you know, whose team are you on the monster or the old woman? Mm-Hmm. It's gonna be the monster. Mm-Hmm. Even though you've had the joy of, you know, putting yourself in that situation of being the old woman, it's going to be the monster. 'cause it's just something about it. Unless of course you go on team hairy tone. But, um, yeah. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's, I find it really fascinating kind of again, in terms of just making sure that when we share books with children Mm-Hmm. They've got, they've got the magnets in them that are going to pull on children. So it's less about a topic book and more about me as an adult. So I've just discovered, um, Billy and The Beast by Nadir Shereem. Okay. And a, it's such a brilliant book. Like Properly Funny Mm-Hmm. Um, and again, it's just me when I'm sharing these kind of like mildly malevolent stories, it's also me as the adult sharing the joy of reading Mm-Hmm. Rather than here's a book that I've just got because I've got to do it because, you know Mm-Hmm. It's actually, this means something to me. Yeah. This is the joy of me and I, and I I've become increasingly passionate about that with stuff that we showed children has to be the joy of me. Mm-Hmm. And the play is the joy of them. Mm-Hmm. And it's quite a nice way to, I found it quite a nice way to kind of really think about my day with children. Yeah. And they show me the joy of them and then I show the joy of me. 'cause that's kind of what it should be. Which kind of then tips into when I go in and play with children. Yes. That's, we're kind of creating a, almost like a coy Mm-Hmm. Is that a word? Coy? Yeah, I like that word. Yeah. That's not that One. Which is, which is where kind of like your c child led play comes into its own. Because if you are having to do the third week of looking at the bit goat square and, and you know, ticking boxes or doing something in that way that it's really heavily planned in advance. Yeah. You're losing that, sharing that joy of you. Absolutely. Which, which then to me impacts on when, when we do go into coplay with children Mm-Hmm. If we've not, you know, if, if we've not shown the joy of us, arguably children are less likely to want to play with us. Because what they're seeing is, is I, and I, I remember this happened to me doing a particular phonics scheme and one of the children just went, Mr. Ra, why is it when we are out there pointing to all the contingent vision, you are really good fun. And when we come in here, you're not, Did they say that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because it was off a script. It was a script that you were not allowed to kind of, you know. Yes. And of course, so that, that day, and that was very early on in my with in early years, was that was the day that I'd talked to myself, I've got to change this script no matter what. I have to do something because I can't, that is just a closing the door on me, but also closing the door on phonics. Mm-Hmm. Yeah. So again, it's about trying to, you know, um, to, to to, to take that kind of idea of joy that should go through everything. Mm-Hmm. Shouldn't it? Yeah. I know it's hard across all days, but you know, it, it should be, it should be what we strive for, striving for joy. And actually it's the easiest thing to do. Like, to get joy from children is the easiest thing to do. Like, like they're full of it. So I think as adults, if you've got that freedom to bounce off them and go with that and Yeah. The, the, the, the on on top of all of that, I think, um, so not only can I sort of, you know, potentially choosing teams Mm-Hmm. Only then thinking about the kind of what it is we're trying to show children when we share books. And is it just, and again, I, early on I kind of almost just grabbed the book. It was Home time. Grab a book. Yeah. But actually, I, I began to learn that actually I've gotta give this some really proper thought. It can't just be a, a book. Yes. It's got to be something that I want to show them the joy within this book. And, um, so on that, what I, I I also used to do, I did do it often because it, it, it will lose its magic. I used to do something called the Dream Time Library. Mm-Hmm. And that was where I had like a little suitcase or a bag. And when the children came in, we'd sit down at some point, you know, in the morning at whatever. And I'd just say to the children that there was a, in this book, there is a baddie in this. But I wouldn't share the book with them at that point. And I'd just say, it's in the dream time library. And I go and put it in the role play. So I'd go and just go and put it in there. Then we'd carry it, maybe do phonics web. And what I'm trying to do there is, is pull on children's curiosity, something's in there. And then I would go into the role, into the role play and with, because hopefully the idea is that children are, and um, we'd open up and there might be, let's say not now Bernard, and we might share the book with 'em, but it's more, there's the badie. Yeah. It's now coming to the setting. What are we going to do? Yeah. And what I found was, again, it's just a, and you can hopefully see why you wouldn't do it all the time, because it would get irritating. And you also want, you know, lots of kind of, you know, the moms and dads play in the cat dogs and all the stuff that children want to do. It's more about just having a really simple extra layer that you can dip into. Yes. And especially if you've got your role play or home calls, we gonna gonna Yeah. Um, near the junk modeling Mm-Hmm. Because it just means actually the two can talk to one another. Mm-Hmm. And I, what I found was children often would go and start making stuff ready for the character to come or to stop it. Stop it coming. