Forest school teacher
This is an abridged version of Ready to Learn? Identifying the skills pre-school children need to thrive in formal education by outdoor learning officer and qualified Forest School teacher, Andrea Duxbury. For her fellowship, Duxbury visited Belgium and the Netherlands in 2023 to try to understand what they see as being vital in their early years programmes to ensure children thrive at school and are able to achieve their potential.
This article summarises findings from one of the key themes from Duxbury's Fellowship report: how a more gradual approach to transition from early years learning to formal education as used in Belgium could help children's development.
CHILDHOOD ATTAINMENT
Closing the attainment and education gap is of concern to many countries and the need for good early childhood education and care is being widely addressed with policies and support that aim to change outcomes.
There has been considerable research demonstrating that children who fall behind in the early years will never catch up. It's also been shown that the years before school are the most significant period, where closing the gap is possible. Inequalities in the early years persist through primary school, into secondary school and beyond.
The Covid-19 pandemic made this inequality worse. The lockdowns, home education, lack of facilities, resources, equipment and teaching skills have all widened the gap and there have been deterioration of mental health and wellbeing of primary age children.
These factors combined have heightened the concern that children from poorer social and economic backgrounds are falling behind from their youngest days, with huge implications for lifelong outcomes, not only employment but also wellbeing and health.
The Covid-19 catch up programmes for the youngest children largely focused on visible academic skills: early reading, writing and even holding a pen, counting. However, there is considerable evidence that the loss of the so called softer skills, such as social interaction, emotional behaviours and language has had a detrimental effect on development in the early years and beyond because these abilities are essential to engaging and learning the easily measurable prioritised goals.
ENGLAND CONTEXT
England's Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) imposes its own challenges, which do not always allow practitioners to put children at the heart of the system. The original teaching practice in these years, based on a sound understanding of “child development” and learning through play has changed to include more formal teaching as well as summative targets. There is still a division in training and expectation between child care and child education.
Over the past 20 years the transition process to formal school has also changed. Transition took place over weeks, even months developing a child's confidence and stamina. “Learning through play” pedagogy prevailed and this blended into the early part of year one, when most children are still only five. The transition at both stages tried to incorporate flexibility in learning, to reflect age and development. The demands of today's system in part driven by Ofsted's clearly stated issues with “play” as learning, means transition is usually condensed into less than two weeks in September, with a few hours in Reception moving up sessions in the summer term.
BELGIUM CONTEXT
In Belgium children can join, what in the UK we call pre-school, from 30 months old – before that it is viewed as childcare. Pre-school attendance is a requirement linked to parental benefits. The number of days children have to go to pre-school is linked to the school supplement parents receive. Schools receive funding for regular attendees.
Pre-schoolers must attend school for a minimum number of days – 100 half days for those aged 30 months; 150 half days for three-year-olds; 185 half days from four years; and 290 half days from five years. Children move through the system as they are ready and can repeat years. The percentage of children not attending pre-school is the lowest in Europe. Belgium also has one of the longest histories of pre-school for working parents.
The pre-school system has a “learning through play” pedagogy, with experiential learning and as they move through the system, developing skills for formal education. Attendance is around 97% but specifying how many sessions, or for how long each child attends is not clear.
CITY OF GHENT APPROACH
Onderwijscentrum Gent (Ghent Centre for Educational Services) is part of the City Department of Education, Upbringing and Youth. Onderwijscentrum Gent “supports, connects and inspires children, parents, education professionals and their partners, to ensure that all children have the necessary chances and opportunities to develop themselves, in order to participate fully in society”.
The city has three main family support centres whose focus is preventative care and support including school transition guidance. Each centre has health visitors, family advisers and other key individuals based at them. Ghent Education centre also has “brugfiguren”– bridge-individuals – to link schools and families. Schools can apply for three years of support to link school/teacher with parent/child, to ensure that children get the best start in life. The city of Ghent is typical of Belgian education with a system of pre-school, kindergarten and school that ensures children can be supported from age two.
