The Early Years Staff Meeting
Have you ever sat through a staff meeting and thought, 'but how is this relevant to Early Years?' Do you want on-the-go CPD that supports you to develop your EYFS practice in a way that holds the best interests of the children at the heart? Would you like this delivered by passionate and experienced Early Years teachers who know the realities of working in a busy setting? Then come and join us at The Early Years Staff Meeting to explore the magic and mayhem of the EYFS. Grab a cuppa, rest those feet that you've been on all day and delve into all things Early Years with us. Learn, listen and laugh with The Early Years Staff Meeting.
The Early Years Staff Meeting
Creating Writers Through Play and Purpose
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Writing development continues to be one of the most challenging areas for early years educators to address, particularly as we approach end-of-year assessments. The conflict between developmental readiness and curriculum expectations creates a tension that can be difficult to navigate. But what if the solution isn't more formal writing sessions, but rather creating more compelling reasons for children to write?
We dive deep into the realities of writing in reception classrooms, examining what the Early Learning Goals actually require and sharing exemplars that demonstrate the true expectations. Contrary to common misconceptions, the evidence suggests children need to be writing simple phrases that can be read by others, with most letters correctly formed – not producing complex sentences with perfect punctuation.
Our exploration of effective practice reveals that strategic provision makes all the difference. From "grab boxes" of mark-making tools positioned throughout the classroom to purposeful contexts like sign-up sheets and message centers, we unpack practical ways to embed writing opportunities that children genuinely want to engage with. These approaches honor children's play while simultaneously developing crucial skills.
Greg Bottrill's Drawing Club emerges as a particularly powerful methodology, offering a playful framework that incorporates rich vocabulary, mathematical concepts, and phonics learning through imaginative drawing and storytelling. Similarly, story scribing approaches validate children's language while modeling writing for authentic purposes. Both methodologies share a crucial element – they're fun, and children don't perceive them as "work."
Whether you're struggling with reluctant writers or simply looking to enhance your provision, this episode offers practical strategies that maintain a child-led approach while addressing curriculum requirements. By shifting our perspective from "teaching writing" to "creating writers," we can transform how children engage with mark-making and help them discover the joy and power of written communication.
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Welcome and Introduction
Speaker 2Hello and welcome to the Early Year Staff Meeting, a place where you can listen, learn and laugh with us about all things. Early Years. Hello, hi, welcome back. Welcome. I'm Steph and I'm Sarah and we are the Early Years Staff Meeting.
Speaker 1We are the Early Years Staff Meeting and just for our new listeners in case we have new listeners, you never know we live in hope we do we just want to just say that you know that we created this podcast for you as a way of meeting the need of staff meetings.
Speaker 2Exactly because, as early years teachers, we have sat in many a staff meeting Too many and we still do.
Speaker 1And we do have another colleague, so Keely, big up Keels, big up Keelsels. She's on holiday at the moment. She's on her holly bobs. So, uh, yeah, shout out to you keels. Yeah, but she works with our um send, doesn't? She's got children in school. She used to work in early years, but she uh, she works.
Speaker 2Yeah, she works with different children in different year groups, but she, she very much brings the early years she does, yeah, wherever she goes what she's doing and you'll. You'll see like a pile of toilet rolls or anything. You know boxes, pine cones, and you'll know it belongs to keely, yeah, she doesn't really have a.
Speaker 1She's sort of a bit here, there and everywhere.
Speaker 2But it spills her cupboard overflow. If and we find um these little things and just know that they're, they belong to our kills yeah, so, yeah, I hope you're having a lovely holiday.
Speaker 1Kills, okay. So last time we were here and we spoke to you about Montessori, so we're just going to do a little recap of that today and then we are going to talk to you about writing and plugging those gaps, because we know that the data's got to be in very soon for reception and then we're going to have our mindful moment lovely.
Montessori Peace Corner Reflections
Speaker 1So that is today's episode. Yeah, agenda, so off we go. So Montessori. So, um, if you haven't listened to our episode, go and listen to it, so you'll know all about Maria Montessori and her Montessori education and her little movement that she created. But we did some research, didn't we, steph? And we sort of had some little takeaways that we thought we would have a little try in our classrooms. So do you want to go first?
Speaker 2Yeah, so one of the suggestions that came out from when we did our Montessori episode was when you're thinking about children and the way that they sort of resolve conflict with each other.
