WEBVTT - This file was automatically generated by VIMEO. Please email info@talestoolkit.com to report problems. Really excited that we've got Alistair here tonight. I think the last one I did actually Alistair with you was a September. So it's always kind of a treat to kick off the year, the school year with you. There you go. Yeah, so no it's good. But um, we are massive fans of Alistair and have been for a long time. Like actually feels a little bit weird not seeing him because I normally crash his conferences and hang out and eat his cakes. This is true. So it's true. So it's been a strange year that I haven't got to see his face. So this is a nice street tonight. Um, but yeah, really big friend of tell's toolkit. Um, just a little bit of background. You probably know lots about Alistair anyway 'cause I know there'll be lots of you that are fans here tonight. Um, but Alistair used to work as a head teacher. Um, he's a speaker. Um, he's an author of many books which are well worth checking out. Um, he's done lots of large conferences and events, um, not just in this country but all over the world. Um, and he works with both individual settings and local authorities and schools all over the world. So, and now exciting news is that he's doing lots of stuff online. So he's got online training that's already been launched. Um, and also you've got some webinars coming up Palestine Next week they're getting launched. Yeah, yeah, it's so lots, lots more of this live. Lots more of this online stuff. So were You trying to work out where I am and what this weird construction is behind me? Last time we did webinar with this behind me, somebody said, oh Did you, oh You're just suing baths, is it? Yeah, like long. Well we just got busy before like moving all the IKEA boxes outta my background, didn't we? So yeah, it's all good stuff but, but yeah. And also I don't know if you wanna just mention the home learning stuff you've been doing Alistair, 'cause you've been creating lots of brilliant resources to share with families. Yeah and so just during lockdown obviously because we weren't able to get out and do lots of other stuff, we have got a button on my website which is abc does.com and it's called Home Learning. It's the top and there are now or hundreds of activities on there. Lots of them suggested by practitioners and their play-based activities for both to do in your setting and at home. Yes. So the dead easy, the dead simple. We're trying to keep to minimum resources so that people would have the stuff at home to try and have a go at it. So have a look and see what you think. Yes, that's good. That's great stuff and, and I think there's just some brilliant ideas on there. I've tried stuff out in the past and I know when I was a teacher I used to fol him, so, so yeah, big fan of all the work that you do. Oh, thank you. But yeah, so I'll put your, I'll put your PowerPoint note 'cause I know everyone's kind of keen to hear you speak, not me. But um, I'm gonna do is I've got a massive big notepad here so um, you can ask lots of questions and chats and I will make a note of all of that so a can kind of speak freely and then at the end we can kind of throw around some questions and talk about the things that you're really interested in. So does that sound okay? And you are gonna come and cut me off, aren't you And I the and I'll them pop in at that point. Yeah, I did That Kate. And If you need any help shout out. So I'm gonna scoot off now because otherwise I end up being a little bit like a nodding dog in the background. Yeah and I'll leave you to chat but I'm here so just shout out at any point. Alright. I get really stuck Still there. Oh got really big on my screen and now I can really see my shiny forehead. Um, hi everybody, it is great to be here uh, chatting with Tales Toolkit. Again, lots of the settings I work with, uh, use Tales toolkit and if you've been on my conferences you might have met Kate there 'cause I often invite her along to come and share her stuff 'cause it is really good and I am a bit fussy I think, which you have to be uh, in early years and only really invest in products that I think are really decent 'cause there's so much stuff out there, especially in this world of kind of Pinterest and Facebook when I mean I get literally bombarded with ideas for how you can do this and ideas for how you can do that. And sometimes it's hard to kind of filter out what's the good stuff and what's not. But tail toolkit everywhere that I know that uses it is really enthusiastic about it and Kate's great so, but she asked me along night to talk to you about can you learn through play basically, uh, because it's a massive bone of contention still. And we look at if you are in uh, early years in any setting and we're looking at the revision of the early years foundation stage document for next year, there is a lot of pushback against that in the early years world because of how that has been structured. Also the idea that we are now creating early years curriculums for our children and the fact that ultimately we are driven by assessment. So if you are in early years, what we're doing is working children towards this good level of development. So it's play-based and this child led as you'd like to be. We're still massively focused on can we get them to A GLD at the end of the reception year. And that for me is a real shame because although we want the best outcomes for our children, what I know to be true from the hundreds of settings that I work with is especially when you get towards that reception year, spring term, then you are really focusing on my child is now here, the GLD is here, how do I get my child from here to here? And primarily that's 'cause there's a lot of pressure on early years practitioners to achieve a certain level in terms of their percentage of good level of development. And it is a huge amount of pressure and that's not always good for the practitioner and nor is it always good for the child. So where we need to be I think in our thinking is early years colleagues together and as parents is that we want the very best for our children. So we want our children to do the best that they can do because they are unique and individual learners. So we talk a lot in early years about the unique child, the individual child. And we believe that, I think that's why we, we came in to do what we're doing. But sometimes when you look at settings and you look at the regime within a space for children, that's often imposed on that space and on those adults it doesn't really represent the uniqueness of children. It's more about um, group work, focused work and getting towards that good level of development. So what I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about tonight, and it leaves some time at the end there for some questions, is the idea of can children learn through play? And if they can, how do you create a really effective play-based environment? So if we think about lots of, you'll have heard of uh, Regio Emilio, uh, in Italy and you know people like Montessori and the fact that um, in Regio they talked about the environment being the third teacher. So the idea that the adult is really pivotal in the child's learning, whether that be the parent and the uh, practitioner, the child is obviously pivotal in their own learning, but the environment also is crucial in ensuring that children get the best learning opportunities. So when I was reception teacher, and it's 30 years ago now since I started, uh, in early years so many, many moons ago, it was a really formal set by my reception class where we were very topic based. We had five tables, 30 chairs. We worked a rotation where I would work with a group and I would set activities up for the other children to do based on the thing we were talking about. So not even usually play if we were doing phonics and everybody would doing a activity, if we're doing maths every we doing maths activity, I would work with my group. Everybody else would be on their tables. You do the classic shaking the tambourine or jingle bells or whatever it was you had. So first shake, everybody stop, show me 10 fingers. Of course at this time of the year that's really ambitious for any of us to be doing. You just spend a lot of time going, show me 10 fingers, 10 fingers, 10 fingers, all that. And then you would say, right, put your finished worksheets as it often was. Or I would've written in their bulletin books the night before with a jazzy fell tip and they'd be copying under my writing or drawn pictures or coloring in the border. So you'd say close your books, put 'em in a magazine rack and then stand up, took your chair under and point to the table you are moving to next. So they'd all point and then you'd spend five minutes saying not that table, that table and then shake tambourine again. Everybody move on and off we go. And so it was really structured day and the afternoon was when play happened and that was so that I could hear readers mainly. So I would then still put activities on tables that were chosen by me and children would be sent to tables to play with and activity until I deemed it appropriate for them to move on. And learning was the thing that happened with the adult not in the play space. So the ethos is very much you play as a means of occupying you until an adult comes along and takes