This is a guest blog written by Sarah Smith
Sarah originally trained as a social worker before becoming and Early Years teacher. She currently works full-time as an EY and Y1 teacher in a small village school. She is also the SENCo at her school.
You can find Sarah on Threads: sarah.smithette
This blog was edited by Gemma Molyneux. Find out more about Gemma on this page.
Glitter everywhere, snotty noses, constant noise and mess. Welcome to Early Years!
I’ve heard a lot of fellow teachers (primary and secondary) say that they couldn’t do it. The patience and positivity needed to teach the youngest children draws a unique kind of educator that’s for sure. I’ve worked in Early Years for around 12 years and I maintain that it’s my favourite part of school to work in – you genuinely couldn’t pay me to teach Key Stage 2, let alone secondary school!
The Early Years Foundation Stage framework offers children the chance to learn in a creative and child-led manner. It puts equal emphasis on Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Expressive Arts and Design, as it does Literacy and Maths. It relies on children choosing activities that are pre-designed to support their learning. Teacher assessment is based around observations of the children and deep knowledge of their learning, not by conducting tests or marking books.
So why do we lose this the moment we hit the National Curriculum?
If you’re lucky then your school might give Year 1 children access to some continuous provision, but beyond that, we move to desks and structured lessons. We teach children more Literacy and Maths than everything else combined. We expect them to want to learn the content that a group of adults decided almost a decade ago. We begin to assess based on marked books and standardised tests that rarely reflect the true character of a child.
As teachers, it’s out of our control. We’re bound by the pressures of the National Curriculum, the doom-inducing stress of Ofsted (don’t get me started!), and the ever-growing expectations of whichever Education Secretary we’ve got this year.
But imagine, for a minute, if those things weren’t in place…what would your classroom and curriculum look like? My guess is that it would include a more balanced curriculum, the chance for children to pursue projects that interest them, and time to build relationships with children rather than just mark their work.
I imagine that it might just look a lot like an Early Years classroom (with a little less snot).
Now obviously we haven’t got a magic wand and those pressures and constraints aren’t going anywhere. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something to be learnt from Early Years classrooms.
I recently had the opportunity to put this into practice in my school. One of my colleagues teaches a mixed KS2 class with a high level of pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN). She was rearranging her classroom in the holidays and trying to work out how on earth to make it work for a group of neurodiverse children who don’t learn in the traditional way. She turned to me and said, “what would you do?”
Well, she didn’t need to ask me twice!
Grouped tables
My first suggestion was to group her tables and be flexible with seating plans. This would allow the pupils to work collaboratively and to change their groups based on subject and interest. It also created a helpful set up for the staff in the room as they’d be able to work with groups of pupils and support multiple needs, rather than sitting next to one child on the end of a row.
Book Corner
I know this isn’t that unusual to have in Key Stage 2 but it can sometimes get squeezed out or become less appealing. It’s also about how the teacher chooses to manage it. I worked in one school where they had a book corner, except the children weren’t allowed to read there. They had to go and select a book and then take it back to their desks. That’s a library, not a book corner. If you want to encourage a love of reading, then the book corner can be a place where children can go when they’ve finished their tasks. Somewhere they can sit and read during quiet reading time. A place that has a range of books and reading materials based on their ability and interests.
Continuous provision
Since I can’t change the National Curriculum, there will be many times in the day when children need to take part in lessons that have a pre-set curriculum. But what about when they finish the task, or early morning maths work, or those 10 minutes at the end of the day when you’re trying to get everyone sorted for home? Could there be some practical activities in your classroom based on the children’s interests, that will also extend their learning?
In my Early Years classroom, I’ll have half a dozen different activities out during the week. These are games, puzzles or activities that have been carefully selected to mirror the curriculum content I want the children to learn but in a way that is interesting to the children. For example, I have a child who is struggling with pencil grip but adores safari animals. So I put a large piece of sugar paper out and a pile of safari animal stencils with some exciting new felt tips…he spent the majority of the day with a pen in his hand.
There are so many maths games for KS2- what if you had a table with dice and pens and dominoes on? Then when the children have finished their work, they could play a game that gets them practising their times tables! It’s more interesting and exciting than another worksheet that’s for sure. Plus, the children are choosing it and taking responsibility for their own learning.
Carpet area
Again, I know this exists in some KS2 classrooms but it didn’t in my colleagues before this term, so it was my final suggestion. Especially in a classroom full of pupils with SEN, where many need to be able to move and fidget, a carpet area is a game-changer. What if you allowed them to sit on the floor and move a bit? We don’t want to distract other pupils from their learning, and we need children to be respectful and listen to adults when they’re teaching, but perhaps they’re more capable of listening to you if you’re sitting on the carpet with them and you’re talking as a group about fronted adverbials. Maybe you even have a practical demonstration you can show them on the floor.
“What can I do next?” I hear you ask!
As an Early Years teacher, I will often go to my KS1 and KS2 colleague to ask for their support and ideas in specific subjects such as history, geography, ICT…I recognise that they teach those subjects to a greater depth and have knowledge to offer. Equally, your Early Years colleagues have a depth of knowledge about child-led learning and engaging classrooms…so maybe you could ask them for their ideas too?
In my dream world, we’d all have the opportunity to design our topics around the children’s interests. We’d ditch the testing and marking and spend time learning alongside children. All classrooms would have some short times of teaching input and then classrooms filled with activities, books, and resources so that the children could create their own projects. All classrooms would also have outdoor spaces that children can access throughout the day.
But since we’re not there yet- can I suggest you put on some glittery glasses and look at your pupils and classrooms with an Early Years tinted view? In my experience, it’ll increase pupil engagement and decrease your stress levels!