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we just kind of just put a, what I found, you know, and Mark making kind of, sort of went up, especially because I used to have like little mini message center in my home corner. Yeah. And so they'd like, you know, start doing, you know, writing stuff, et cetera about the monster coming and all that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. I found that quite a good thing as well with malevolence. And of course if it was just a bear goes on the picnic and, you know, loses a sandwich but finds it again kind of book. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not gonna have that Gonna work as well. Yeah. Well we had, um, we had, uh, chicks in nursery one year and, uh, we did a whole thing about the fox coming in and trying to get the chicks. And uh, I think we took it a little bit too far. 'cause some of the children did actually get upset though. But when they used to come in in the morning, we used to take a couple of chicks out and hide them in weird places in the classroom. And then we'd have fox footprints and feathers and all sorts of stuff. And the foxes have got in and taken our chicks and Oh no. And oh, we had weeks of them building traps and trying to catch this fox and doing lots of stuff and, but yeah, it was great. It was such a, a lovely learning kind of experience for them in terms of building all this stuff and the excitement of coming in in the morning and finding these chicks are gone. And, uh, yeah. It is, I think when you kind of bring those stories to life a little bit and act it out and do it with them, it adds another layer, doesn't it? It does. It does. Absolutely. And it's kind of like you say, it's like that word excitement. Mm. One of the biggest things I have is, I know we do this as play people. Mm-Hmm. Is making our setting the Kingdom of Play. That's Mm-Hmm. That's, again, it's, it's, I I I really love using that phrase Yeah. Because that's what we're building, that's what we're building with children, is the kingdom of play. So it's not about coming to school, it's for nursery, even though it is. Yeah. But it's also, you are coming to the Kingdom of play. Right. Because the Kingdom of play has got, operates differently. Mm-Hmm. You know, and it's actually, how are we as adults ready to go into the kingdom of play? Yeah. What are the objects we bring into it? Yeah. I find it a really lovely way to think about, about my time with children. I get really conscious of when I'm in the flow of play. Mm-Hmm. I say to myself, I am, I am adventuring in the kingdom of play. Mm-Hmm. And I've brought this book, these objects, my, this wisdom, this skill. The children have got their wisdom, their skill, their language. Again, going back to kind of sort of Gio Amelia stuff about, you know, the hundred languages Mm-Hmm. And I sometimes find myself, and I'm sure we all do, we find myself just feeling intensely happy. Yeah. Because it's glowing. And that's the whole thing I, I was talking over there about Ima you know, imagine if chil if children's heads were transparent, like a light bulb Mm-Hmm. And you could actually see whether they were glowing or not. Mm-Hmm. You know, it'd be interesting, wouldn't it? How life would be so much different if we could actually see what was going on. Yeah. 'cause you know, the moment you start, you know, again, it goes back to the, the book choices we have. The moment you start, you know, just bringing in a little bit of male malevolence, those heads are gonna glow. Yeah. They really are. Yeah. You know, so it's, yeah. It's, I dunno that that's kind of what I try to do, I guess is just, is just sort of see the whole thing about what I share on the carpet. Mm-Hmm. And then the adventure into the coplay all being like the same cohesive and the joy that I have on the carpet, however that might be. Yeah. Then translates into the, into the play as best as I can. We have a lot of schools that talk to us. 'cause obviously with tells talk and violence Yeah. Which is a kind of okay with violence in traditional tales and exploring that a little bit. But when it comes to children being violent, especially when it's violence, that maybe is a little bit uncomfortable for teachers. 