Speaker 2In the Montessori approach it's very much that you know the children would would kind of resolve it through conversation and one of the areas in a Montessori classroom might be something like a peace table or a peace area and the idea would be that the children would go over to that area with an adult and that would be where they'd have their sort of you know, their chat, their emotion, talk, their check-in and then and come to some sort of resolution. So I tried to create this, recreate it rather in a very busy um British nursery um, with probably varying success um. I have um one of I've got a number of wonderful TAs that work with me um in nursery, but one of my TAs is particularly creative, so I just happened to mention in passing that um I was thinking of setting up this peace corner and it was, you know, try something out for the podcast, and I literally came back the next day and she'd set it all up for me, bless her heart. Um. So I have now got in my classroom a lovely peace corner, um complete with sort of cushions and um sort of books about friendship and just little sort of mindful activities the children can do when they're in the peace corner, um, and, as I said, it's sort of been very success because when, when there's a good moment, I sort of, you know, introduced the area and modelled it to the children and sort of acted it out with an adult how we might come to the peace corner to sort of sort of sort of problem out for ourselves.
Speaker 2But you know, obviously at three and four, children are still very much needed in that adult to guide them to do it. So if they ever do use the peace corner, um, it is, you know, it would be guided by an adult. So, yeah, it might be something that you know children have had a falling out about something and I'll suggest, right, let's go to the peace corner and then we can sort of take it in turns and talk about what happened and sort it out, um. So I think it's a lovely idea in theory and I would like to develop it more next year, but I think I just need to sort of add it more slowly and more gradually and really, really I think, introduce it in the, in the initial sort of when you're, when you're, you know, telling children about routines and everything so it becomes a bit more of a routine um, for the adults as well as the for the children, I think.
Speaker 2So it's probably something that I will keep on plugging, but I just need to think about it a bit more carefully.
Speaker 1Um, yeah, for it to be effective, yeah and I think that's probably the same with all of these things. They need to be really embedded. But it's what we're trying to say is that we can take things from these pedagogies that that can really transform our provision and the way we interact with children. So, yeah, it's a bit of a caveat they are, we're not.
Speaker 2It's not the purest form of the approach and as well, you don't want to kind of water down the message of. Montessori by by plucking this one thing out and saying well, I I follow Montessori because I have this in my classroom. No, what we're doing is just trying to be inspired by some of the practice and use it to develop and improve on our own practice. But yeah, there's definitely room to use that concept more.
Montessori Resource Trays Experience
Speaker 1I think there's definitely room to use that concept more, I think, and I think so in my classroom. What I decided to do was take the resources where they tailor trays and they have specific resources for specific children. In trays and children they're left out on shelves that are open-ended you know that are accessible to children, and they would left out on shelves that are open-ended you know that are accessible to children, and they would go to those shelves and they would do their you know, in further commas work and you know, and they would choose what order they'd like to do it. So I decided I would sort of have a little go at doing that. So I had some lovely wooden trays and I got, I chose some children and there were children who didn't really engage well in the classroom so they were very much stuck on a specific toy or a schema.
Speaker 1Yeah, a couple of them probably. Well, they are definitely on the send register, if you like. So I thought, you know, to try and get them engaging more, I would make some little trays for them and what I did was I spoke to the whole class about it and I said this is where they're going to live and I showed them the it's like an old drawer unit that I'd put some wood in to make shelves. I put all these lovely trays on and I stuck the children's faces on pictures laminated to say this was for them. Um, but of course the inevitable happened because I'd really highlighted it they all wanted to play with it, and that's fair enough.
Speaker 1Um, and it did take a lot of managing from staff, yeah, and to like say no, this is for this child.
Speaker 1They need to have their turn first and you can have a turn afterwards um, so, and one of them did have like some number blocks things in, which is one of the children's sort of interests, and they loved it, they absolutely loved it. But they said it did help that. You know, those children feel really like they belonged somewhere, because I think they did find it difficult to find their little place in the classroom in terms of provision. But, um, I think we have too many children. I mean our classes, our three reception classes, we have 90 children coming in and out.
Speaker 1And I think it's something you would have to do across all three of the classes and it's an approach you'd have to really bear down on. And I think what, as part of like getting ready for year one and we are going to do a transition one, aren't we? We've been asked to do some like challenges for the children, and I might do those in sort of trays? And that's coming up in the next few weeks.
Speaker 1I think, I might steer not get rid of the trays because they do like them, but steer them into a different direction. But yeah, it was, I did enjoy setting them up. They were nice, yeah, and they did look. Yeah, they did look very inviting, too inviting oh well, well done for giving it a go, and I know, but yeah, please, if let us know, if you've, you know, had a go at implementing anything, or if you've been inspired by maria montessori, please let us know on socials. We'd love to see, we'd love to know.
Writing Gaps and Early Learning Goals
Speaker 2Yeah, okay, um, moving on, so it is that time of year every, every early is teacher's nightmare, unless you work in nursery, of course well, yeah and then you have other problems. But, um, that's for another episode. Yeah, um, yeah, plugging, plugging those gaps at this time of year because we're getting to the, the data drop we are um, and one of the areas where it's kind of always an area, I feel, in reception when it gets to this time of year, it's plugging the gaps. In writing.
