Planning in the Moment with Two and Three Year Olds

Child-initiated Play in Action

Anna Ephgrave

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367140151
• eBook ISBN: 9780429639036
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

Children are most engaged – and therefore learn best – when they are following their own interests. In this book, Anna Ephgrave shows how her acclaimed 'planning in the moment' approach can be used with two and three year olds with dramatic results for both children and staff. It reveals the impact that free-flowing, child-initiated play has on very young children's wellbeing, making them feel safe, secure and consequently helping them to be fully engaged in their learning.

The first part of the book clearly explains the principles of child-initiated play and demonstrates how practitioners can create the best possible environment for very young children, also looking at the resources and practices that need to be in place for them to flourish. There is detailed guidance on the role of the practitioner, including how adults should observe children's play, before deciding how – or if – to interact in that moment to ensure that each interaction moves learning forward and supports the child's unique development. The second part of the book tracks some of the events from each month in the toddler room of an outstanding preschool, following a cohort of children through a year, to show how the setting moved from topic-based, adult-led activities to a fully child-led way of working.

Key features include:

• Over 350 full colour photos to illustrate practice
• Specific guidance on using the 'in the moment' approach with all children, including those with additional needs
• Advice on working with parents, individual children and groups
• Examples of individual learning journeys
• Photocopiable templates of 'focus-child' sheets

Covering all aspects of practice from the organization of the room and outdoor environment to the routines and boundaries that ensure children are safe and happy, this book is essential reading for anyone who works with two and three year olds.

PART I

Key principles

1 Child-initiated play – why?

As you read this book, you will see that I am suggesting that young children should be having ‘child-initiated’ play for as much of the time as possible that they are in a setting. This chapter will explain briefly why child-initiated play is so powerful and will also begin to consider how complex it is to organise well. This is not an easy option. Anyone who has spent time with one young child at home will realise how powerful their exploratory drive is at this age. It is exhausting to spend time with a 2-year-old – allowing them to lead the play and activity – and all the time keeping them safe, keeping them engaged, coping with their physical needs, coping with the inevitable ‘mess’. Imagine if you have 20 or more children in one space, with just one adult to four children and with the added pressure of record keeping, assessment and tracking. For every child to be able to initiate their own play is hugely complex, and the following chapters will explain in greater detail how best to organise this. The chapters will also give some detailed examples of the play that occurred with the 2–3s at Staple Hill Stars. Another strong message in the book is that we must prioritise where we put our effort and time, and this must be based on prioritising those things that will have most impact on the children. You will begin to see that any paperwork needs to be minimised so that the staff are free to spend time ensuring the well-being and engagement of the children.

In order to understand why child-initiated play is so important, I am going to give a brief introduction to brain development. When a child’s brain develops, they are learning and developing. It is important to have a simple and clear rationale to explain why we are supporting child-initiated play, and the link to brain development can help with this.

Brain development

If you ever visit a setting, I would advise that you look at the children. Observe them in the setting. Observe them for quite a while. Observe different children at different times of the session/day and in different areas of the setting. In the best settings, visitors always comment about how ‘calm and purposeful’ the children are. This is actually a comment about the amount of brain development that is occurring – that is, the amount of learning. It is also a comment about the high well-being and involvement of the children. The children are happy (meaning that they feel secure in the setting), and they are engaged (the setting has an environment and staff who are meeting their needs). If you are visiting in the period when children are being settled, then you might see less engagement, because the children have not yet settled and do not yet feel secure and therefore cannot relax and engage with what is on offer.

Throughout this book, whenever I use the word engaged, I mean Level 4 or 5 involvement as described by Ferre Laevers – see in the next section and in Appendix A.

Ferre Laevers

Level of involvement

Involvement focuses on the extent to which pupils are operating to their full capabilities. In particular it refers to whether the child is focused, engaged and interested in various activities.

