An invitation to speak at the Early Arts UnConference at the MAC in Birmingham led to my reflecting back on why I started to investigate cultural capital as a core of the LEYF learning approach. This was long before the days of the EYFS, so the raft of information, guidance and research we have since developed was in short supply. However, Europe and New Zealand was a great source of information for me, and I looked there for proof that children would benefit greatly from a culturally enriched environment.  My hypothesis was that creativity was built by being with people who could translate it in many ways.

It all became real for me when we introduced classical music at sleep time, and a little girl with a fairly difficult home life sat bolt upright when she heard the first blasts of Handel’s Water Music, saying “It’s like God’s music”. She was an immediate convert to Handel, and I was an immediate convert to the notion of cultural entitlement.

It is true that most learning happens at home, but a good education can open your eyes and bring new ideas and a new world into that home. Education is part of culture and cannot be divested from it, as culture is transmitted through children. It’s why the home learning environment is a key element of the LEYF social impact model.   I was lucky to get a good convent education, and the nuns (for all their faults and fury) introduced me to Jane Austen, Michelangelo, Stravinsky and Miles Davis. This opened up a whole new world for me which I never would have received at home;   my curiosity then grew and developed, albeit more slowly for genres such as opera and modern art, and more quickly for dance and literature.

So what does a cultural entitlement look like? Howard Gardner summed it up perfectly when he said that every child has a spark inside them, but it’s our responsibility to find what will ignite that spark.

I hopefully regaled the Birmingham audience with stories and photos of how to enrich and embed daily activities with a touch of magic. Extended language, arts and crafts, music, singing, poetry, drama, food, outings, galleries, museums, theatre, art exhibitions, science, shopping and eating;  all daily activities with which a stretch and a twist can open a new world for our children. The core impulse for a human mind is to learn and use all kinds of experiences, and then to learn what other people label them. Fostering creativity is fundamentally important, because creativity brings with it the ability to question, make connections, innovate, problem solve, communicate, collaborate and to reflect critically. All of which is vital for all children to be able to play their part in their rapidly changing world.

According to the Henley Report, by the time a child has reached seven years, the minimum level of cultural education they should have experienced through school is to have regularly read books and taken part in storytelling, arts and crafts, singing, music and dance. They should also have visited art galleries, theatre, cinema, museums, libraries and heritage sites. The new EYFS states that expressive arts needs to contribute to children succeeding in the three prime areas. (PSE, CLL and Physical in case you had forgotten!)

The importance of having a creative staff who can embellish and fascinate children by using imagination, creativity and all the arts available as part of children’s daily lives is what matters. Research is particularly clear about the importance of language. We know that children who have a grasp of formal language, rather than being restricted to informal language, are at an enormous advantage in the education system. Low level and limited vocabulary and poor management of grammar limits children and reduces their expression of analytical and abstract ideas and arguments. We also know reading is key to helping us transmit content, vocabulary and styles of expression which in turn helps develop linguistic fluency, a fundamental skill and one that is well rewarded in school.  We know that broadening a child’s horizons and experiences, which extend and challenge them, takes them further up their zone of proximal development.  So who are we to limit children by being unable or unwilling to teach and extend their vocabulary, literacy and world view by failing to use the vast array of creative resources, opportunities and teaching methods available to us?  Why should Hannah be deprived of ever hearing “God’s Music”? A learning approach needs to be based on the principles of cultural entitlement, not as a nice thing to do now and then, but as the basis of all that goes on in the nursery.

There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: one is roots, the other is wings.

Hodding Carter

Let me know your thoughts, and how you make cultural capital an every day reality in your setting, in the comment area below.

I must admit that I was slightly worried about the Olympics. Not quite a naysayer but wary all the same. Like all ex Girl Guides, I had us planning from April and was willing to buy campbeds so staff could stay the night. Fortunately, we needed none of this.  Instead of the increase in traffic we saw a 30% reduction. It was blissful. Public transport was brilliant and everything ran like clockwork. So well done to everyone. Only now, as the first step in the Olympic legacy, please can we keep the same traffic systems so travel and traffic life will never go back to normal?