Speaker 1It is yeah and every year we we're tracking our gaps throughout the whole of the year and writing is always up there because, well, as we know, our curriculum doesn't really match the development of children and and their physical development with their bones they don't, they're still not, probably not joined um, and it probably still causes a lot of pain for some children, especially younger children. The summer borns, um, I say tend to you always get those odd few children, that sort of buck, the trend, but yeah, it, every year it's writing and um, it's something that our school has sort of noticed and it's something that they've, they've wanted you and I to not fix but to just audit what we're doing in our provision. So we have been on a few courses recently, haven't we?
Speaker 2yeah to sort of raise the profile of writing, and it has it was reassuring in a way when we've been on these courses, because I feel like sometimes we're a very we're a setting where we don't we don't want to call children away from their play, we want to value that time and we we want to limit the amount of time where we're expecting them to do something that's not purposeful, um, just to practice skills, um, and so when you go to these courses you're almost a a little bit like, oh, are they going to think that what we do is right or wrong? And you know, we were reassured because actually the way that we do it was kind of the way that was being promoted and all of the things that were being suggested in these courses were kind of like, well, well, yeah, we do that. Or if we weren't, if we hadn't, if we weren't adopting them, we'd heard of it or we had something very similar, or or something like that. So we felt, we felt quite, um, you know, we felt quite.
Speaker 1I felt quite proud yeah, the way we work, yeah our beliefs and what we believe about about children and how they learn to write. So that's what we want to sort of talk to you about today is you know, that was the message we heard that it was best practice. So we kind of want to.
Speaker 2But yeah, and then on the other end of the scale, you've got the pressure of, but you've got to get them to this level. And I don't know, should we talk about now, about where we saw the exemplars of writing and what it means, yeah, yeah yeah, so so. So I think, when you look at the early learning goal for writing, yeah, um, and you think about what's actually expected for the children, yeah, to do that. It can be quite a very short and simple sentence yeah, it's.
Speaker 1It reads, doesn't it?
Speaker 2I'm trying to uh seriously, you mean, you mean you don't have the eog for writing on your tongue.
Speaker 1I try not to because I don't overly agree with it. But hey, again, that's another podcast.
Speaker 2But things like you know. It doesn't mention full stops or finger spaces, no, it's write a simple sentence, isn't it?
Speaker 1Yeah, a phrase or sentence, isn't it?
Speaker 2To write a phrase or sentence that can be read by another adult yeah it's about forming letters mostly correctly, which is probably the most controversial one I think so yeah because I think it's the one that it caught.
Speaker 1Well, I think the word phrase causes people a bit of um. A bit of chip, should we say yeah and then, um, I'm desperately trying to find it there you go.
Speaker 2She's found it, I've found it. We're always well prepared.
Speaker 1Oh, yeah, okay so the script is write recognizable letters, most of which are correctly formed Spell words, by identifying sounds in them and representing the sounds with a letter or letters, and write simple phrases. It's even simpler than that. Yeah, it literally could be like a label for their model. Yeah, and we looked at the example, didn't we? From the exemplar material which was don't touch.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it was to say don't touch yeah yeah, um, and it was to say don't touch my model, because she'd finished building something, obviously, and she she'd written something for purpose, and I think the key was she'd written it independently.
Speaker 1She had, she'd written it, you know, not because she'd been um, it'd been dictated to her no or or come and do this special yeah yeah or during phonics, that kind of thing it was it had a purpose. She didn't want anyone to touch her model because she'd obviously spent a long time doing it, um, and she wrote her own little label with her name, which is really important and really powerful, and she put it with her model and I think, you know, I think yeah, it's part of the picture, isn't it?
Speaker 2so you're not going to look at one piece of writing and and decide whether that child's working to the ELG or not. It would be, you know, you would take into consideration like, how do they get on in? You know, how do they get on in phonics lessons when they're writing on whiteboards, how do they get on?
Speaker 1Yeah, they're blending and they're reading. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2So you would kind of look at the whole picture, but it is also a best fit. So if you've got a child that has got you know not completely what you'd say most is it, most letters, it's most letters, yeah, I mean it's very well, it's very, isn't it?
Speaker 2but they're all very, and I also think that's that's quite a hard expectation, depending on what your, what your phonics scheme is. Because at what point in the curriculum would you, would you have time, would you be able to teach children how to form letters correctly, unless your phonics programme is quite prescriptive about that, unless you're pulling them out to do other things and, as we found that phonics schemes, they have their own agenda and they do expect that you're teaching phonics all day long.
Speaker 1We do other things. We do actually teach other things, funnily enough, um. But you know, at the end of the day it's your judgment call on what. You know what that looks like. But you know, I think if you can read it and you know the letters are well formed and you kind of can see, you know that is a or a and you a t, and you know, you know it's easily readable.
Speaker 2I'd say, yeah, go for it. And I suppose you just have to think as well, like are they going to get on in year one? Yeah, are they going to be able to? Like, they're going to be expected to be able to write a sentence in a lot more different contexts, um, so are they going to be able to just give it a go phonetically, um, and like you've just said, give it a go.