'cause obviously some of these are exposed to slashing zombies and things that aren't just cooking somebody in a pot like maybe would be in the traditional tails. Yeah. You know, a lot of teachers become uncomfortable with that and think that they shouldn't allow it, or shouldn't encourage it, or shouldn't go with it. They find that quite hard. It's really hard. It is really hard. And, and again, see, I'll, I'll make the separation between mild malevolence and vi and violence. Yes. Because, because this is the context of a storybook. And I think that's, I I think that is different. I know we might say it's, you know, it's a, that go into the pot, but it's, it's, um, it's anma it's an imagined thing, whether that's right. I dunno that that's what I would say. But I, I completely understand how people, you know, again, if, if, if violence within, again, I Ivan fortunately work with, with families where let's say, you know, domestic violence happens that that's really knows, you know, horrible, really, really hard. Um, and the same with kind of like gun play and that kind of thing. I know, I know a Bryce Clegg's done some really great stuff around that, hasn't he? With like blogs and stuff that he's written and about, you know, a a actually embracing it. I think the, the more we tell children not to do that kind of play, the more I think it becomes, becomes the ma more magnetized for them. You know, if the adult says no, um, I think, I dunno, I just think it's about being mindful of kind of what, where, where, where, where that is, you know, where the, where the bound, where the boundaries are. I don't, I don't really have an answer to that other than I would say there is a difference between the mild malevolence and violent and, and violence. Um, because, because ultimately in all these stories, the, you know, the, the hero wins, the hero always kind of comes, come to the rest. You know, it's like the woodcut, isn't it? Ultimately, however, however much the children love the idea of the, you know, because part of it might even be because it's, it's on, it's not the human world because a troll is not human. So there's something about how it might look or, you know, I do a lot of stuff around, um, um, goblins and goblin play. So I, I often, like in my, in my playdoh Mm-Hmm. I often, I call it like a malleable era or playground. I call it the goblin factory. Yes. And then, and then children often beca start becoming goblins when they go in there, and so they're making stuff in their Play-Doh, but they make it as a goblin. Yes. Um, I did it quite recently in a school actually, but particularly for Christmas up in Darby, and they're still doing goblin play now. Mm-Hmm. There's just something about it. So maybe it is less about, maybe it is, you know, maybe it's less about malevolence and maybe it's more about what it looks like. Yes. Yes, it is. It's true. Because there's something very different about turning somebody into a frog or, you know, like somebody like, you know, cooking you in the pot and eating you to somebody being stabbed with a knife or, yeah. It's that. Yeah. It's, that's nothing real. And it's that Yeah. It's that tricky thing is for children to get their heads around what a adult is gonna be shocked by and what they're gonna be okay with, isn't it? Yeah. Because they don't know those, those boundaries. And I think maybe it's, for us it's that thing that this could be something that's real, that you could actually do. Yes. And it's probably why in Yeah, absolutely. And then it's probably why, you know, when we share stories with children, we're probably less likely to talk about, you know, yes. The, the, the child going into the pot. It's probably more that the, the, the, the witch tried to, I don't know, cast a spell on them or Yes. Do you know what I mean? We kind of soften it, don't we? Yes. Because because really the, the, the, those traditional tales were there to teach 'em not to wander off, to stay close to family. So it was all kind, you know, don't go in the woods because something's waiting for you. But of course that's given over to a whole, you know, really rich tra tradition of Mm-Hmm. Of storytelling where, you know, it's always about bad. You know, I can't think of many stories where, where, where, where bad overcomes good. Yes. So, and in a way we're giving children a, we're giving children a really good message, but it's also giving them the space to go and explore that as well. Yes. Um, so I personally, I would make the, I would differ, I would separate the two. I'd say one's very much about a, you know, a mild malevolence and a and a, the world of imagination. And I don't think we can imagine stuff Mm-Hmm. Without, like, fully, without also exploring more darker stuff Yes. In a light way. Yes. Yeah. And then you've got, you know, real violence, which I don't think any of us would probably tell, you know, we wouldn't tell a story of stuff that we'd see on the, you know, on the news or make a story of it because that's, yeah. Yeah. It's true. Well, we always say that we tell toolkit that, I mean, it's up to the individual, what they're comfortable with. But we always say that role play and story are a really good place to explore stuff in a safe way. Yeah. Like, you can explore things that, like you said, like domestic violence. And maybe like, we have like a lot of children in one area that are from particular, like an army camp where they, they will see guns and maybe dad has a gun when he goes to work and things like that. And so there will be children and that have police in their lives and crime and things that they see. So I think it is that stories a really safe place to play with that and be okay with that, isn't it? And I think also it doesn't, you know, again, I see, I don't, I don't, I personally don't believe that play or stories that we share children trivialize, trivialize things. It's just how children explore. Yes. You know, and, and, and you know, it, it's kind of, I like, I'm always conscious of, again, when I, when when I do stuff with children in terms of some of my, my online things, I try, I try to avoid things where it's like around water and rivers. Mm-Hmm. Because it's almost trying to, I don't want to, to be, you know, it's almost like going back to like the seventies where Mm-Hmm. There was a whole load of kind of, you know, um, uh, public health messages and stuff. Yeah. I don't want to encourage playing around rivers. Yes. 