you out of play to come and engage in learning. So what we've got as practitioners is a foundation stage guidance at the moment that advocates, that learning should be happening within the play-based environment. So it's not just something that happens with an adult. If you got 30 children or 52 or 26, however many you've got and put them all in a room with loads of toys and left them there for a year and you kind of hovered around to make sure they were all safe and well, would they learn? Yes they would. They'd learn lots of things and they'd learn things that we can't even anticipate that they'd learn. Would they learn lots of the skills that they need in terms of going forward in their educational journey? Probably not because some things children need support with. So adults need to teach them key elements of learning, key moments, key bits of knowledge, key skills. And then we need to create environments that allow children to rehearse, revisit and extend those skills. So always the spaces that we create for children should be spaces that link to where they are in terms of their learning, where they're going to next and how we as adults can support them in that. So I don't want children who are just going into a space to sit in that space and occupy themselves until I come along and give them a bit of knowledge to take their learning forward. I want a lovely balance. Sometimes it's called blended teaching where I give them bits of knowledge, nuggets of information. But I know I've created a space that supports them in being able to take that new knowledge and kind of apply it and rehearse it to make it familiar or take that really familiar knowledge and take that into a space where the resources and encourage 'em to extend what they know. So here's a situation that you might not have come across before, but you can apply skills you've already got to this situation and that will help to shape your learning because we all know the scenario, especially if you are in a setting rather than being at home where you've got your sand tray and you've got your buckets and you've got your spades and it all looks lovely and you've made lovely silhouettes at the beginning of the year to remind your children where to put the things back. But you've got children who've been making sandcastle since they were two in preschool or since they've been working with their child mind in the back garden and now they're four and they're coming into your space and because all you've got out in your sand area or your buckets and your speeds, all you've got out in your water area or your jugs and your funnels, they're very unlikely to say, tell you what, today I could just go and do something that I know I can do, uh, that I'm really good at. Uh, or I could really challenge myself by pushing myself outside the comfort zone. That's never gonna happen In environments that have got really familiar resources, children will go back to the familiar because your sense of wellbeing is very much linked to your sense of attainment, which is why at the beginning of an early years year, if you're in a preschool, a nursery, a kindergarten, a reception class, there's often a lot of familiar uh, in the environment. So we'd look at things like home corners, we'd look at things like buckets and spades and jugs and funnels because what's really important now in early years if the children are going into a setting is that they establish really strong levels or high levels of wellbeing and make those social emotional connections because it doesn't matter how amazing your space is, if you've got children who are feeling uncertain or not secure in the environment, their brains aren't saying, I can park that feeling of insecurity and just get on with a learning. Their brain is literally preoccupied with how does this work? Who sits here? Who sits next to me? Where do I hang my court? What does she mean when she says that? Oh I'm not sure about that person over there. That's what their brain's thinking. They're not thinking about any of the bits that we want 'em to be learning. So what we really aspire to is getting children to have really high levels of engagement. 'cause high level engagement links directly to high level attainment. So it doesn't matter how amazing you are as a teacher, as a parent teacher, uh as a practitioner, I mean teacher in the broadest sense of the word. So somebody who is working with children to give them knowledge they haven't got, it doesn't matter how good at that you are. If the child hasn't got confidence in you and doesn't feel a sense of wellbeing, they're not open to learning. So we want spaces especially early on that are familiar where children can feel settled, get to know the environment, get to know the personalities, and then we start to work on spaces that really are gonna take children's learning forward both with the adult but also when the adult isn't there. And again, if you work in a setting, you will know that as continuous provision and for those of you who are parents and don't work in a setting, continuous provision is the bit that happens outside of an adult working with children. So it's the environment that's created where children go and learn and explore and play when the adult is not directly working with them. And as I said at the beginning, you want your continuous provision to support the adults but also to massively continue the provision for learning when an adult isn't there. So not just giving them the familiar 'cause the familiar will take them back to well-rehearsed learning. When you feel like they've got good levels of wellbeing, then that's when you want to try and take them forward in their learning through play. So I know scientifically that children are at their highest level of engagement when they are at play and when you are playing you are using lots of different areas of your brain because you have to recall knowledge that you've already got. You've gotta apply that knowledge to new situations that are happening. You've often gotta negotiate, you've gotta plan ahead, you've gotta look at cause and effect. You've gotta assess, you've gotta think, you've gotta respond. And if you then are playing with other children in either a pay or a group, you've got all sorts of other social interaction, we've got other elements of your brain going. So we know from brain scans of children at play, that high level brain activity takes place when children are engaged in free play or structured play. And again, if we had more time we could go more into that because this play and this play and this play. So if I choose a resource and put that out resource for you and there's only one resource and you go and play with it, then you are engaged in play. But it's very structured play because I've chosen a resource linked to what I think it should be and I've only given you one choice. If I create a space where the resources are open-ended and I'm ambiguous or maybe linked particularly to your interest, then your engagement is gonna be different because you can't just play that one thing. You're able to play a number of things and that encourages you to think more about play and also use your thinking, creative and critical thinking and use your imagination. So that's why in early years there's a real big push away from topic led learning that when we're talking about autumn as we will be now because we are heading straight into it, that we're not just saying we're gonna talk about autumn, which is great 'cause it's a season and it's happening to children. But when I'd done it I'd have said we're gonna talk about autumn and we're gonna sing cauliflower fluffy for it is the best autumn song that's ever been written in the history of early years. Uh, even though none of you can click your fingers and you'll go while you're singing it and sound like, uh, a dolphin that's beside the point makes me laugh. Uh, but then we're gonna sing that and then what I would've done is to say, and in the painting area got these lovely leaves we collected in our autumn walk and I have given you paint in red, yellow, orange and brown for they are the colors of autumn and it is the law. And if you are gonna paint this week, you can paint the back of a leaf and you can relief print it on a piece of paper, probably sugar paper, probably in a lighter autumn shade. If you've got the malleable materials table, you can sit with Mrs. Smith and you can make a hedgehog out of some play-dough and some matchsticks. And don't worry 'cause if it doesn't look like a hedgehog by the time you finished, she will make sure that by the end of the day it does look like a hedgehog. And if you're going over here to the tough spot, we've filled the tough spot with autumn things, conquers beach nuts, autumn leaves, and a couple of magnifying glasses. And I'm imagining when you are four there's nothing you want to do more than to sort through a tray that's full of autumn leaves. So I would've themed my entire environment around autumn in the sand tray. Today there are conquers, why I don't know, it fits with the theme. So I, I put conkers in the sand tray. So when we get over themed, what you tend to get then is disengagement because I like to paint or maybe I don't like to paint, maybe I like to spend all of my time in construction because I'm good at that and uh, I get a buzz at making big