Speaker 1It's those characteristics of effective learning. Do they have, though, any? You know most of those yeah, are they gonna have all of those learning behaviors to, as you say, yeah because I think writing is so much about resilience as well.
Speaker 2Definitely, and and we've all been there with the children that as soon as they make a tiny error, they either scribble it out, rub it out and throw it away get very upset so it's.
Speaker 2And it's hard, it is hard so it's. Yeah, you're absolutely right. We say there about them needing those characteristics um to be able to sort of meet that, meet that goal, um. But yeah, we. So what we did then was we had a look at our um provision, didn't we? I don't know if we should we talk about the provision first. Yeah, that was that kind of our first, yeah so so how it was.
Improving Writing Provision
Speaker 1Before we did the course, we um in reception. We did have like writing areas that we would call the message centers um, and we did have writing. I would say it was sporadic throughout the whole provision. I think it probably started off in September, yeah yeah, I say it's absolutely. And then, as the year's gone off, it probably, as you know, in schools it's resources. It's money, isn't it? But I'd say outside was probably not so great.
Speaker 2Yeah. Inside was much better, but outside, I think I think, yeah, we just we just lost a bit of what the magic that we'd had in previous years. I agree, and it, you know, just little things had sort of stopped happening that were happening before. It's those juggling plates, isn't it?
Speaker 1There's so much to think of and so much you want to get right. You just can't, you literally can't do it all.
Speaker 2Yeah, and every year something drops. Yeah, that's your target, isn't it for the next year? Yeah, yeah, and I, and I think as well, where we've had a couple like we had a couple of cohorts where we've had really high psed needs, yeah, and um, sort of managing emotions and self regulation, that the writing has kind of dropped a little bit, because it's kind of like the icing on the cake, isn't it so, like you say, they have to be in a place to learn before they can do any learning. So perhaps that might have been why, but we just had a little, um, a recce, didn't we in a thing and we just sort of put writing back in.
Speaker 2Yeah, we did. It was quite easy to do. It was you just need to maintain it. You do yeah.
Speaker 1You do. So I literally got down on my knees and looked and was like from where I'm standing, at this height, can I access writing? And actually in some of the classrooms you couldn't. And children are lazy, yeah, they don't want to walk from one end of the classroom to the other to go and get something to bring it back, because they don't want to stop their play. They don't think that way. So you know, if it's not right in front of them, they're never going to do it. So that's how I thought. So I was like raiding the cupboard.
Speaker 2So you just want something in grabbing distance, some sort of mark making, yeah, like a grab, literally a grab, and a four-year-old grab exactly exactly.
Speaker 1so that's what I did. I literally made some grab boxes, um, you know, just got some cans of beans and tipped them out and did the safe top, yeah, and filled them all with pencils and anything we had basically, and we use a lot of caddies, don't we? Yeah, like the cleaning caddies. Cleaning caddies, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And we just fill them with paper, with clipboards, with exercise books that you know the rest of the school used to use, and there's a big you know there's a big stack of them given to early years. We'll use them, um what other?
Speaker 2things, anything really um, and then we also then added our phonics sound mats, and it's ideal to have sort of we have that. We have name dictionaries, don't we? Which are good for the children when they're learning to write their name, um, and I know we used to have them in all of our little grab and go boxes to go outside, and it also has staff names yeah, because they do like to write messages.
Speaker 1Yeah, they do yeah, so yeah, and they just grab the name dictionaries and they can see the person's picture and they'll know that that's their name and then they just sort of copy it when they're writing cards and letters and messages and all sorts of things. So I mean, I've even seen where some children can't write their names and children who can write are flicking through the dictionary to write the child's name for them.
Speaker 2Yeah, so that yeah. And that's's modeling, isn't it modeling writing for a purpose, and I love that it's so yeah and that is something that I think came up in our course, and we were like oh, I don't know if we do that so much, which is writing for a purpose in front of the children, so that you're modeling that writing. We, we're quite often modeling writing, but not in a for using it for a personal use no, it's for like handwriting usually yeah or during modeling a sentence yeah, so it's as you say.
Speaker 2It's not in a purposeful way yeah, so, for example, the other week I my children were really into superheroes, so we wanted to make a superhero um role play area and we thought about what we could have and I had. I modeled writing a list and just wrote it with them, and then some of the children came over to help me set it all up and while we were doing it we were looking on the list. See, you know, I was reading it and modeling like, oh, let's tick that one off. And children were like crossing it out to show that we'd done it. So it's just just make the most of those kind of opportunities, isn't it?