'cause that's not, to me, that's a real thing that a child could go and do. Mm-Hmm. Whereas, you know, casting a spell and turning into a troll. Yes. That's something that's just ima that's just imagined if you like. Yes. Yes. Um, so I think there is a diff yeah, there is definitely a difference between the two, I think. Mm-Hmm. But again, I think it just comes back to the faith in ourselves as teachers to know our own children that we work with. Yes. You know? And, and part of that is about, you know, us playing so that we know children and those connections that we have with the families that we work with. So, so, so this, so, you know, a again, hopefully what it does is it just encourages us to reflect on our own practice and think about, you know, how it's not, whether, if it's like just how is mild malevolence playing a part within the play? I think that's the question that I would ask people just to think. And, you know, I'd hope, you know, we, we, we, we have lots of that experience within what we, within what we provide for children. But I hope things like I've shared around in a teams and that kind of thing, hopefully that kind of encourages you to give it a go and kind of add those little bits into your practice. The other thing that I'm quite fascinated around at the minute is this idea of nonsense. And often, again, part of what I, lots of things I talk about is trying to, as best as we can retell a story of childhood is that comes from the play. People so often I feel like the story about what we're doing is told to us by the adult world. The adult world doesn't quite understand play, so it kind of negates it or ridicules it, or we'll talk about you're being silly with children, but actually it is not, it's about being playful with children because that's what children don't want. Doer adults. They want, you know, it's like when I grew up, my, you know, I had my grande, my mom's mom was really playful. She was one of the very first, um, women teachers to come out of university as far as I've been told and what I can recall from what my mum's saying. So way, way back. And she actually started teaching when she was like, uh, before she trained, she started teaching age of 14. And like their little, yeah, yeah. Incredible. She's an amazing woman, really super playful, taught me loads about poetry and birds and all kinds of stuff, but would also just sing songs and what have you. Whereas my granddad, her husband was, was actually quite, um, uh, what's the word I'm thinking of, uh, was, was quite glum. And, uh, we learned very quickly, which, which grandparent was the one that we went to, to go and play. You never went to granddad's to play. Granddad came alive in different ways, but with grand, she was very much the play person. And I, I, that's kind of, sort of stayed with me around children about who children are drawn to. You know, they, they sense who we are very quickly. I think, you know, they sense whether we're, whether the questions we're asking them are genuine or not. And they're often pulled to the, to the adults who are playful. So I'm kind of sort of bringing that up just as they kind of, again, just like, almost like a little message about as play people. And this is, it's about, we're writing a story, we're writing a story or telling a story about who children are. And we've got to keep telling the story where play is at the heart of it. And it isn't silly. And it's not trivial. You know, I I, someone messaged me every day and said that they, they, that the school they were working in, someone in their school said it was, and the users of criticism that their practicing was very mothering. Now I find, I know, and I find that extraordinary 'cause that's kind of, you know, whether mothering father, whatever language, but actually I would want, like, wouldn't you, I dunno. It to me, one of the things I'm really passionate about is the word love. We have to bring the word love back into education along the way. It's got a little bit lost now. It's not about, it's about how we show love. I think that's the thing is that, and to me, when we, when we play with children and when we give children opportunities to play, that's when we show how much we love them. 