models and locking them down. Or maybe I like to spend all of my time on a wheeled toy 'cause I can go around at 90 miles an hour. So I'm unlikely to come to the painting area if my only option is to paint the back of a leaf in a selected color selected by you, that links to a theme of autumn. But if you said to me in the painting area, you can use this, you can use that, you can use those, you can have any paint that you want. You can have thick paint, thin paint just come and paint. I'm way more likely to come. But for me as a practitioner, when I started to think that way, I was like you can't do that. It's autumn. What if somebody went into the autumn leaf printing area and painted a picture of the hook? How does that fit into my plan? And the whole point is it doesn't have to fit into your plan. You are talking to the children about autumn, which is fantastic and the children are getting loads of knowledge from you about autumn and the autumn walks and all the things that you do. But the painting area is about the skill of painting. It's not about replicating ottoman paint. The malleable materials area is about the skills of malleability skills I can learn from you to take on for the rest of my life skills I can use to create my own malleable creations. If I only think I can go and paint, uh, or make a hedgehog with some matchsticks and there're gonna be 30 of them or 15 of them all sitting along in a line, by the end of the day I'm gonna be less inclined to go. So you don't get the high levels of engagement and that doesn't take you forward in terms of levels of attainment. So in the spaces we create, we want them to be more play-based because when children are at play, they're using more areas of their brain, they're more engaged in rehearsing, extending, applying their skills. We want adults who are going to give pearls of wisdom to children, new knowledge, different knowledge change the way they're thinking, but we want that space to reflect those next steps in terms of learning and not be a space where we lose engagement because it's too themed around one particular thing. So also I think we find both as practitioners and as parents and I speak as a parent of three boys, I say boys, they're not boys any longer. My eldest one is 21, my next one is 20. Yes, that's right, both careless and unnecessary. And then my youngest one is 16. So eldest two have kind of come through the either side. 16-year-old is still teachering on the precipice of hormones. So it depends what day you get them on as to whether you've got the kind of, you know, devil or angel. But we're we're working to it. But I had three boys that were classic of their type. So um, good talkers, uh, full of energy like proper full of energy like the high octane stuff. They like the noise, they like the guns, they like the swords, they like the jumping off things. They like the chopping the worms up in the garden, all of that kind of pal lava. Now I knew I had three of those gorgeous children at home, but I also knew as a teacher and as a head teacher, my school was full of children who were very similar, unique in their own right, but similar in type. And it did really occur to me that I was taking those children of my own who I loved and wanted them to be unique and cherished and special and was taking them into an education establishment and trying to funnel them into I'd like you to sit on the carpet for 20 minutes or 15 minutes or even 10 minutes and sit still and keep your body still and look at me and show me good listening and don't touch the person next to you and keep your hands to yourself and put your fingers on your lips and cross your legs. But yet when I came home, that wasn't what I was coming home to in perfectly normal developmentally appropriate behavior of my own children. So what I'm not saying is we say well in that case let's all let children run feral and just like make the best of it. What I genuinely think is a lot of the routines that we have in education are not developmentally appropriate in the early years. It's not developmentally appropriate to ask 30 children to sit on a, in a circle on the carpet and sit still for a period of 10 to 15 minutes when they're just entering education. And if it's not appropriate in reception, it's certainly not appropriate in nursery or preschool. When you look at how children develop physically, when you look at how they develop emotionally, when you look at how they develop cognitively, we're asking them to do things that are beyond for what most of them is developmentally appropriate. And then what worries me a little bit, it certainly did for me as a practitioner, those things become the big things because children are failing to comply. So you spend loads of time focusing on lining up the door, sitting on the carpet when actually what you're doing to those children is saying, when I say Oh come and sit on the carpet, I don't mean oh come and sit on the carpet in your head you're thinking oh my bum's gonna go numb. I've gotta sit next to that girl I don't like. She's even put a mask on tape cross on the carpet with my name written on it in red pen and I have to sit on that and not move. What sort of learning connections are we making for those children in terms of their wellbeing? What are we saying to them about this is the place where we're gonna learn, this is the place that's gonna be ace, where you're gonna learn everything that you need to know to take you through your school career or your learning journey through life. But I'm gonna start it by making you sit on a mask and tape cross with your name written on where you feel uncomfortable, where your wellbeing's low, where you're making poor learning links. So we are in the best position to think about how children between birth, well forever but in early years learn best through a play-based environment. An environment that's been set up to be the third teacher that they can explore and investigate. And we need to remind ourselves not we are not successful by our ability to get them to sit still. We're successful by our ability to engage them in learning. No child is born hating writing. So why do we get to the point when children, particularly boys are four and five years old and they develop that chronic case of writer's poh where every time they pick up a writing implement they have the sudden urge to p so therefore they're in the toilet then for the next 20 minutes and nothing ever gets written. They'd rather crawl under the writing table and sit next to it. They'd rather be out on a bike than doing any mark make. And why does that happen? And primarily it happens because we funnel down the opportunity to mark make or we give importance to being able to write your letters, write your numbers and we give that credibility and credence way above lots of the other developmental stuff that really should go on that underpins that. So to give you a break and look at my face and my shiny forehead, um, I'm gonna kind of skip through this 'cause we haven't got a lot of time. Um, oh did I do that or did you do that Kate? That's impressive. So for me, in a very short kind of microcosm and I wish I'd known this when that when I was a parent and be a practitioner 'cause of course as a parent you do things that back up what you think is best and you can only remember school in terms of learning to read and learning to write. And they're still very much held up as you know your child is successful if they can write their numbers, count to 10, say the alphabet, write their name. And again all of those things that I've just said are not top of the list for children to be able to do when they are entering education, whether that be preschool or school, they are all things that will come very quickly if they are pitched at the right level at the right time. But also what underpins knowing sounds, knowing your alphabet, being able to write it and also what underpins being able to recognize and write your numbers are a raft of skills that children need to have in place before they're able to do that. And so again, a lot of the settings that I work with, we do a lot of work around what comes before phonics. 