Speaker 1The other one. That's quite powerful. We have sign up sheets. Yeah, so if they want to go on the board or they want to do some cooking or literally anything that they have to queue and wait their turn, or literally anything where they have to queue and wait their turn, um, we have these little sign up sheets and they're literally numbers one to ten with a line and back to front and they just sign their name on the line and that is the order. It's like a queuing system, yeah, a writing like queuing system, and then they go away and then they get called when it's their turn and they take themselves off yeah but that is so.
Speaker 1I hadn't realized how super like purposeful that is, and how powerful that is of course it is, and those children soon learn to write their name because they're desperate, they want to do the activity so.
Speaker 2So that's one that's used in reception sort of at the beginning of the year, um, and in nursery about now, because we're kind of yeah, we're trying to get them ready.
Speaker 1Reception, the other thing we did was, instead of um, like self-registration, instead of like the moving account with their name on, we had a like a sign-in book, a visitor's book, and they'd come in and they'd sign their name in this visitor's book and I would take the visitor's book and go right, let's see who's here today who signed in, and you know I'd have to join some of the words, but that was really purposeful yeah they. They were saying I'm here yeah um in in their own way. Some of them could write their names.
Speaker 2Some of them which is so much nicer than saying to children when they come in right, get, just come and write your name before you can go and play yeah, you know it's more purposeful, isn't it?
Speaker 1um and we um in the classroom where we have all of the construction. They do have little labels. Yeah, so they can write their names, um, for pieces that are sort of under construction and not quite finished, or would they have like a viewing area where they can show off something they've? Made and it will say what it is and it will say their name, a bit like the Don't Touch label from earlier.
Speaker 1But yeah, I think in that classroom that's very powerful, but it's bringing more of that into every classroom that we have, um, and into every area. Um, and a few years ago, when we did a lot of cooking, I used to get children to um write a little slip to say what they wanted to cook, um, and who it was. And because we did the Anna Epgrave penny system, where, if you don't know, it's where they have 10 pennies every day and then they would use their money to pay for things in the provision. So cooking was one of those areas and, um, they would then write how much money they were going to pay for it. Okay and yeah, so it's all very purposeful and I would take three yes, mr greg botter will move on to him very shortly.
Speaker 1Um, yeah, and I would literally take the ticket, like you would in a restaurant, and say, right, right, well we've got billy wants to make a? Oh, I think it says pizza, pizza, and then off we go. We'd like yeah they'd already been pre-taught, those pizza cooking skills.
Speaker 2Yeah, we need to bring that back because it's amazing.
Greg Botchall's Drawing Club Approach
Speaker 1I think what you forget is with every year group, they all bring their you know the joys, but they also bring their challenges. And every year you forget what you did the previous year, because your whole world is consumed by the here and the now, and I think that is probably one of the downsides of a child led is you forget what you did before, because it's all tailoring to the now. So, yeah, I think we do need to bring that back that'd be an episode for the future.
Speaker 2Yeah, more cooking more cooking so do you want to go on to talk about mr greg botchall now?
Speaker 1okay, so I feel as though we've not really spoke about him on the podcast.
Speaker 2No, but I feel like if we did talk about it, he might, he might interact, because he's pretty, he is, he's pretty sort of hot on social media isn't he is now.
Speaker 1He, if you don't know who he is, he is, um, an amazing um person who is all about making sure that children are children and not robots. That's his sort of tagline, um, and he's a very passionate person, and he is. He's not just about writing, although he is famous for drawing club, but he, if you do know him you follow him on socials. He is all just about imaginative, creative childhood, childhood and play. So, um, he has got a few books, one of them's called can I come and play now?
Speaker 2can I go and play a?
Speaker 1little plug there. Go and play now. Can I go and play?
Speaker 2now A little plug there for you, greg. So plug us right back.
Speaker 1We're right up your street, we're your play people In that book he talks about the three M's. So every time you interact with a child it's in the back of your mind. You need to think about adding in some mathematics, some mark making making and then making conversation, yeah um, and I think he calls it the secret m is it making it imaginative or something like that?
Speaker 2so it's really creative and yeah he is quite an out there person yeah, yeah, probably won't mind me saying that, although I know him.
Speaker 1But but, um, yeah, he, he is most known for drawing club and I have to say I hadn't actually done the drawing club training until about march this year. Um, another colleague had, so we were kind of using it's like second hand yeah and unless you've been on the course, you're not inspired in the same way.
Speaker 1And as much as I love my colleague and she'll know who she is, it's just not the same. So if you do get the chance to do his training, I do say it is inspiring and it's really cheap. It's about 30 pounds for a course, um, at like an hour's session and it it has changed our outlook on writing, I think, and our children have been inspired by drawing club. So if you don't know what drawing club is, it is basically giving children the purpose to write every day if you want it to. Um, it's not a scheme. He's very much. This is not a scheme, but this is a way of thinking. So he would have um like a stimulus, whether it's a story or a traditional tale, or whether you use a prop story, or even he uses little cartoons um, he likes his 80s like he does 80s, 90s cartoons, things like the raggy dolls and things like that he does so he is quite retro.