'cause love is about kind of letting go rather than control and compliance and that kind of thing. Especially when you think Greg about, um, in terms of education that our children in comparison to the rest of the world in the UK start very young, but there's, there's a lot of countries that don't start children until they're seven. And I know there's a big campaign in Scotland for the upstart to seven. So you've got children starting school. I mean, I'm saying nursery three and four, but you have children going into school sort of situations now too, don't you? Yeah. Like they're very young and you kind of, of course you want that mother in, don't you? Well, I, I, I would like to think that's, you know, again, that's, that's what play people are about, aren't we? I think, I think we, we, we see the emotional level of children very much so probably first, you know Mm-Hmm. We're in tune with that. Yeah. Um, and, and none of that's, again, none of that's a criticism of schools necessarily. It's just, it's, it's more about asking what if what if play was valued more? What if childhood was valued more? And I think that's a, a genuine question that we can ask what would happen. Yes. What if we played more? I asked that question yesterday in a, in a, in a, in a setting. It was extraordinary what the answers were. And of course they were already positive ones. Yeah. We played more what would happen. Yeah. You know, if we, if we allow children to, you know, to daydream more. Yes. You know, actually children do need to daydream, but often the adult world doesn't want children because it wants them busy, dah dah, dah, dah, dah. Yeah. Actually, you need children to kind of loaf and kind of, you know, reflect on stuff and process things. Um, and again, it's kind of, and that's where, when, when the word silliness gets used, because what, when we are playing or you're just being silly with children, but actually again, a little bit like malevolence nonsense is a magnet. Children, that's, you know, they never question in a book, do they? That animals can talk if you read, go back to whatever next, the, the, the bear, you know, the little bear talk to his mom. And I've, well I've, I've never met a child that's just said, bears don't talk. And I'm sure there are children that do say it, but you know, on the whole, most children don't. And why? Because they accept it. Because, and if you accept something, you want it, you just see it as natural. Yes. So nonsense is part of what we should be doing with children. So again, it's kind of, and again, people watching this may do this already, but if they don't, I'd really encourage people to begin just thinking about nonsense songs that you can sing with children, like in the flow of play. So not at a carpet time, although you might want to do it then as well. But this is more about in the flow of coplay or within transition, um, is just to have those kind of, and again, it's great to sing things like Humpty Dumpty, of course, we want children to have the, the, you know, the natural almost lineage of, of, of story that comes from that. And it's, you know, there's loads of evidence isn't there, around children who know nursery rhymes and you know, how how they go, how they move forward through their own kind of journey into books. But this is more about making up our own nonsense rhymes. And they can be really quite simple to do. So, for example, I, in, in, in the kindergarten I work with, I, I have a rhyme that goes like this. It just goes cheese and jam. Cheese and jam. Everybody loves cheese and jam. We, it's all it is. We, so this is with two year olds. And often we hear the children either humming or singing that song as they're going around playing. What we also do is I would sing the last I'd go, everyone loves cheese. And, and then I wouldn't finish the last, finish the last line. Some children will fill that in from memory, but others really like to throw in a different word. And we've now got children who are making up words. So I've now got a child that talks about cheese and clag. So he sings cheese and clag and, and all the children go, what? This, these two year olds, again, if it works with two year olds, if it's a good thing for two olds, imagine with it would be five year olds. Yeah. And there's this kind of like everyone looking at each other dumbfounded. And I'll make this kind of brand clag, what's a clag? And then they all come in and now we're kind of talking about what a clag is. Yeah. And it goes full circle to what the adult world wants. Mm-Hmm. In terms of, here's the spreadsheet is language. What as play people want is here's the joy, here is the joy of language and everything else will follow. You'll get your spreadsheet, but we've got to feel first Yeah. Feeling not function. Yes. And so I find those kind of sort of nonsense rhymes and they are really short or you kind of, you know, I, I have sing about like Humpty Dumpty Mm-Hmm. And at the end, rather than all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again, I'd say something like, couldn't eat fish and chips ever again or something, you know, that scans and, and the children, because it's a common rhyme, look at you like you've gone mad, but they, they very quickly get into the idea that you are going to change something. And if you can change something, you can make it better or funnier. So the idea, and, and to me, these are the basic things that we, that we should do with children to