'cause they often, especially if they're school based, get a lot of pressure to get phonics started very early but also what comes before writing in numbers. And so lots of parent workshops and again it's really difficult for parents and I massively sympathize uh, because as a parent who knows lots of parents, um, there is huge amount of pressure to think am I doing the right thing? Am I getting my child ready for school? Am I getting my child ready? If they can read, if they can write, if they know their numbers, will that set them off in an advantage? And the answer is basically no because other children will catch up. What sets your children off at an advantage is having that curiosity for learning, that passion for being in this space. And you want them most days to skip down the path and skip through the door because they love being in this space because they just get to do loads of a stuff and they get to live out their passions and they get to learn what you don't want children who are clinging to somebody's legs and I don't want to go in because we have to do phonics followed by a phonic activity, followed by maths, followed by a maths activity because then they're also making psychological links with this is what learning means to me. And you know who those vulnerable children are and they are often but not always boys. And we also know that if those links are made very early on, they're almost impossible, impossible to break those links. And so those children tend then to be the ones that disengage all the way through school. So this starts really early on and again this is at home. We we can do this. Um, and we're thinking about before we even start on phonics, if anybody's not sure what phonics are, that's when at school or whatever you know learning establishment your children are, we begin to teach them about learning their sounds. So the sounds and how they attach themselves to different symbols. So they know that that symbol says ah, ah, ah, ah. And again this is a minefield for parents. See I was born and brought up in the northeast of England. And so when you see B, which again lots of parents would say, well I thought you had to learn them as capital. So children will come in saying A, B, C, D, E, F, G. And that really doesn't help you with phonics because when you come across CAT it doesn't say CAT. Well it does if you sound it out, what that word says is cat. So the sounds they need to hear it are at cat. And if you say in C 80 it doesn't sound cat but in the northeast we would've said Tu and they do it a lot as well uh, around Manchester where I live. So you don't get at, you get Tu now is something very different to a cat. So I would say don't worry about phonics, leave it to the people who've done the phonics training because if your child's interested in words and letters, that's brilliant. But one of the best ways you can meet that interest is by reading with them. We know from numerous studies the children who are read to regularly make really successful readers and then writers. So reading is brilliant but also there are all sorts of other elements of learning of their brain cognition that need to be in place before they even start doing that phonic stuff. And you will find, and I know from experience that if you get the engagement level right and you get the preki in place and then you start to introduce writing and reading and sounds in a way that engage children. So they're not having to write a retail of Goldilocks in the three bears if they're not interested in Goldilocks in the three bears but they can do it about the Avengers. If they are interested in the Avengers, that's when you start to get some real success. So um, hold on, I need to work out what I'm doing here Kate, hold on. That's rub spoken language number one. So the very first and best thing we can do is talk to children when it comes to writing later on. And again if you had more time we could talk loads about this, but writing is just talk that comes out of the end of your pencil. So when you are ready to even hold a pencil, which is a whole different discussion around physical development, but if you can't think it then you can't say it. And if you can't say it then you can't write it. So if we spent a lot of time working on children's language, language development, source interaction, vocabulary, words, experiences, then when they come to manipulate that writing tool, they're gonna have a plethora of things to write about. If we focus too much on the holding of the writing tool and the formation of the letters, which is often a focus, all you do in then is often given children a thing that's physically difficult for them to do. Actually physically difficult because of the development of the bones and tendons in their hand and also they are bored witless. 'cause when you are four and five you don't have to do a lot of writing in your everyday life. You are not writing checks, you're not writing a novel, you're spending most of your time wanting to be at play, which doesn't involve a lot of writing. So we need to try and have as much talk as we possibly can and that's talk with children but also listening to children talk because listening is as important as the talking bit. And do children struggle to listen? Yes they do. Is that perfectly normal and developmentally appropriate? Yes it is. At this time in the year, especially if they're coming into your setting, they will have news Tourettes. They will not be able to wait for 29 other children to have shared their dull, boring and irrelevant news before they get the chance to tell you they had chicken nuggets for their tea. But that's as it should be because that's exactly the stage of development they're at. And if you are saying to somebody just wait, you turn just because now somebody else is talking, you just sit quietly put your finger in your lips. What you're doing is giving them those messages about when you sit here, this is really boring, this is really dull and it doesn't include you. And by the time we get to you you can't be bothered saying what you were gonna say in the first place. So when we're thinking about talk and spoken language with very young children, it's not often about wait your turn because waiting the turn isn't the thing we want them to get used to. Now that will come later. What we want them to do is want to tell us and have somebody that wants to be able to listen to the thing that they're saying. So again, little bit wordy slide but spoken language and the ability to listen is really important. So children need rich language. I've talked to hear about adults who say more than is necessary and that's when you're saying, oh look at that brown leaf over there. A nice sentence in autumn. But you could say, oh look at that wrinkly old brown leaf over there. Oh it's kind of a dark brown color, isn't it? Oh it's almost like an Albany color. It's but ready? I mean you don't wanna talk to 'em to death. You don't wanna get to the point where they're saying what you going on about a leaf for this is really dull. But the idea as an adult you can use more language so the children have the opportunity to hear a richer amount of language and that eventually improves their listening but also their engagement. The second preki for phonics, there are six of them is the sensory awareness and integration. So this is the idea that physical development underpins all sorts of things that link to children's balance, which also then links into their speech. The proprioception. Now your proprioception is your body's ability to manage itself in the space that is available. All of those things are important and underpin. So eventually children will be able to do things like sit still and focus because they've gotta sit and use balance. But if you think right to sit still, you're not staying at children, tell you what you should do. Come in, lie down, relax, let the floor take you weight And fact, you know what, boys and girls sit however you want to. There is a school that I've worked with before called Grig and Cumbia and I've seen them do this where they say come in and sit how you want. If you wanna lean lean, if you wanna a cushion, get a cushion. If you wanna lie down, lie down. 'cause all we're gonna do is we're gonna chat and I'd really like you to be comfortable when we chat and children don't take the m**k, they find a space they wiggle about a bit, find themselves comfortable space and they go on with it because the focus is about are you comfortable? 'cause I care about that. My focus here is about talk, not about can you sit up straight 'cause I'm not asking you when I say sit up in a circle to relax, I'm saying I now you're four or younger. If you're a nursery, I want you to sit up, keep all of your muscles, still straighten your back. I want you to put tension on your groin muscles by bending your knees and crossing your legs, which is an unfamiliar position for you to sit in. And I want you to maintain that held position while looking at me listening, not wriggling, not moving, not talking to the person next to you. And so the focus is not about what we're gonna talk about and discuss. The focus is about can you keep your body still. Now if we talk about is that developmentally appropriate, is it developmentally possible? Yes. Is it developmentally appropriate? Probably not. So you want to develop with your children and encourage them for different ways of sitting. But children should be active more than they are sedentary. So in a good early year space, your children should be up and moving substantially more in a day than they're ever required to sit down. If they choose to rest, that's one thing. But if you are saying carpet activity, table activity, carpet activity, table activity play and they spend more time sitting and doing and less time up and doing than again in terms of being developmentally appropriate, that's probably not the best option we could give those children. So third one, meta linguistic awareness. Long word with a hyphen, it's not as complex as it sounds. It's basically just about children understanding what language is. So they need to know that language is a thing and that there are different languages. Like they know that reading's a thing, like they know that eating is a thing. And also eventually and often through storytelling and story reading, they learn that language is made up of words and words can have meanings and they understand the meanings of some words and they don't understand the meanings of others. And again, what underpins this kind of metal linguistic understanding is lots and lots of talk and lots of lots of reading books and you point to words as you read and you pick out words and you explain words and you get them to retell the story. And also don't forget as an adult you don't always have to read a book. Reading a book is very useful 'cause children can see that words can be decoded and shared but also already telling a story where you don't have to hold the book, you don't have to show the pictures and you can just have the eye contact and you can just have those lovely shared moments. They fit beautifully into all those free skills around phonics. Fourth one, understanding the functions and forms of print. So that's the print comes in many different varieties. Children become aware of print through things like labels and cereal boxes. So you'll get children who can't read but could tell you a sign said McDonald's or that a box says corn flakes and that's because they are linking this symbol or it doesn't mean anything chopped up to them. The whole symbol with the meaning that they know. So I know that says conflicts 'cause every time we have that in the morning you'll say to me, do you want some conflicts? I know that says McDonald's. 