[gigya src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649" width="350" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=/photos/LEYF/sets/72157631046206392/show/&page_show_back_url=/photos/LEYF/sets/72157631046206392/&set_id=72157631046206392/&jump_to=" allowFullScreen="true" ]

Contrast this time last year; a far cry from the public support and camaraderie of this past two weeks. The same visitors, delighted by this year’s Londoners friendliness, were watching in horror last summer as many young people tried to burn their own neighbourhoods. This year there are no flaming buildings or police in riot gear, but instead London is being congratulated by Olympic visitors for the tolerance and patience of both local citizens and volunteers, not to mention sensitive and effective policing. I’ve just been listening to Luis Fernandez, Deputy Minister of Sport in Brazil on Radio 4, confirm this view of the London Olympics; referring to G4S security management as the only disaster. (Note to UK Government – consider more social businesses for such contracts. Look how well GLL managed their contract at the Aquatic Centre; that would be another great legacy.)

So, better systems to reduce traffic would be one legacy, more social enterprises contracted to run national events would be another legacy. The third would be getting sport and sporting behaviour more effectively embedded in school life. (Ironically, less traffic might mean more children playing out, and so running about getting fit.)

And now physical is a prime subject in the revised EYFS, we better start with the earliest years and the youngest children; it would be good for our staff too.   Either way, given that apparently the whole nation is plagued with obesity, poor attitude, poor spatial awareness and fear of risk and competition, it seems almost a miracle that we ended up third in the medal league with a record 65 medals – our best record yet!

Tessa Jowell, the shadow Olympics minister, has very sensibly called for cross-party consensus on a 10-year plan to build on the public enthusiasm for sport after London 2012:

One of the reasons the Olympics have been so successful in their planning and execution is that all the parties have worked together in the national interest, built a national consensus about how to deliver the Olympics. I think that sense of unity of purpose should be applied to delivering this legacy.

What a good idea; anything that avoids the unhelpful and sometimes juvenile bickering that gets in the way of great ideas. That said, there is already a lot of bickering among the parties about selling off sports fields. I do hope that their idea of a legacy will ensure that every child has the opportunity to play a range of sport and not just fixate on two hours a week chasing a ball around a field. I might have got more into sport if I could have learned tennis or handball instead of the obligatory Camogie, a ball game with the associated elements of kamikaze.

In her comments, Jowell highlighted the wider benefits of sport for children – from improved behaviour, attendance and punctuality to evidence of better academic results. Others link sport and the Olympics with national identity. These may all be true and relevant, but when they are touched by the politics wand, the fairy dust quickly becomes sawdust, as politics always manages to kill dead any spontaneous enthusiasm and groundswell action. My heart sinks when I hear fun activities linked to bigger moral and social forces. It’s probably how many small children feel when showing a painting to the teacher.  She responds earnestly with “Tallulah, how lovely – do tell me all about your painting.” “Oh God,” thinks Tallulah, “just say you like it and let me be.”

So let the legacy be that we held a great event. London was exemplary and preparation counted for a lot. We pulled together and supported the athletes with great warmth and enthusiasm. We watched many young people show us how to be good at something. We recognised the coaches and those quiet supporters that help people achieve. We liked what we saw, and we want more of it; we want our children to be able to do this more easily. Let’s open our hearts and our pockets and make it happen, but leave the grandstanding and the politics on the side-lines.

Ofsted gets a mixed reaction from the sector.  It can bring you out in a rash or a hot sweat, but it can also be a very helpful and useful experience. I think we have now had about 50 inspections across LEYF, and of varying quality. The first one was led by Jim Rose back in 1997, when Westminster was a pilot; I remember him refusing lunch in case it constituted a bribe, and instead sticking with his banana.