teach them that you can, I know this is sound a bit grand by saying this, but if you can change a nursery rhyme, you can change the world. That's how I feel about it. You know, that's, That's, it's just a starting point. It's all about creativity, isn't it? Yeah. No. If you, if you think about tale's toolkit, that's, that is kind of ultimately what that's about, isn't it? Is it saying actually a story's not set in stone and neither is a nursery? Anything. Yeah. Yeah. And we do lots of work with, I open-ended items where, where you're just like, like you'll pick something up and be like, well what's this? Yeah. And that could be your flag. Or like, we had a beautiful story that a guy did, a music expert, he came in and did some stuff with us and he got a really long crinkly bit of foil out the cupboard and they called it aka like the children named it aka. And then it wrapped all around everybody and like, like was like twisting around their bodies and making lots of noise and doing lots of stuff and art. It was brilliant and it was great this aka and it was a problem that was trying to eat everybody. Yeah. So a bit Nonsense. I'm more mentioning it so that we do it more. Yes. And that it doesn't become a lost part of what we do. Yes. And you know, if I go on Facebook forums and stuff, often lots of the chat will be from, and this is about the adult world. Yes. Insisting on things like handwriting or you know, stuff. And it's like, okay, that's all great, but it is no more important Yes. Than being able to sing cheese and clag and having the conversation of what a clag is or getting some, you know, foil material and wrapping yourself up and it's an aka Yes. That actually is more important. Yeah. Yeah. So Greg, what's your advice? Because if you are, say you've got like someone who's in the leadership team that's Yeah. A whole lot of teachers that works for them. And some of them they know they could send out and go, go talk nonsense and they would do a wonderful job at it like tomorrow. Um, but others would be quite scared by that and wouldn't really know where to start. What would your advice be to that person who's in the leadership role to try and get Their team using nonsense? Well, I guess part of it is, and it is, is it's a little bit like the con is confidence. Confidence to play confidence to, to, to create things. Um, what I do with my team is we used to things like we would, um, I I would of course would do lots of, 'cause it's probably in my nature to do this kind of thing anyway, but I would talk afterwards about what I'd noticed. So by doing this, by singing cheese and jam, what I've noticed is it's pulled children in Mm-Hmm. Around language and make believe and Yes. What have you. 'cause the loads of children went off to go and make a clag in without, I don't have to tell them. Yeah. So then this is two year olds, they went off to go and make a cla in the, in the, with that, what I would do then I would pop up. So popping up is, is just me literally going saying across the room, you'll never guess what to the, to, to the adult that maybe it's not very that confident and tell them what I've just done so that they get to see that it is po it is possible and this is the kind of the impact of what I've done. Yes. So what it does is then, and then, and that's, I do a lot of that and I still do Mm-Hmm. Um, 'cause what I'm trying to do is, you know, I don't want to keep it to myself. I know that this, I know that nonsense in this, in this respect. I, I know it can pull children in hugely and I know it feels good to be nonsensical. Mm-Hmm. So it's just kind of like broadcasting it. But also we used to do things like, um, we say like adventure afternoon and adventure afternoon with literally just everything down. Yes. No plan at all. Okay. Let go. We're all in and watch what I do. Listen to what I do. And that's why like with cheese and jam Yes. It's really simple. Mm-Hmm. That's the, you know, it's a bit like, um, there's another one which is, um, custard hat. Yes. Which is again the same thing. Custard hat, cud hat. Everybody loves the custard hat. Yes. And the idea then is I would make a custard hat, which is just literally a piece of paper around my head Mm-Hmm. With Mark making on it and numbers. And once I've got that, then we pour imaginary custard into the hat. Mm-Hmm. Or whatever you want to go in your hat. And then we go and parade. Okay. And just really look again, really super simple. Mm-Hmm. But what I'm doing then is I'm, I'm kind of almost, I'm, I'm giving the other adults in the room to just listening to what I'm doing and also trying to pull them in and go, oh, you know, so and so, why don't we come and make a cus you know, it is like, if I've got students for example, who are not necessarily, you know, some students let's say, who are not very confident or still learning around play, that can be something. 