11. Build confidence and independence - thoughtfully praise each child’s efforts and achievements.
“Next time you’re tempted to praise a child’s intelligence or talent, restrain yourself. Instead, teach them how much fun a challenging task is, how interesting and informative errors are, and how great it is to struggle with something and make progress. Most of all, teach them that by taking on challenges, making mistakes, and putting forth effort, they are making themselves smarter.”
Carol Dweck – Transforming Students’ Motivation to Learn (Growth Mindset Theory)
To what extent do you:
- ensure that every EYFS practitioner uses specific praise to promote a growth mindset?
- model and embrace mistakes within everyday practice and use them as learning opportunities?
- value and celebrate the processes that children follow rather than focusing on a specific end product?
- support transition and children’s well-being by using items familiar to children in the classroom environment?
- understand and use levels of well-being and involvement to measure the effectiveness of the learning environment?
Research (Margetts 2002) suggests that children’s high levels of physical activity and self-determination (which boys can demonstrate more often) tend not to be seen as positive attributes at school, where social competence, self-reliance and co-operativeness (skills which girls tend to develop earlier) are valued more highly.
How do you and your staff feel about this? Discuss.
Resources
Help your child to try new things - Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset theory
- Cbeebies. An easy to access guide perfect for sharing with parents
Research every teacher should know: growth mindset
- An article from The Guardian
- The scales of well-being and involvement developed by Ferre Laevers can be utilised by early years practitioners to ensure that they are providing the right environment both emotionally and physically for learning to take place. This provides information and resources for practitioners, explaining how to observe and acknowledge indicators of a child’s well-being.
12. Ensure that what each child can do provides a starting point for their learning and development.
"Stand aside for a while and leave room for learning, observe carefully what children do, and then, if you have understood well, perhaps teaching will be different from before.”
Loris Malaguzzi
To what extent do you:
- use children’s strengths and fascinations (including family cultures, hobbies, clubs, lessons, etc) as the starting point for planning across all areas of learning?
- ensure children’s starting points are accurate by:
- moderating judgements with early years providers?
- valuing and including parents’ knowledge of what their children can do?
- actively involving the children in assessing their own learning through reflection and discussion?
- moderating judgements between all EYFS practitioners in school?
How flexible and open-ended is your planning? Does it differ significantly year on year? Can all EYFS practitioners add to the plans for the day/week? To what extent does it accommodate the interests and needs of all children and involve the children from the outset?
Discuss as a staff – evaluate provision through the eyes of a child. What are the strengths? What could be improved further?
Resources
A Celebratory Approach to SEND Assessment in the Early Years - Pen Green
- Funded by the Department for Education, this is an inclusive, holistic assessment tool for children with special educational needs and/or disability in the Early Years.
Transition to reception – Teach Early Years
- Schools can do more to prepare for a new intake, “Get transition right and you will reap the benefits for the whole year. You will have a group of children who are deeply engaged in their learning because they are with adults who know and understand them in an enabling environment that meets their needs and interests. It is definitely worth investing time and energy in this vital aspect of our work.” Anna Ephgrave shares thoughts and practical ideas about transition.
EYFS: 5 steps to effective child observations
Speaking “Learnish” – Developing a language for learning
How to write better observations in the Early Years: Shift the focus back to the children
5 ways our Early Years team uses objective-led planning
- Establishing your starting point, supporting staff and working with home are the keys to effective implementation explains Daniel Saturley, describing his school’s approach to planning. There are some useful principles shared in this case study which you may like to consider.
I want to learn about Sausages, Cybermen and Scotland - Personalising Learning in Mixed Age Classes using floor planning books
“If we believe that children possess their own theories, interpretations and questions, and are protagonists in knowledge-building processes, then the most important verbs in educational practice are no longer just ‘to talk’, ‘to explain’ or ‘to transmit’ ...but ‘to listen’. Listening means being open to others and what they have to say, listening to the hundred (and more) languages, with all our senses”
Carlina Rinaldi
13. Make learning fun!
“Play is an essential ingredient in the curriculum which should be fun and stimulating. Well-planned play helps children to think and make sense of the world around them.”
Play/Active Learning - Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills (Wales)
To what extent do you:
- ensure a continual focus on the characteristics of effective learning to ensure that the curriculum is engaging and motivating for children?
- provide several opportunities for children to engage in sustained learning through self-chosen play?
- ensure children lead their own learning and empower children to make authentic choices which are meaningful and have impact on their learning?
How do you ensure that all children continue to be interested, excited and motivated to learn, and can engage and make good progress? If you were a child in your class, how excited would you be by the opportunities for learning?
Resources
Why fun in learning is important!
- Article exploring the science of fun in learning. Fun has a positive effect on motivation levels, determining what we learn and how much we retain. Learning isn’t a one-off event. It requires repetition and dedication. If the experience is fun, learners will stay curious and keep coming back for more.
The Neuroscience of Joyful Education
- Brain research tells us that when the fun stops, learning often stops too.
Why Play Matters - Family Lives website
- Play and learning cannot be divided during a child’s earliest years. Play underpins all aspects of children’s learning and development. This article, aimed at parents, explores the importance of how children learn through play.
Following children’s interests - Early Education
- We are statutorily obliged to provide experiences which are based on children's interests. Sometimes the children have interests that we feel uncomfortable with. As professionals we need to be able to identify what this is for each of us and then find ways of feeling more comfortable with it. Interests are useful for motivating the children and providing them with meaningful opportunities for learning.
Engaging Boys in the Early Years - The experiences of three Islington settings
“If I have not yet learned to love Darth Vader, I have at least made some useful discoveries while watching him play. As I interrupt less, it becomes clear that boys play is serious drama, not morbid mischief. Its rhythms and images are often discordant to me but I must try to make sense of a style that, after all, belongs to half the population of the classroom.”
Boys and girls in the doll corner, Vivienne Gussin Paley
I want to learn about Sausages, Cybermen and Scotland - Personalising Learning in Mixed Age Classes using floor planning books
“If we believe that children possess their own theories, interpretations and questions, and are protagonists in knowledge-building processes, then the most important verbs in educational practice are no longer just ‘to talk’, ‘to explain’ or ‘to transmit’ ...but ‘to listen’. Listening means being open to others and what they have to say, listening to the hundred (and more) languages, with all our senses”
Carlina Rinaldi
- The ‘Outdoor learning publication’ contains practical ideas to inspire and support the development of outdoor provision.
Putting the ‘Wow’ into Early Writing Development
-
Inspiring young children to become writers. A community of practice approach to developing ‘writing in the early years’ involving Leicestershire Schools, Leicestershire Local Authority, LEEP and the University of Northampton.
Leap into Writing: Creative Ideas to support Early Writing Development
- A series of posters designed by Leicestershire Reception Teachers, to document inspirational starting points which have formed the basis for young children’s writing.