The Leuven Scale for Involvement

1. 1 Low activity
   Activity at this level can be simple, stereotypic, repetitive and passive. The child is absent and displays no energy. There is an absence of cognitive demand. The child characteristically may stare into space. NB: This may be a sign of inner concentration.
2. 2 A frequently interrupted activity
   The child is engaged in an activity, but half of the observed period includes moments of non-activity, in which the child is not concentrating and is staring into space. There may be frequent interruptions in the child’s concentration, but his/her involvement is not enough to return to the activity.
3. 3 Mainly continuous activity
   The child is busy at an activity, but it is at a routine level, and the real signals for involvement are missing. There is some progress, but energy is lacking and concentration is at a routine level. The child can be easily distracted.
4. 4 Continuous activity with intense moments
   The child’s activity has intense moments during which activities at Level 3 can come to have special meaning. Level 4 is reserved for the kind of activity seen in those intense moments, and can be deduced from the ‘involvement signals’. This level of activity is resumed after interruptions. Stimuli from the surrounding environment, however attractive, cannot seduce the child away from the activity.
5. 5 Sustained intense activity
   The child shows continuous and intense activity, revealing the greatest involvement. In the observed period, not all the signals for involvement need be there, but the essential ones must be present: concentration, creativity, energy and persistence. This intensity must be present for almost all the observation period.

Engagement is the key indicator about the quality of any setting – a measure of how much learning is happening at any time. Once a young child has settled, then if the environment is appropriate, they will become engaged.

We know intuitively that our vision is to get all children engaged. Our intuition is justified and now we need to articulate the underlying rationale for this belief:

When children are deeply engaged, their brain is developing and new synapses are forming – that is, they are making progress – they are learning

We also know that a child who is bored, passive, quiet and not engaged is not making progress – their brain is not growing when they are in that state. We do not need to carry out an experiment to prove this. Brain scans demonstrate this clearly and the long-term effects of low engagement have been demonstrated in the case of the Romanian orphans who were born in the ’70s and ’80s.

We must also recognise and believe that every child wants to be engaged. If we have children who are not engaged, we cannot blame them. We must look to see what we can do to engage them. The work of Professor Ferre Laevers is complimented by the work of Bowlby and supports the approach and beliefs that I observe in practitioners all over the world. Bowlby was one of the first people to write about attachment theory, and his ideas have been adapted and developed by numerous psychologists and authors since. These theories can be presented in various ways, but in simple terms, babies need to form trusting relationships at a young age. This then allows them to be in a ‘secure’ state in which their natural desire to learn and develop can be optimised. Anything which disrupts this state will alter the chemical make-up in the brain and hinder development. Thus, the developmentally inappropriate practice of formalised, adult-led learning that is being imposed on so many young children is actually preventing the very development that these practices are supposed to promote. In some settings that cater for 2-year-olds, they are being treated in the same way as much older children. It is always preferable to observe the child in front of you, assess what they need in that moment and respond to them in a developmentally appropriate way.

Levels of involvement

Ferre Laevers has developed descriptors for various levels of involvement, and these can be used as a simple, objective way of measuring the engagement of an individual, group or class. The descriptors are given above and in Appendix A. I have often shown these to external inspectors and their response is that Level 5 (with concentration, creativity, energy and persistence) is equivalent to an ‘outstanding’ grade.

There are many ways in which these levels of involvement can be used:

Individual children

As mentioned earlier, we start with the assumption that all children want to be engaged, that is, they want to be at Level 5. In a superb setting, if a child is not becoming engaged, then the descriptors can be used to monitor a child throughout a day or a week at regular intervals in order to uncover patterns or preferences. Always bear...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Key principles
• Part II In Action
• Appendix A: Levels of involvement
• Appendix B: Biscuits
• Appendix C: Cake recipe book
• Appendix D: I am 2
• Appendix E: Focus child sheet
• Appendix F: Learning Journey
• Appendix G: Learning Journey for a child with additional needs
• Appendix H: New Learning Journey
• Appendix I: Ofsted definition of teaching
• Appendix J: Suppliers
• Appendix K: Play dough
• Bibliography
• Index