'cause what they're doing is they're learning directly from me and you're also seeing what's happening with the children. And I then tell them, this is what's happening, the children. See what I mean? It's a little bit like, I was contacted quite recently about someone who, this is a slightly different context about someone further up in their school who did not understand play at all and was questioning. So I said, okay, well every day you send a four sentence little mini thing telling them what's happened in play and what can, and it only happened in play and you send it every day. You don't let them tell the story. You tell the story. Because I think sometimes as play people we know, but we feel we've always got to defend what we do. And actually it's about going, no, this is the power of it. So again, when you've got less confident people, it's about showing that there's a power of it and almost giving them time and permission to feel uncomfortable. That's the other thing. It's that's okay as well. Yeah, No it is, it's true. You know what I mean? We can't always feel Yeah. And I think as adults, like children, they don't have those inhibitions that we do in terms of just getting up and being silly and having a dance or saying something that's not right. So especially in early years. So I think it's just getting the adults up to scratch with anything goes and it's no wrong answer. So Yeah. Absolutely. Part of it is, so I have a theory around, around it, and by the way, this is just a theoretical thing, not a real thing, which is about two pint play. So if you imagine that you said, okay, so we've got half the team stay sober, the other half each person has eight o'clock in the morning, or a hops day has two drinks of alcohol. Yeah. If you drank alcohol, by the way. Yeah. But if you drank alcohol, what would the play be like of the people that drank alcohol? They would actually be Yeah, probably. Yes. Really amazing at play. Yes. And the the point being is that it, it shouldn't need you to have two drinks of alcohol actually. Just, and again, it's easy to say, let go 'cause we are coming again. The more I more I think about, about play in childhood is that actually childhood's got its own plan. It's called play Mm-Hmm. It doesn't need the adult. Yes. What the adult's got to do is work on themselves so that they can amplify the plan of play. And what if that was, you know, what if all our, what if it's just a question of what if, what if all our teacher training had nothing to do with children and was actually had everything to do with ourselves? Then what might happen. It's just interesting to think about. I'm not saying that, you know, that that will ever happen, but it's worth thinking about. No, it's, it'll start with us Because I, I know for me, like when, um, I've obviously got Reese that works with us at Tells Toolkit. Yeah. Um, and some of you might not know, but Reese is in the Arches, he's an actor. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so he does that part-time when he works for us part-time. But, um, when I was advertising and looking for people, he just ticked a lot of boxes for us in terms of creativity and kind of that ability to be able to just have a go and mess about and play with things. And, and, but for him it's quite interesting 'cause he sees a lot of similarities with what we're trying to do. Intel's toolkit and what they do with acting where they do like your improv stuff where it's just about kind of picking something up and creating a story with it or go in with the flow with something. And a lot of his training as an actor is about, about that. About losing his inhibitions and about improv stuff where it's just kind of taking that next step. So, so it's really interesting actually. And I think as adults, those skills are brilliant. You're right. I think it's so, you know, again, we used to do things like, we'd have a, I was talking about this yesterday. We used to have like bits of card Mm-Hmm. With a letter p written on it. And we would give them to the staff, especially people coming in new and we'd say, here's a play permit. Go and play. Okay. Or, you know, just go and play. Okay. I'm letting, I want you to go and play. Yes. The the other thing is, and again, um, this may be something that, that, that, that teachers already do, but this is something that we did quite a bit often was really impactful. We, we kind of identified two or three parents who were confident pa confident at parenting. Yes. We asked 'em to come in and chat with the children. Mm-Hmm. Once a week for an hour. Okay. They play, we just said come and chat. Nothing's off. You know, literally just come and chat. Yes. Other than your private life and anything, you know, adult don't chat, but, you know, but, but come and chat with the children. Yes. And it was extraordinary what happened. Yeah. Because ultimately they get pulled into play. But the moment you say to adults come and play, then it's like, ugh. But, but actually just come and chat with them. And that's kind of what children want, isn't it? Children want time with us. Ultimately, they don't want, they really, you know, I know they need food and shelter, all the basic needs on top of all of that. They want our time. And if you've got adults that are chatty and playful, they'll gravitate to you because they see that you are worth spending time with and part, you know, maybe that's something to think about. That's a bit more, anyway, am I worth spending time with? Actually, let's not, but you know, I mean, though, again, it's that thing I