Speaker 1But what he explained that in the course he said um, it's about igniting imagination. And children if you were to use the stimulus of bluey or things that they watch every day, it's, it's not new and it's not exciting. And they, they know what the you know the the end of the story is going to be. They know what the you know how they fix the problem, so it doesn't create that um imaginative process. And also, from what I've realized, all my childhood programs are actually they're very slow. The language is so much more advanced than what our children's television programs are, and they're quieter.
Speaker 1So you're so much more focused on things. And yes, you know the animation's not as good, but actually you can forget about all that when you watch it.
Speaker 2I don't think we mind it though in our day and age? No, not at all.
Speaker 1So one of the stimuluses we did use was trapdoor.
Speaker 2Yes, classic.
Speaker 1Don't look inside that trapdoor, and it was a bit scary, yeah, but they liked it. The children really responded to it. So what we do is, before you do the stimulus, it's about vocabulary. So you have a set list of vocabulary that you choose, and it's not the same as in the book, because the idea is is that you're, as he says, sprinkling vocabulary throughout your day and and your time during drawing club, and it's about extending their vocabulary. So you would look at the words that they have in the story or in the um, I don't know in the video, and then you would look at synonyms and add those in and every day you would start off by going through those vocabulary and doing it in a very am dram way, enacting those words out
Speaker 1then you'd watch the story or read the story and then you would be given, so the adult would model, then um creating their own either a character or a setting or a problem, an answer to a problem that you've created. So, um, say, like it was trapdoor, you would then draw. The first thing you would do is draw your own monster. So you wouldn't um draw the monster from trapdoor, you'd creatively think of your own monster. So you, you never want to be copying or mimicking, you always want to be extending their creativity and their imagination. And from that you would have sentences and code words and code numbers, and when you press all of those things, amazing things would happen.
Speaker 1And you know there is no ceiling on your imagination, it's just wherever you and the children would be encouraged to write sort of a word or a sentence that would contain yeah, like your target, is that yeah so you know, if it was so, I'd drawn my monster and then my code word could be I don't know, eggy bread yes, and it doesn't have to link to anything, but I've modelled, writing it eggy bread, and I've said, when I press my code words, the monster turns into um, I don't know. Mickey mouse.
Speaker 1It can be anything it doesn't have anything to do with eggy. Nothing, nothing with eggy. No, not just have to do it, it can do if you want to. It's your imagination. Um, and then within that you would sprinkle some maths. So in my monster it might have three arms on one side and it might have two arms on the other side, so I might do the number five, and then I would explain that as I was drawing, and then when I pressed the number five, perhaps he then has five legs that pop out instead of having two. So again, it's having the words actually have a purpose. They do something in your imagination, and that is what has captivated the children yeah so well done, greg.
Speaker 2Yeah it's captivated the teachers. It has it really has.
Speaker 1And, um, me and a colleague, we did go on the training and it was literally only an hour, but afterwards it was just like I want to write.
Speaker 1I want to draw, um, and the children, they loved it. They still love it. We're doing it still every day, um, and we do it every morning and we, before the children have gone off to do you know their choosing. We would say anyone wants to do drawing club? And you would have like a flock of children come and sit with you and they would do their drawing club for the day.
Speaker 2So what about those reluctant writers, the ones that are not not too fussed?
Speaker 1so we would just keep a little check of who has done drawing club. And then the reluctant writers you would say right, so and so, bob, you haven't done it this week. I'd really like it if you could come and join me now and before they've done any play choosing, they would come and do it so they're not interrupting, what no?
Speaker 1so, because we really don't want to interrupt their play at all, um, and then they'd spend five minutes and they do it and actually you know we haven't had any pushback from any children. They like it because they do it with you, yeah, and they just want to be part of a club.
Speaker 1They do, yeah, they do like being part of a club who doesn't um. And actually, yeah, they, we haven't had any pushback. They they like having that time with you just to talk about their drawings and talk about their imagination. And you know we're not correcting them. So, as per se, we might say, oh, actually, you know today's um secret code word is a rhyming couplet. So you haven't done a rhyming couplet, so you haven't done your rhyming couplet, so you need to add it, otherwise it's not going to work.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And they'll go. Oh, okay, and they'll quickly add it on.
Speaker 2I like the way that you're able to this is something I didn't realise just the way you're able to target what you're learning or address a misconception. So if you did phonics the day before and the children really didn't understand the, your trigraph which you know is the worst one, let's face it um, you could have a word. Your code word or your code sentence would have to have that yeah could have that in them.
Speaker 1That sound in there, yeah, yeah yeah, and actually the children, they wouldn't know that you've made the link there no, and that they wouldn't know that they're actually practicing writing the year sound but they would just do it and the same with maths.