'cause when we go there we know we're going for McDonald's. So they begin to learn. There are different functions and forms of print. Some for reading to tell a story. So again, lots of sharing and identifying print in the environment with children. Really useful for that. It's a little bit of blurb, it's basically what I've just said. So about adults actively engaging with print. That doesn't mean fill your house, fill your nursery, fill your reception classroom with a million downloaded, laminated words. Just because you can print rich is what we're looking for in an environment. Be that a home environment or a setting Rich is not the same as rich in money. So you're not thinking the more print I've got and the more different styles and the more fonts that I've got, the better print rich means rich in meaning. So is this print meaningful to these children? It's in book form. Yes it is. Because they love to read the books. Um, I it's around packaging. Yes it is because they understand the access to the packaging linked to food. It's around whatever it may be. You know, images on the wall or images of them with a speech bubble. So print is meaningful in, in my environment because I've got pictures of my children and I've recorded what they've said and they can't read it but they know what they said. And so they can make a link between spoken word and the written word at home. I've got pictures of granny and underneath I've got granny and underneath grandpa I've got grandpa and underneath Auntie Nelly, I've got Auntie Nelly. My children can't read that. But they know who that is and they know that's what that says because they're making links between print and the environment. So nobody's getting them to say G, G, G, G Granny, yet that will come. This is just about saying I link that with that and that has meaning I'm having to go faster. Uh, the ability to symbolize, again that sounds a bit more technical than it actually is. Lots of this you will do already, but it's about actively building this in to what you do with children both in the home environment and in your setting. And not just have it happen by chance but have it happen for purpose so that when somebody comes to your space, especially if you're in a setting and says, can you talk to me about phonics and phonic development? You are gonna say yes. Can I talk to you about the pre stages of phonics first and can I show you how we've got those stages in place? Can I show you my evidence for how children are meeting lots of those and are really secure in them? And then we'll talk about good, good, good. 'cause if we haven't got these in place, they're never gonna get there. Especially those more vulnerable learning learners. So when we're talking about symbolizing, this is eventually gonna link into writing. So it's learning that something can be a symbol for something else. Now that starts with the early imaginative play. I haven't got a car, but what I have got is a one block and I can go, so the car is being symbolized by the block or the block is symbolizing the car. So that's where the early concept of symbolism start. And then as that gets more advanced, then that starts to link to other things. Symbolism, also linking words to actions. So for example, um, okay, I'll do that in a minute. If I, if I go to you lot, obviously you can't see me, but if I do that, you know I'm saying hello. So if me and Kate had popped up at the beginning and we'd just gone, that would've clearly symbolized hello either, even though none of us, neither of us said it or it wasn't written done. Anyway, if I say to you, hello that symbolizes, hello the word hello. I've never written it down but I've said it. So I'm symbolizing the written word through my vocabulary. And if I show you something like that slide. So if you read that, hello. Now ideally you've all said chicken either in your head or out loud. And then if anybody's with you in the lounge watching the telly on mute, they think you're mad. But the idea here is that obviously that's you, the symbolism in that you read the word. So the letters and the written word symbolized the meaning. So for children, this reading bit comes later. But we need loads and loads of work on symbolizing and symbolism. And so in their play, the more ambiguous the resources, the more opportunities for symbolism. The more definite the resources. This is a car, this is a cow, this is a sheep, this is the house. The less opportunity for symbolism because they tend to think, well that's a car so therefore I'll use it as a car. Whereas that's a block. But that can be a cake, a cow, a car, a microwave, a house, a superhero, a million different things. So it's understanding the concepts and building them into the space that you've got to enable these children to be ready when the pH bit comes along. And then the last one that's really leading into more formal phonics is this idea of phonological awareness. So the ability to hear and recognize sounds first of all, so not let the shapes but sounds. Can they listen? Can they hear, is it an airplane, is it a car, is it a bird? So really honing children's listening skills and then identifying units of language such as the ability to hear a rhyme, which is really difficult for lots of children and comes often a little bit later on. And then recognizing that there are individual words and again that's linked often to reading or telling of story. And then the final stage is that phonemic awareness where they can identify individual sounds, usually starting with their name because that is important to them. Therefore they will invest some time in that as opposed to starting with something that's a bit random. And as a parent, as a practitioner, we need to be aware those booklets you can buy from or you can download where it's lots of uh, letters for children to see trace over follow the dots because they potentially have a place at some point on the journey. I say potentially that's a much bigger discussion. But for early starters for me, unless they were showing a real interest often around their name in putting, making marks on paper to record letter shapes, then I would be working on all of these other things and exploring mark making with a range of tools and a variety of settings with a range of media and material. And 'cause this will come, the phonic bit will come when the interest comes and it will come much better and stick much better when all of this is in place. Oh man, Kate is gonna be telling me off in a minute. Let me just talk to you a little bit about numbers 'cause that's the other thing we get obsessed with. When I was a reception teacher, I was told by my mentor that if my children could write their name, Christian name by the end of the year, that was success. If they could write the Christian name and their surname, that was a really big success and they all had to be able to write their numbers to 10. And that was what I focused on getting these children to do that mainly by tracing their name over dots with a bit of tracing paper on the back of a serial packet every single day. Because that was the most important thing when actually it was a very backwards way of thinking. So when it comes to things like numbers and before you think about can my children recognize the number three and draw the number three, there's loads that has to come before that. So children need to acknowledge it's a really annoying early years term, which is the threeness of three, which sounds like really early the threeness of three. But it's the concept of what is three, how can you make three find three, hold three, how do you conceptualize three? 