KEY FINDINGS
Language and communication are key in early childhood education and care. The pre-schools visited integrated a wide range of different speech and language elements in their day: rhyme, song, story and modelling. All emphasised that language and communication are integral to learning. Each pre-school day had a structure of routine daily choice and activity based on building skills. For example building a rocket started with a class discussion sharing ideas and requirements, then children drew the rocket and with help labelled the materials they would use and then made the rocket. Each stage was child lead and also recorded by the children in whatever way they could: drawings, words, letters and annotated by the adults.
In Freinetschool De Vlieger (Ghent) years overlap, development stage rather than age is seen as key. One of the connections across their time there was a book of their activities which also acted as a home-school link. The child or family recorded events at home in it which would be shared at given times in the school and used as a baseline for discussions. As they progressed it remained the focal point for sharing and recording and it left with the child at the end of their primary school. The “sharing time” also continued and became more developed with school time, personal news becoming only one of a number of topics they would be expected to speak on: for example, researching a news item. They built and developed communication skills throughout school.
Kindergarten De Bollekens, also in Ghent, is a more traditional pre-school, but again children lead the choosing of activities, ideas and interaction which are scaff olded where needed and free flow allowed. Central to the day is a sharing session (like circle time in the UK), singing with individual and group activities and sharing in age-appropriate ways. In the UK, teachers always strive for child-led practice but realistically the autumn term assessments set the drivers for children who may just be four.
Professor Paul Leseman from Utrecht University found that the complexity of language that a child grows up with, links to how the child performs at school. Children from a multilingual background with parents who have completed more education, whatever their first language, tend to do better at school than those with parents with a more limited education. Exploration and child-led investigation can also drive a demand for language to explain or request.
ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSIONS
The research used desk and project visit methods to look for universal themes. A developmental driven approach helps to ensure a child is able to cope with the rigours of schooling; formal schooling starting later is also common and a staggered start is also more common to reflect the variations in child development. A secure, loving and supportive homelife and a school system that works for and with the child are clearly important. Professor Leseman was very clear that the greatest chance of closing the attainment gap is by the end of a child's third year. After that, the best outcome is to hold the position – in the UK, the gap by the end of secondary school is nearly two years for some children.
Many of my findings are dispersed through the EYFS applied by dedicated practioners who believe in the original ethos. However, the focus on measurable school skills means priorities are diluted and learning outcomes curtail developmental learning.
Resilient supported children are more likely to achieve their potential at school and beyond. Pre-school children need support for curiosity (growth mindset), strong and positive self-views, age-appropriate complex communication and language – focused on interaction and engagement – diverse motor competency, including risky play and physical challenge, reflect what we know of child development.
WHAT NEXT?
I plan to test the ideas in a pilot. As an outdoor educator, physical competency and challenge and language development work better outside, so the pilot will be outdoors – research shows young children use five times more words outside. Over six weeks, working with local specialists to identify families who will benefit from this approach, activities including a simple obstacle course will form part of each session. Children will choose their own activity and interaction alongside a parent or carer. There will be light touch support from the leader. Activities for the adults and children encouraging use of “can-do” language and child-led learning. Each session will include story and language, songs and music, risky play and physical challenges.
ABOUT THE CHURCHILL FELLOWSHIP
The Churchill Fellowship is a national network of 3,800 inspiring individuals whose mission is to find the world's best solutions for the UK's current challenges.
Up to 150 Churchill Fellows are funded each year to visit the world's leading practitioners and projects on a topic of their choice – from social policy to healthcare to education and more – and bring back new ideas for their communities and sectors across the UK.
Any UK adult citizen can apply, regardless of qualifications, background or age. Fellows are chosen for their potential as change-makers, not their past track record or status.
Find out about fellows and their ideas at www.churchillfellowship.org