like, you know, should, you know, why should children spend time with me? Yes. You know, that's it. Yeah, it's true. And I suppose also for like a lot of your new teachers coming in where, where you're giving those play permits out, it probably would take a bit for them to get out of their head. This is a learning opportunity in, in that way of, I'm trying to feed in numbers and colors and all of those things that, but yeah, it's just, just do it. Just play. Just talk about yourself and what you've been up to the night before and have a little go at, you know, taking on a role in a story and just play. Absolutely. And all the time you're there mods at you. And it's not mod, it's just showing, showing just being Mm-Hmm. And again, just pop go, this is what I did. Yes. It's almost, this is what I did. And, and now look what's happened. This is, you know, I've done, or I've done this because like, just really like in the, you know, as things are, are unfolding Mm-Hmm. Just giving like a little commentary as best as one can. Yes. Just to show people that this is why we're doing it again. It's not Yes. You know, my, my thing around play is it's not something that we do, it's something that we are Mm-Hmm. And if we are not playing one, what are we doing then? Who are we? It's like an identity for me. That's, that's how I kind of see it. Mm-Hmm. And if we're going to work with children Yes. Then actually we've got to be playful. We have to be, because that's what children ultimately want. Yes. We want to give them skills, but we want to give them that as a gift, not as a, you know, and again, this is like with your work, with, with Tells toolkit is what you're doing is, is you're not getting children to do anything. Mm-Hmm. You are showing them that there's a joy in story and there's a, and then once you show them the joy, then they want to do it. Mm-Hmm. That's it. You know? And I think sometimes as, as, as the adult world wants to get children to do things Mm-Hmm. And that's a subtle shift that I feel, again, as play people. Mm-Hmm. We need to keep, you know, pressing for is actually, it's about this, this idea of joy. Nothing without joy. Yeah. Get the joy first and then she'll, Which is, which is a good message. And actually, do you know what, the more you put that in your teacher, the more you feel that as a teacher. Well, that's the thing. And, and again, imagine, and again, I know this is probably not necessarily possible for everybody, but imagine if you had above your door going into your setting Mm-Hmm. Well, to the kingdom of play. Yes. And, you know, and it's just this statement intent. It's like, if you are coming in here, you know, it's almost like having some plate put leave some play slippers outside, or a custard hat or a custard, you know, that you, that you have to put on before you enter actually, and you know, are you gonna be up here? Yes. Or are you gonna get down here? Mm-Hmm. Because you are entering a different thing now. This is the, you know, it's Mm-Hmm. This is the kingdom that you're coming into. It's not your doesn't belong to you. Yes. This is actually the children's world that we're coming to and we are now gonna co-venture with them. Yes. You know, it's all about, personally I think it would be a really powerful thing if we could begin to do that. Yeah. I think you're right. I think you're right. And I think that's what we should be doing. So is there, um, just kind of aware of time now for you, Greg. Yeah. Is there, like any, what message would you like to leave people on in terms of mild malevolence and nonsense? I, I think, I think, I think again, with all these things that Mm-Hmm. That we kind of talked about, it's kind of, it, it is about simplicity. That's a key one. I think sometimes trying to, often the adult world tries to make things very complicated. It's about simplicity. Yeah. It's about how we feel. Mm-Hmm. And that's a really important thing I think, I think often feeling gets overlooked. How do we feel as, as teachers with children? Um, and how do the children feel to be around us? And I think we know that, don't we? Within in the room you get a sense of kind of the, the collective, the collective joy. Um, but ultimately the, the, the, the, the real message is, is if we are doing these things, when we do them more, you know, it's like if we're chatting, do it more. If we're, if we are enabling play, do it more, not do it less. Yes. And I think again, it's that, that to me is the thing where it's around this word of adventure. So again, I often use that with our two year olds is what adventure are we going to go on today and showing children that every day is an adventure, and along the way we'll encounter nonsense and we'll encounter mild malevolence, and that's part of the adventure. Yes. And you know, the final thing would be is what if, what if we raised a generation of both children and parents that they actually expected adventure themselves? Mm-Hmm. Then Yeah. That's, that's a good message to leave it on Greg. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely. But thank you day, thank you for spending your time with us. No, You're welcome. Yeah. And it's always a massive pleasure to speak to you. And I know that the.