'cause if you can't do that, what's the point in writing down this squiggly symbol that's gonna come along? So we need to be able to recite uh, the counting sequence. So children need to learn 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. But having meaning. So not going along the number line with a pointer but about children in their play counting the things that they've got, counting with an adult, counting them in, counting them out, adding them in, adding them out when they're cooking, if they're cooking, when they're setting the table, when they're putting their bricks. Again, it's not about terrorizing children with the how many question. And if you are a reception teacher, you are guilty of this. When children bring you out a lovely model and you have to say that's lovely how many bricks are in your tower and you've just like ruined the moment. Or the child that brings you out the lovely uh, collage with all the sparkly pom-poms on that you got out on the first day and they disappeared in the first half hour. And you are saying, oh that's lovely. How many pom-poms are on your picture? They're not bothered how many pom-poms are on the picture? And that's not the point of the creativity. And the answer is too many, which is why you pick them all off when they've gone out to play. So we want them to be able to recite the number sequence put in context, so linked to their interests but also linked to practical activities they're doing. We also want them to be able to match number names to objects. Can you find me two? Can you get me three? Can you get me one? Can you get me four Now later on we'll talk to 'em about the fact that three can be two and one and four can be three and one or two and two. But at the moment we're just saying if I say four, what does four mean to you? And again, play is the best place to get children to be able to access that. They need to learn before they even start writing any numbers or even recognizing numbers that the last number you say is the total of the set. So when we are counting your cars and you say 1, 2, 3, how many cars have you got? If they have to go back and go 1, 2, 3, then they haven't got this concept. So when they can go 1, 2, 3, how many cars have you got? Three. Now they've got this concept, do they need to be able to ride three? No. Do they need to be able to recognize three in a number line? No. So if you've got a child who goes 1, 2, 3, how many have you got? Uh, 1, 2, 3. They are way ahead of recognizing and writing numbers. That's not what's important or necessary for them. They still need loads more practice in creating groups, recognizing numbers, finding out the threeness of three and also the need to be able to sabotage. So the idea of subitizing comes way back from PGE talked about this when he talked about those levels of development. Stages of development. So subitizing is the ability to be able to look at a group five or less and be able to say how many are there? Three, how many are there? Four, how many are there? Two, how many are there? One just by looking and not having to go one, two. So I could say to you, oh, how many cars have you got? You're not gonna go 1, 2, 3, 3, you're just gonna go three, four. Now when you've got all of those firmly in place, then we can start attaching symbols to your knowledge of number. But if we just start with the symbols, not only again is it physically difficult, but it's meaningless in terms of your learning. So, so much more we could talk about because it is so fascinating and so much of this I wish I had known when I was that really lovely sparky reception teacher who wanted to do nothing else but get the best outcomes for my children. And nobody died. Have to be clear with that. Nobody died but I could have done it so much better. So what we're thinking about is trying to create an environment linked to children's engagement through play. But that environment is being created to support you as a parent or you as a practitioner to help them to rehearse, revisit and extend those nuggets of knowledge that you've given them. Now Kate, you've now appeared like a specter in screen, which is basically you going shut up now. We said 35 minutes. I thought happily least Till 10. I'm one never happy. Quite nice. A bit of human contact, isn't it? So yeah, It's Great. Yeah, a different face. Um, no there was so many people that were really excited about what you're saying, Alistair, we even had someone's 6-year-old son in listening you found the chicken nugget a bit really funny. So yeah, so Chicken nuggets, Some really great responses there. Um, one of the things that that a lot of people were talking about was carpet time and the whole balance of carpet time and how that works and how you do that. If, if not at all or if you do do it, how do you do it well and what should carpet look time, carpet time look like and what are your thoughts on that? So there's not an exact science in any early years space at all. It depends on who you've got. I was really interesting looking at a thread on Facebook today. 'cause you lose many hours you can lost threads and it was pupil as I would have done discussing the best way of keeping your children on the carpet. Was it the Velcro stars that you buy from eBay? Was it the mask and tape? Was it those rugs you can buy with the insects on? And you say and that's square and that's what you say? Yeah. Oh well what we've done is we, we stop every how 15 minutes and say carpet spot and everybody has to go in there, sit in their carpet spot every 15 minutes. And we do that every day until they get it. And while I know as practitioner in terms of organizing your space, it's important that you, your group is coherent and they're not feral. But also it does make my alarm bells ring slightly in that at this stage in the year, we are putting too much precedent on can you sit still in a carpet spot. And now what I'd be saying now in my sagely 30 years in is if I had a class now and they couldn't sit still on the carpet and I was new to nursery or reception particularly, I'd be thinking that's not worry because they're just four mm-Hmm. They're just mm-Hmm. It's not actually developmentally appropriate. No, physically it's not appropriate in terms of how harassment to hold their bodies. I'm not saying you can run around like mad things, but why I'm gonna say it is I'm not gonna stress and like I talked about gray rig and their more relaxed approach to if I'm teaching. Yeah. I want my children to be comfortable. So I don't care if they're not sitting up straight on their spot. As long as they're in a comfortable space. Yes. If I was practicing sitting, which I'm not, then I might care about it. But I say to them, you know, when somebody else is talking, it's really good if you listen. So there are some rules you're coaching children into how to exist as part of a group. 'cause you've always gotta bear in mind, mm-Hmm. Some of these children, if they've got brothers and sisters, will have existed in a family environment with brothers and sisters. Now that's different to existing in a class environment. So you are learning to cohabit a space with maybe 29 other children or it depends how many you're in your bubble. Um, but to share, to listen to be still. So I would be far more assured in my own knowledge of what was developmentally appropriate. Mm-Hmm. And that my own experience now I've seen hundreds if not thousands of children go through this stage of development and think, I'm not gonna stress carpet time is not my priority. Gathering is a great priority. Talking is a great priority, but being able to sit on a spot on the carpet is not that. So for me, if I was your head teacher or your manager, um, or your early years lead, I'd be saying, look, don't stress about it and let's aim to build this up. As time goes on, wellbeing rises, familiarity rises and they become more mature. And they will do that as the year goes on. Yeah. That's it. Well I heard about, um, a brilliant school Alistair, where the transition times in the school, they were just super, super relaxed. So when the children would go and do assembly or hall or whatever they do, like the school would just let the doors open and they could chat and they could mill around and no one had to line up. And they all kind of made their way to wherever they were supposed to be. And they sat wherever they wanted and they chatted until the teacher kind of was ready to, to talk to them. But there was never any expectation in terms of the lining up or, or and also What I get is, and I I know this from working with loads of settings Mm-Hmm. It's great for us to talk about this in a webinar. Yes. But you have to comply with the expectations of the management team. So you go back into those in the webinar and they just said like, just let them just relax on the carpet. Yes. They're not gonna say, alright, fair enough. If he said that in the webinar, let's do it. But it's about going back and saying, this is interesting. I've looked at some of the research and actually what the research says is this, how about we consider that differently? Rather than just saying, I heard it on a webinar about it on Facebook. Yes. That's it. That's a really good way of thinking actually. Um, I had a question from um, Marie and she said, can you recommend your kind of favorite open-ended resources to use with children? So what I try not to get too obsessed with is, is it wicked? Is it wood, is it hessian? Is it authentic? Mm-Hmm. Because resources being authentic is not an ultimate. Yes. So yes we are saving the planet. Yes. We don't want to fill our environments in very brightly colored stuff. 