Inspecting the Early Years

Ofsted is now under new leadership, so in keeping with the arrival of a new leader, we see a bit of a shake-up; and in the true spirit of change management, we start with a consultation.  (This one has just begun, and we have until Friday 6 April 2012 to share our views.)

The changes are to coincide with the revised EYFS, which the Government intends to publish in September. And so this will be a busy and interesting time for those of us due to be inspected around that time.  In the case of LEYF that is about three nurseries.

Over the years we have known a raft of different Ofsted experiences; some good and some pretty terrible. Success always lies with the attitude, personality and competence of the inspector and how they interpret the guidance. Some inspectors bring intelligence, knowledge and sensitivity to the process, whilst others are jobsworths in their approach and get a reaction similar to Marmite: you either love it or hate it.

With the new EYFS emphasising personal, social and emotional learning, communication and physical development, I hope we see inspectors well versed in knowing how to judge the opportunities and experiences the children receive to develop in all those areas, especially the two year olds. Hopefully, that would mean more inspections held with staff and children rather than looking at paperwork.  Many a time I hauled inspectors, anxiously filling in long reports in the office, outside to see children in action.

The consultation wants to ensure inspections reports are helpful to parents.  In that case, they need to be written in a way that tells parents something useful.  Nowadays, inspection reports are so anodyne they tell you next to nothing.

Finally – and this is just a starter for ten – I hope they dump ‘satisfactory’ as a category; it’s so dull and depressing, and just makes one feel lacking and limp.  (Let’s not forget how very important outcomes are for morale and affirmation.)

Of course, there is and should be a monetary factor attached to an Ofsted judgement these days, with some local authorities giving extra funding for good or outstanding  outcomes when allocating the NEG; for example, 40 pence extra per child per hour for getting an outstanding can help make the NEG add up to the real cost of the place.

There is much more to say about Ofsted, and so we must all respond to the consultation. If it was up to me, I would give it back to the Queen and make it Her Majesty’s Inspectorate; an independent, high calibre service staffed with highly intelligent, experienced and capable inspectors. It might give it back its credibility and potency … but hey, imagine the cost!

The Department for Education and the Department of Health have published the Government’s vision for the foundation years.  In their own words…

It is designed to describe the Government’s vision to everyone who commissions, leads and delivers services for mothers and fathers during pregnancy and for very young children, to the age of five.

Specifically, this vision includes:

• Families in the Foundation Years – a comprehensive overview of the Government’s vision for the system of services that supports parents, from pregnancy to age 5;
• Supporting Families in the Foundation Years – a downloadable PDF for commissioners and the Early Years workforce setting out how they can deliver on the Government’s vision for foundation years services;
• Foundation Years Evidence Pack – another downloadable PDF setting out the evidence underpinning the Government’s vision;
• www.foundationyears.org.uk – a parent friendly website with resources and links to help mothers and fathers who care for babies and young children.

Again, in their own words…

Taken together these documents constitute the Government’s response to the Graham Allen MP, Frank Field MP and Dame Clare Tickell recommendations where they relate to the foundation years.

These publications emphasise the vital role that skilled and knowledgeable professionals and strong leadership play across the foundation years.

This requires a framework of high-standard qualifications that meet the needs of employers, and equip early education professionals to support young children’s development.

I have to own up to playing my part in creating this new vision, as I sat on the Steering Group which produced the final document – an interesting experience, and I have to say also generally a very positive one.

As individual members of this group, we were invited because of our expertise in different areas, and so all had a view to share.  As a group, I was quite impressed with how we managed to suspend our personal passion and paranoia and got on with the job in hand.  The method of steering used was referred to as co-production (not an elegant phrase), but simply meant we would work alongside each other and as many others as possible to create the final document.  Perhaps more crucially, it promises an ongoing process that needs to be continued to make the document come to life.

In the report there are boxes which focus on areas that need more attention.  There are certainly areas that I feel need further attention and, in the spirit of co-production, I hope many people will offer their views, advice and research.