Speaker 1You could suppose you could like take a concept like odd and even yeah, I'm gonna, my maths is gonna have like an odd number of legs and and that's the magic code today, or so my children absolutely love counting in tens from Drawing Club and it's not something I've ever really touched on with them, but they could see that the sequence had jumps of ten and they loved that it got to 100. And they were like ah, and so now they just love singing it and that's pretty.
Speaker 1That stemmed from drawing club yeah so, yeah, I, I love it, but, um, I think we're not going to be doing it every day when we come back, but we did do it every day just to sort of embed the routine of it, but um, it has definitely do you think that's helped you to plug?
Speaker 1definitely those gaps? Definitely yeah, because we're not forcing children. You know, if children really don't want to do it, they don't want to do it and we would never force them. But, as I've said, children willingly do want to come. And they love that time with you and they love being silly and it's probably the first time that I've felt that I've really got at their level with the silliness and the imagination and some really, you know funny things have come out of it and their writing has been phenomenal.
Speaker 1And children will sometimes just sit and they'll do their drawing club and say, oh, can I do some more? And I'm like, yeah, go for it. And they'll just carry it on.
Speaker 2That's the joy, isn't it? Because sometimes, yeah, yeah, we get so caught up in all the pressures and everything that you just forget to be silly with the children and and it is fun and I think that's what sticks in their, their memories.
Speaker 1Most is the fun, not that you've pulled them over to come and practice the tricky words for the week or whatever.
Speaker 2So and actually, even though I used earlier the phrase reluctant writer, I actually hate that phrase. Yeah, I know, um, because actually it's it's it's not the writer's fault if they don't want to write this.
Speaker 2You haven't made it tempting enough provision yeah, it's the um, it's the lack, lackluster motivation that we've offered them. So actually, if you motivate children with the desire to write and you give them enough purpose, you give them enough um, you know space to do it wherever they want to, whether that's chalking on the floor or um, you know writing. I mean, the other day we got the children got a bit carried away because we had some lovely um paint on the. It was, I think it was like it was wet, quite a wet day, so we had the um, we had the block paints out on and we love getting these out on a wet day because children, just like we've got like a hill and they like to paint and watch the colors sort of float down and make like little rainbow rivers and things.
Story Scribing and Helicopter Stories
Speaker 2And some of the children got carried away and started writing on one of the white walls outside the classroom and then we all kind of had a little like is this okay? And it was like, well, it doesn't look the best but actually like the children are writing. Of course they are, they're writing. So in the end it got vetoed and we had to wash it off but I think, just, yeah, it was one of those things where actually, you know they were writing, so you couldn't really tell them off. What did they write? I can't even remember. It was like I think it was like just sounds and numbers. It was kind of like random thing, um, rather than like a sentence, um. But yeah, it did make me chuckle and yeah, we all had a bit of a chat about it. But in the end the uh, the sponges and the? Um buckets came out and some of the children developed their fine motor skills, uh, their muscle, gross motor muscles, by uh, scrubbing it off.
Speaker 1But there we go, oh wow, you know I hate them white walls I know it wasn't the well yeah, not the best design no, they're not okay. So, storch, we do. You want to go on to story scribing?
Speaker 2Just touch on that. So another strategy that we use and we use it through something called Helicopter Stories, which again is a I actually, off the top of my head, can't remember the name of the lady, but I will find out what it is and these are the people that do the poetry basket which we've used in nursery this year, and basically it's giving children sort of the props and the imagination to tell a story and then you scribe that story for them. So it's almost like you become the, the writer for their ideas. You are scribing tricia lee, tricia lee, that's it. Um, sorry, tricia, yeah, and her book is called princess dragons and helicopter stories. Um, yeah, and um yeah. If you wanted to look up like helicopter stories on the website, there's lots more information about it. Um, but yeah, it's story scribing is. It is just basically it's that, isn't it? It's just telling for the children to tell a story and you write it down and it's and it's it's sort of the preciousness of their words.
Speaker 2So if their story is car goes, bang, boom, you, you write that down and you show respect for their words and then the more you, you, more you do it and the more you sort of model it and act out um and because then the sort of second part of the helicopter stories is then to act out the story. So the children tell the story and then you mark out a stage area and the children, then the teacher, will read the story and the children sort of act out the story. And the more you do that and the more they see it, you sort of see the progress in the scribing. So it's sort of almost like and also their vocabulary yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2And things like story language develop. So it's almost like when they don't have the sophistication to write those things, because you know it would be too long for them to write. Even if they've got the phonics it might be too long and tiresome. For some children, vocabulary and the way they can tell a story is is far ahead of what they could actually physically write. So it's kind of it's allowing them to develop that alongside yeah, and then eventually, as children become more confident, you can kind of co-scribe the story together. So it might be um, oh well, you have a go at writing cat, you know, yeah, story yeah, and then and then, as the year goes on, you could build up to see the children then just be more confident to write their own stories um.