'cause there is uh, some really good research around, uh, display and environments that says the more brightly colored and fest they are, the more distracting they are in terms of development brain. So yes, something's a bit calm and more neutral, but if a child's got a particular passion for something that's plastic also you can get plastic resources that are beautiful. Yes. Then I wouldn't be saying I don't have an environment with any plastic in it. And also what I find in early years is loads of people check out their plastic to buy in their wicker baskets. And what you're basically doing is sending your plastic to landfill. Yes. So if you've got plastic, you better try to utilize what you've got and save the planet that way rather than ditching plastic to get your other stuff in. Yes. So, um, it's about resources for me that are open-ended and ambiguous. Mm-Hmm. And you do get that with natural resources. So lots of wood wooden stuff 'cause you've got knots and lumps and you know, different textures. But try to keep it as open-end as possible. And those of you who know that I do a lot of work around role play for language development. Mm-Hmm. Social interaction. And if you search that on my website, you'll say I do a lot of work on, I think called deconstructed role play. Yeah. And that's very much about open-ended ambiguous spaces where you bring in themed enhancements linked to topic and interest, but you keep the space as open as it can possibly be. Yeah, that's true. And and there's nothing better than a free box. Right. Like nothing, Nothing Better than free food other than free food and cake Free chicken nuggets. It's true. Um, so I had a question from Amy. What's the best way for a parent to support their school setting? Well that's a little tricky one because mm-Hmm. Again, from working in hundreds of schools. Yes. Uh, different settings have different views about how early education should be. Yes. So lots of schools that I work with will not do what we've talked about tonight. A lot of them will go very much in especially post covid, this kind of um, running to catch up need to start with your feet hitting the ground. Yes. So they're going quite high and quite heavy. And that makes me wanna say, actually you're gonna be making your progress slower in the long run by just going in a little bit more formal. So the best way you can support, I think a setting is if you are a parent and you are uh, coming across information you think is interesting or useful is to pass that on and say This was interesting, this was useful. Rather than saying they do this better or why don't you do it this way? 'cause nobody likes that. This is interesting. Um, have you thought about this? And sometimes you'll get it. Oh that the end. No I haven't. And sometimes you'll get it. Thanks very much. I'm the teacher. You are the parent. Just remember that. Yes. But that's the same in any profession. Mm-Hmm. But I think rather than going and say Why aren't you doing it this way? I'd gone and say this was interesting. Have you ever seen anything like this? And even just start the dialogue going, Yeah, that's it. And also I know for parents that there's a lot to be said for doing things at home with them too. Yes. Yes. So even if your school isn't doing it, there's no reason why you can't be doing bits at home. And it's all about for me, the preki, if the preki are in place, then they will fly. You know what's so much work that I do? I'm asked to go and work with groups of children, usually boys who are disengaged by the age of four. Yes. So if you disengaged by four, there is no hope for you. Yes. And usually it's because a lot of the preschools are missing or they don't see the relevance when they've been asked to write about this or they've been asked to do maths about that. Why doesn't, but if I can take that concept into your model building, if I can take it into your outdoor environment where you are passionate and happy learners, then you see them literally soak it up like a sponge. Mm-Hmm. So it's not always rocket science, it's sometimes just follow the lead of the children. You're still the adult, you're still the one that's gonna manage the environment and the knowledge. Mm-Hmm. But you follow the lead of the children. Yeah. That's it. That's really key. Um, so I had a question from Radke who said, uh, how to support an autistic child with education in a school setting and at home. So again, this is like a much longer answer. So do you uh, Conversation Yeah. Do lots of projects with special schools around implementing foundation stage principles into a special school sometimes in their foundation stage, but sometimes across the whole of Q stage one and Q stage two. Yes. But it very much depends on the needs of the particular child. So what's often difficult with children who are somewhere in the artistic spectrum is that a lot of the earliest foundation stage principles are based on open-ended free choice ambiguity. And what a lot of those children in my experience like is routine choice. You know? So it's sometimes there are aspects of foundation stage that are not appropriate for children with particular learning needs. So sometimes what we've done with those children, the ones I'm thinking about mm-hmm is having a thing called a directed choice. Which is not really a choice at all, but it's where rather than saying Right today you could go and explore anywhere you want and do anything you like, you basically say, right, you've got a choice. You can either start there or there or sometimes yes you are starting there. Yes. And as long as there is structure and direction, then often they're a lot more comfortable with that. So yes, often I would put in more structure for a child on the autistic spectrum because that's meeting their particular need. It's not, it's not what you would do for foundation stage generically, but it's about compromising or changing or adapting the provision to meet the need of the particular child. That's it. Yeah. Um, Jill, this is quite a big question Alistair. So, um, Jill was asking what your thoughts are on the new revised early years in development matters? It's a massive question. A massive question. The um, in the earlier circles in which I mix, I am just glad I was not part of revising development matters. I feel part sorry for Yes. For Julian who led that. Yeah, me too. It Does, it's quite vicious. Um, the revision, I, the doesn't make any sense to me. The revisions of the earliest foundation stage are not based on child development information that we know. I'm also a doctoral researcher. Um, and look at a lot of your current thinking around child development, a lot of research based information about how children develop. And the new framework does not reflect that in any way, shape or form. It's still very outcomes driven. And some of those outcomes like the writing one in development matters, development development particularly are really difficult for the majority of children at that stage of development to achieve. And I think what development matters is trying to do is to, or the new revised development matters is trying to bridge that gap. And also we are moving towards an early years curriculum. Yes. Which is different from taking development matters is your next step. So lots of settings plot children onto development matters and then work their way up each of the areas of learning. Yes. And what the new development matters is gonna encourage you to do is look at a holistic curriculum and not do that kind of laddering. Yes. And I think we're so used to assessing in that way and we're so used to planning in that way. It's gonna be really difficult. But the new development matters also has to fit in with the new revised earliest foundation stage. So there is compromise. There are things in the development matters which aren't ideal, but they link in. So it's not what I would've wanted or necessarily you, I'm thrilled about, I think what we'll do as a profession 'cause we're really good at it, is make it work. Yes. It's just a shame that we're having to have something that underpins everything we do that we're having to make work as opposed to something that's actually relevant. It was a really good opportunity to make it properly linked to child development. So I'm gonna be interested to see how it pans out, but it's not great. Yes. And the other thing is it's, it's not, I saw someone saying there as well, um, it's not mandatory. No. And I think going with a lot of these things, it's how you interpret in what you take from it. Yeah. So, so yeah. So it'd be interesting to see. I can go with that. Um, so another one here from uh, one of the uh, Lorraine uh, taking play outdoors as much as possible at the minute. Is there any other advice for pandemic restrictions in terms of provision and things that are Well again, and I like you've gotta love the diversity of the earliest. Yeah. There are um, people who've sent me photographs that make me want to weep, which are reception classes and nursery classes where it's just literally a desk, a plastic tray that you would pull out from a drawer. Yes. And no dough, no sand, no water, no mallable materials just like jigsaws in a plastic bag that can be sunny wiped down. And then there are other settings that are sending me pictures of uh, gazebos with sand trays and huge construction and like everything's still going on. Now again, the covid guidelines are different depending on where you are. A lot of 'em are guidelines so they're not statutory. You