For example, I think we need to strengthen the importance of the under 2s, bearing in mind 2 year olds are little more than babies and so balance what we think they need.  I would also like to see much more explanation about the concept of school readiness, as this could be much mis-interpreted and fail to recognise the Froebellian principle, that childhood is a time in its own right (and so not pre anything), and that schools need to be just as ready as the children.  My view that children are better off in nurseries until they are at least five years does not always gain the support of colleagues, but I hold fast to the idea.

Elsewhere, I am delighted to see that qualifications are to be examined as part of a review led by Professor Cathy Nutbrown, ensuring practitioners access the right qualifications suitable for the task in hand – but realise this is no mean feat.  We have been tinkering with qualifications since 1992, with the introduction of the National Vocational Qualifications, and have never managed to satisfy everyone and keep costs low, and this tension will remain.  So good luck to Professor Nutbrown, and let’s hope there is enough co-production – involving everyone from apprentice to employer – to balance the response.

Finally, leadership needs some input.  At LEYF the graduate leadership initiative has worked well for us, with 40 staff recently completing their Foundation Degrees.  Like anything, much of what you learn is only as good as the teacher who teaches you, and so we need to keep our eye on quality and not all rush to offer the newest product because it brings gold and glitter.  In principle, I am keen to support the continuation of the graduate leader; I have yet to measure its impact with our staff, but anecdotally feel it has boosted their confidence and got them reflecting more.  One thing we must build into leading and managing programmes is some teaching about how to run a successful setting from a business perspective, as this very important strand rarely features.  Unpopular as this may be, without it we will soon be without nurseries to provide children with their Early Years care and education.

In summary, I hope people will make the time to read and properly digest the document, and then take up the offer to help co-produce the next set of policies which will shape the services we all provide.  In my view, the broader the contribution we all make, the more likely policy will need to reflect the views and needs of practitioners who will make it happen on the ground.

Our own apprentices are being introduced to policy reviews and ways of engaging from day one, and their understanding of the role of Government and policy makers is greater and more confident as a result.  This can surely only be a good thing, as the best policies are those designed from two perspectives; research and practice, interwoven into a coherent and effective, jargon-free set of activities and behaviour.

This week we received the official recommendations from the Review of the Early Years Foundation Stage led by Dame Clare Tickell.  It’s quite a relief that the sector was listened to and the suggested changes are sensible and not radical.

In reality, most of us in the Early Years had made a hand of the curriculum. In fact 82% of people who contributed to the review agreed in principle with the EYFS. We liked the way it integrated the Birth to Three with the Foundation Stage and who could object to the four principles: A Unique Child, Positive Relationships, Enabling Environments and Learning and Development.

Of course, some things can be improved.  At LEYF we thought the EYFS could be slimmer, repetition could be reduced and the difference between statutory guidance and framework clarified (a confusion that was often graphically highlighted durng Ofsted inspections). We also wanted physical to be known as health and wellbeing and were keen that transitions were better developed.  In this respect, the effort we put into creating wonderful Learning Journeys is sadly still rejected by many schools on the basis they will do their own assessment; to think nothing of the three years we have cared and educated the child (it must be how some parents feel when nurseries treat them as if they have nothing to offer).

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.992561&w=425&h=350&fv=offsite%3Dtrue%26lang%3Den-us%26flickr_notracking%3Dtrue%26flickr_target%3D_self%26nsid%3D40734920%40N08%26textV%3D66488%26ispro%3D1%26%26set_id%3D72157624199878531%26page_show_back_url%3D%252Fphotos%252Fleyf%252Fsets%252F72157624199878531%252F%26page_show_url%3D%252Fphotos%252Fleyf%252Fsets%252F72157624199878531%252Fshow%252F%26minH%3D100%26minW%3D100]

So, let’s see what Dame Clare and her noteworthy colleagues – including our own patron, Chris Pascal, Director of Centre for Research in Early Childhood - have come up with…