Speaker 2So that's another little strategy that we that we use um. But yeah, if you want to find out more about that, google it and I.
Speaker 1I just think you know children are watching us model for a purpose. Again, it's not the handwriting, quite often it's me just scribbling really quickly. Yeah, a long queue of children. I don't want desperate to tell me that yeah, yeah so you know my handwriting isn't. I'm gonna hold my hands up, isn't? Always perfect, but they don't care they just.
Speaker 2The only people that seem to care about handwriting is the government and the ph government.
Speaker 1And the phonics schemes.
Speaker 2Because let's face it in real life I've got the most hideous handwriting.
Speaker 1And I serve eyes like a doctor's handwriting, Not my teacher writing on the board.
Speaker 2That's quite legible. But you know my real-life handwriting is a scrawl.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Anyway, quite political today.
Speaker 1Yeah, is it because we're having a change?
Speaker 2of government maybe. Well, let's, let's, um, let's keep open-minded about that, because we're not meant to show political, we're not, we're going to show political views.
Speaker 1No, I don't even know what mine is at the minute anyway, right after.
Speaker 1After that we um we ready to move on to our mindfulness? Yeah, shall, we have a little chill moment after talking about writing. So if you have any ideas or if you'd like to tell us you know what you're doing in your settings to plug those gaps in a child-led way, then you know, please contact us on we tiktok or we've got um instagram, so just search for the earliest staff meeting and we pop up um yeah, we'd love to know. Okay, are we ready? Yeah, mindful moment okay.
Speaker 2So this this week for our mindful moment, going to explore something that is a strength of yours, sarah, oh, and a weakness of mine, oh, but it is something that I've tried could have picked cook I mean cooking, I'm not so bad, it's more baking.
Speaker 2It is getting outside and planting and gardening and growing is the mindful moment for today, because I think you can do this, you know, in a school context and, as you know, I'm very proud because I've managed to grow some radishes with my class, we've we've tried to grow a few things and all of them have had to go to the um, the big recycling bin, compost bin in the sky, um, but these radishes, they, they grew and um yeah, so with the we obviously planted, we were doing the enormous turnip, basically, and I looked for your advice and Turnips would have taken too long, you said it would have taken too long.
Speaker 2So why don't we do radishes? Because they're basically like mini turnips, yeah and yeah. So we planted some radish seeds and it's just a very wholesome activity, isn't it Very good for the mind, very good for the soul. Anything to do with nature and getting outside, I feel, is good for the soul. So that would be my tip for the week is to just be outside and get some green fingers. I need to do it in my own garden now.
Speaker 1Wow. Should we just tell the listeners that we are in a different space today?
Speaker 1we've upgraded, we've upgraded, we've made it so we're not in our little um hovel of an art cupboard anymore. No, no, no, no, no. Uh, we're not hunched over a little table on a little chair, no longer. No, we're currently in a log cabin, I know, at my parents' house. So shout out to my parents, they don't listen. Thank you, yeah, and I'm looking outside and I can see about 20 spare tomato plants. If you want to take a couple of tomato plants on your way out, maybe I will.
Speaker 2I mean, yeah, if they want to die, they can come with me. I don't have much luck, but yeah, I feel like I just need to embrace it a bit more and I feel that you do a lot of gardening with the children. I do. You get a lot out of it and I do aspire to be.
Speaker 1I think, well, as you see, like my parents have their own like allotment everywhere and they've like always grown their own food and plants ever since I was little, and so that's just something that I just only know. So I suppose that's something I wanted to like give back to their children is growing, and we're in that, you know, know current climate, where you know there is food shortages and our food isn't particularly healthy. So, yeah, and it is cheap to grow your own food. Yeah, and it's about that slow learning as well, you can even use old food, can't you?
Speaker 2You can, yeah. So I did this thing where I haven't planted it yet. But you get a strawberry and you wait for all the seeds to drop off and then they're basically strawberry seeds.
Speaker 1So it's free. Yeah, also, you know, when you buy the big celery and you cut them all off, don't you, and you're left with that stump.
Speaker 2Yeah, you just plant that and they regrow. I mean, it's just incredible, it just blows my mind.
Speaker 1It just regrows same with lettuce that you know the hard bit of the lettuce. You just re-plant that.
Speaker 2Yeah so, but these are all things we need to be teaching our children absolutely, because if somebody had taught me all these things, I wouldn't be so hopeless yeah but it's just practice, isn't it?
Speaker 1it's that trial and error, but you know, if you, you know if it doesn't grow, it's just the cost of a packet of seeds which is yeah, pounds whereas, you know, our food, especially healthy food, is really expensive and a lot of our vulnerable families don't always access it so it's really vital, so get out in your garden, even if you only have a little window box absolutely right.
Speaker 2Well, I think that yeah, on that happy note we will see you next time.
Speaker 1See you soon. Bye, thank you.