can risk assess your own provision. So when the guideline is not to have soft furnishings, for example, I know some settings who've chosen to keep some of their soft furnishings because they risk assessed them and they feel the risk is manageable. And there are other settings that have bugged them all in stock covered and now nobody can get in the stock covered 'cause it's just full of soft furnishings. Yes. And on a Friday you can just open the door of the stock cupboard and pay that Avalanche. Yeah, it's true. So I mean the National Children's Bureau has posted some really interesting information about things like sand and water. So their recommendation is that you don't, uh, do away with sand and water. Yes. But you have to understand the quarantine date. So you can have sand. It's find to have a sand tray within a bubble as long as only the bubble use it. If the bubble aren't using it, then it needs to be quarantined for at least three days. But then you can reintroduce once it's been quarantined you can can't sand in other ways. But then other local authorities are coming in with other local authority legislation that says in our local authority, you can't do this, you can't do that. Yeah. So fundamentally there is a way of of meeting covid restrictions and still providing quite a range of experiences for children as long as they've been adequately risk assessed. But ultimately it's not also just about your management and your local authority, it's also about the practitioners who've got to manage the space. So I've worked online with practitioners who are like, we are all really happy with risk assessed it, we're gonna go for it. And other groups where they're like, look, I've got an adult at home who's shielding, I, I am really concerned. So their own anxiety about uh, having multiple resources is affecting the provision they've got. And that's fair enough because you've gotta work with the wellbeing of your team as well as the wellbeing of your children. So there is no easy answer is the easy answer. There's no easy answer. It's true. Um, last question for you Alistair. So, um, we had a few people talking about working with older children with play-based learning. So children sort of age seven and Yeah. Um, one of the questions that I had on Twitter beforehand, uh, a teacher was saying, uh, for teachers beginning play-based learning in key stage one, how do you show those kind of challenge through play without imposing adults agendas on things and also thinking maybe about some of those parents at home that have got slightly older children and bringing in those play elements. Like if you want to chat a little bit about that. Yeah, can do. So I've done loads of work with especially uh, play-based learning in year one with huge success and also, uh, into year two. Yes. Some schools, uh, I work with have taken elements of it right the way through open to year six. So again, to mention 'em again, I mentioned before have just introduced this year loose parts play in every single year group. So every single year has a dedicated sessions of you lose parts play and they're getting some, I'm gonna put some on my Twitter to I think there possibly uh, six boys that were using a cable reel in a plank Wow. To construct a seesaw. And they were looking at where the axle was, how far they needed to be for balance. There was, you was amazing to watch. Anyway. So if you are working with a say year one, year two children, I would still run my version of what or my interpretation of continuous provision. Mm-Hmm. So not the children have to do their year one carpet work, then their year one table work and then they can go and play. But this idea that play is a vehicle for learning. So yes, you have to be focused teaching times and then they go into an environment which is being structured to support and extend that teaching. Yeah. And usually in early years if you're gonna enhance your continuous provision, you tend to enhance over five main areas. So you tend to enhance around topic and theme. So at the moment in an early years classroom, you'd be seeing elements of autumn that might appear here and there, but it wouldn't be just painterly from a hedgehog. Yes. You tend to enhance around children's individual interests that are outside of topic and theme. So that might be frozen or superheroes or lesser spotted lady birds, whatever it may be. You tend to enhance around a basic skill. Um, or another area of learning. So in the national curriculum it's a basic skill or an area of the curriculum. So that might be cutting, it might be glue and it might be joining or it might be in early years understanding the world. So you might bring elements of that into your sand play. It might be personal social, you might bring elements of that, your sand play, you might um, basic skills, a specific skill you want to teach them. So basic skills where they're learning a specific skill like cutting a glue and ad join in. Um, and then explicit challenge is the fifth one. So implicit challenge means that the environment you create should provide challenge by the very nature of the fact that it's linked to observation, assessment and children's interest. Mm-hmm. And explicit challenge is where you add something into that environment that invites the children to do something that's a little bit narrower. Not for me having just a jug and a cup in your water tray and nothing else. And seeing how many cups will fit in this jug. 'cause frankly, nobody's asked about how many cups are gonna fit in the jug. But you might have, especially in year one, year two and beyond, some more specific challenges that are linked to some of your direct teaching and not necessarily do this before you can, but if you pitch it right, you tend to get children who are happy to do that. And also for me, do a lot of journaling with key stage one and two children. So the idea with that is that you move away from um, same, we're doing particular, um, geography, history, uh, modules and areas and children have their own journal. Yeah. And you teach key skills and concepts maybe around writing and styles of writing. But rather than saying we're all gonna do a retail of or we're all gonna do, you know, whatever it's about saying here are the main features of this type of writing, you can now go and write about whatever you want in your journal. Mm-Hmm. But I want you to incorporate the main features so you end up with the features being the focus, but not everybody is doing a recount of their trip to whatever it may be. That's good. As a salacious, um, advert, there is until the end of this month, um, some continuous provision of transition into year one training and online on my website and in that, um, we look specifically at that and how you can make it work in key stage one. Brilliant. Do It. I would say do it when you get it right. It's amazing. Yes. And I've seen some of the blogs on your website from key stage ones that are using and it's there and they're fantastic. Like I wanna get in there and play. Right. So if you search on my blog, uh, transition to key stage one or just transition, you'll get free blog posts from practitioners that say this is how we do it. Yeah. And it's great. So, and one of the other things that was mentioned quite a lot was, um, there was a few people that came tonight that would be really keen to get a certificate. Um, and I mentioned that you're gonna be doing the webinars, you've got training online that do a lot more than what we've kind of just chatted about tonight. Um, is there a certificate for any of that? Alistair, If you do the Yes. All of the purchased online training that I do, there's a certificate for that. You just downloaded the end when you've completed the training and webinars. Um, at the moment there isn't a certificate for a webinar because they are slightly different from if you do an online training, it tends to be a training module. If you're doing a webinar, it's more information based. Yes. But if enough people want a certificate, the end of webinar, that's something I'm sure we could, uh, manage to do. Yeah. Because we all love a certificate. We like a certificate. It's like an adult sticker. Yeah, Absolutely is. Yeah, it's true. So I think that's all of it now. I I, I've kept it there, Alistair, but it's just been lovely chatting with you and I know that there's been some brilliant comments through and lots of people have been enjoying it tonight and getting some great information from it. So yeah, always enjoy having your own. It's just a big Oh, a pleasure. Yeah, Great to see everybody. It's really nice. Have a bit more interaction's. Great. You're welcome. Big thank you for everybody's spend spending their evening with us too. Absolutely. Yeah, so it's kind of late and you've all been staying up and chatting with us online, so, so yeah, that's been great. Um, so I'll let, I'll let you go now. Alistair have evening with your kids. Yeah. I've just gotta work out how to get out of this now. Otherwise I'm left here for the next 10 minutes. Just Oh, That's good. Bye everybody. Well this is awful bit one. I just cut everybody off dead. Yeah, It's a bit, it's a bit brutal isn't it? It's A bit brutal now at the end. It's like, see you everybody. Yeah. So big thank you to everybody for coming out tonight and hope to see you soon. Yeah, see you soon. Bye.