• The original six areas of learning are to be replaced with seven areas. Of these, the first three, prime areas are: communication and language; personal, social and emotional development; and physical development.  The remaining four areas are: literacy, mathematics, expressive arts and design, then understanding the world.
• The original 69 Early Learning Goals are to be reduced to 17.
• Early Years practitioners are to carry out a child development check with children between 24 and 36 months of age. A summary report of this check should be included in the ‘red book‘, which all parents are given and kept alongside their child’s health records.
• The Early Years Foundation Stage Profile will be ‘slimmed down’ to take account of changes to the number of Early Learning Goals. The EYFS Profile should include a simple scale to measure whether children’s learning and development at the age of five is emerging, expected or exceeding the Early Learning Goals.
• Ministers should consider the findings of the Advisory Panel for Food and Nutrition and provide guidelines for healthy eating and nutritional requirements for under-fives to Early Years practitioners.
• A graduate-led Early Years workforce should continue to be an aspiration for the Government, with entry qualifications to Early Years remaining of a high standard consistent with the NNEB qualification.

Well, we are happy with the changes to the goals; they make a lot of sense.  Of course, social and communication are critical to children’s learning and must be at the heart of what we do – especially given the level of communication delay and poor social skills we see every day.

We are interested in the recommendation about the EYFS Profile, as we don’t currently complete profiles (a situation which always baffled me, since these would prove invaluable for initial, midway and leaving assessments). At the same time, we must be careful not to return to the old days of the tick box approach; an idea we rejected years ago as limiting in how it tells the child’s story. Instead, we must take control of our Learning Journeys and build assessment into these, remembering the story and not allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed by formative and summative assessment.

I quite like Dame Clare’s recommendation that we do a short check at two-and-a-half years alongside the health visitor check; the sooner we can formally identify developmental delay for children the better, although it will be interesting to see how it fits with the review of the SEN Code of Practice.  It will also be a more effective way of linking with parents, who are very often happier to do things in the nursery rather than go to the clinic. It has equal potential to work quite nicely with the Two Year Old Offer and Children Centres. Of course, we used to do this many years ago when the red book was gold!

I am glad they are making recommendations about food; we have focused on food at LEYF for a number of years, to the point where we have recently written a draft set of qualification standards for Chefs working in the Early Years which are now going through the process of accreditation. Let’s hope these can be of use in the efforts to raise quality and information about the food we serve to small children.

Hear! Hear! to a graduate leader’s workforce; developing the graduate scheme has been one of the greatest actions taken by the previous government and absolutely must be nurtured.  At LEYF we have noticed improved levels of knowledge and thinking among our many members of staff who have completed their degrees; it also builds a level of confidence which enables staff to do things they may never have even considered previously or simply rejected as out of their comfort zone.

So whilst we wait for a formal response from the Government, we will continue to develop and improve our own LEYF curriculum, something we call Fair Play.  It’s geared around LEYF’s five core values, which were agreed with our staff some years ago and remain the basis for everything we do:

1. Child focused
2. Courageous
3. Creative
4. Collaborative
5. Constant

I’ll post more on this crucial topic soon…

In the meantime, please let me know your thoughts on and experiences with the EYFS as it was and may well soon be using the comment field below.  And if you think a colleague may find this post useful or in any way inspiring, feel free to share via your favourite social network using the familiar buttons you see here!

“What do core values mean – unless they can be seen, heard, recognised, recorded, and rewarded?”
Edgar S Cahn (No More Throw-away People, 2000)

Related articles

• Early years learning targets cut (bbc.co.uk)
• Preschool education: Learning to let go (economist.com)
• EYFS REVIEW: The key points in an interview with Dame Clare Tickell (nurseryworld.co.uk)
• Review calls for EYFS to be streamlined to cut down on bureaucracy (cypnow.co.uk)
• Early Years Foundation Stage to be radically slimmed down (Department for Education)
• Hello from Dame Clare Tickell (discussion with parents on netmums.com)