Episode 40: Beyond Early Learning Goals

Andy Psarianos

Hi, I'm Andy Psarianos.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Hello, I'm Emily Guille-Marrett.

Adam Gifford

Hi, I'm Adam Gifford.

Andy Psarianos

This is the School of School podcast.

Introduction:

Welcome to the School of School podcast.

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Andy Psarianos

Hi everyone. Welcome back. So today, we're here with Fiona Smith. Emily's here and Adam's here, as well. Say hello everyone.

Fiona Smith

Hi.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Hello.

Adam Gifford

Hey.

Andy Psarianos

Okay. What was that, Adam? Hey, is that a New Zealand thing?

Adam Gifford

Yeah, it must be. I just reached into the New Zealand roots, feeling a bit homesick. I don't know where it comes from, but yeah. Yeah, I think the New Zealand roots, I think, yeah no, he's all right. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Psarianos

Okay. All right, Fiona, come on. Tell us who you are. What do you do? What brings you here today?

Fiona Smith

Well, I'm a product manager at Maths — No Problem!! And I joined fairly recently, so earlier this year. And I bring with me, lots of experience in education, publishing, things like project management and also assessment too, so I like to think I have many strings on my bow. But I don't speak Kiwi, I'm really sorry.

Adam Gifford

I'll teach you as we go, it's pretty straightforward. It doesn't... We are quite light on sort of syllables and things. So you need not worry.

Andy Psarianos

So you're basically, you're a Swiss army knife for publishing. Okay. So what are we talking about today? We're talking about something to do with young kids, right? Early years, something goals, and what was that again?

Emily Guille-Marrett

Beyond the early learning goals.

Andy Psarianos

So first off, jargon alert. Right? So early years is a term that is used in the UK.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andy Psarianos

In fact, it's probably used in lots of other places. But what does that refer to, early years? Is that like grade four?

Adam Gifford

The early years starts really from babies, toddlers, up through preschool, officially into starting in reception. But in terms of in school, we tend to think of it for the reception year. Well, when we say, you've got the nursery and you've got reception. So that's when kids start school, which would be kindergarten, say in Canada and the US. But it's the first steps. I mean, gosh, I hate to say formal education, but it's the first steps of starting school as we would perceive it, in terms of going to school.

Andy Psarianos

So I think sometimes people look at it as, it's sort of preparation for formal learning, is one way of thinking it, right? So if you imagine, by the time kids hit year one or grade one, whatever it's called, you need them to be somewhat prepared for learning. Right? And a lot of people see the early years as getting them ready for that stage. Right, so there's a lot of stuff that you don't really talk too much about in the later years, like socialising the kids and all that kind of stuff. Right? So you got to remember, some kids come in and they don't even know how to work with other people. Right? They've maybe never seen other kids, or they've seen other kids in their age group, but there's interaction aspects to it and stuff that really need to be considered a lot. Right? In the early years. Not so much of an issue.

Emily Guille-Marrett

There's a whole load of gross motor skill issues, like fine motor skill.

Adam Gifford

Yeah, exactly.

Emily Guille-Marrett

There are fundamentals that need to prepare the block for being able to then enter the classroom later.

Andy Psarianos

Like sharing isn't just a mathematical concept, it actually means not hitting the kid next to you when he takes the toy. Right?

Fiona Smith

And if any of those children have got older brothers and sisters at home, then their beating up for a toy will be all they know. So absolutely, when they get into reception year learning how to be around other children is very important. And they also have things like Pizza Friday, I learnt, so...

Adam Gifford

Is that true?

Andy Psarianos

What?

Fiona Smith

Yes. Yeah, they have.

Andy Psarianos

Is that in the curriculum?

Fiona Smith

Well, if it's not, it should be.

Adam Gifford

We didn't do that in my school, but I kind of wish we did because I would've been all over it. It sounds great.

Fiona Smith

Yeah. Reception year is really important and not just for the things that they learn, but for how they become little people too.

Andy Psarianos

So what are the early learning goals and why do we have to go beyond them?

Adam Gifford

So the goals are a series of statements and I guess they're the descriptors of what we want children to learn, so they can be ready to take the next step in school. And I think it's as simple as that but they're not simple, there's a lot to them. But they describe what the children basically need to learn over the course of that year to be secure to make the next step, but how people learn them is up to schools.

Fiona Smith

But it's also really scary that document, for me. I mean, maybe I'm easily scared, but within that document, there's-

Andy Psarianos

Boo.

Fiona Smith

So much. Yeah. Ah! Within that document, there's lots of really useful information, but it's tucked away. And it's still really vital, really important stuff, but it's tucked away, away from those early learning goals. So beyond the ELGs, beyond the early learning goals, isn't just this idea of, we need to think, what do they mean? And what can we teach beyond them? But it's actually that document, everything in it is important stuff. And we need to remember that.

Andy Psarianos

So where does an educator start with these early learning? What's in the early learning goals, first of all?

Fiona Smith

There's actually only two for maths. Beyond maths, there's a lot of information in the early learning goals. So there's things like maths, but also understanding the world, and arts, and design. So there's a lot of information in there, but what's in there for maths is actually just two statements. Two of those statements that Adam was talking about.

Andy Psarianos

So counting and we can start off, let's just say, counting to 20. Just a bland statement. But then itself, I think that that's where it's easy to get lost because that is so, if you're assessable in one way, we could just say to a child, “oh, can you count to 20?” And that might, the child counts to 20 and we can be under some illusion that that's then box ticked. Right? And this is the danger, is these statements are really simple, but what does it mean? And that's the difficult part, is interpreting what that means and how do we want the child to respond to understanding? Let's just say numbers to five. Let's just keep it even more simple. What does that even mean? And that's the tricky bit. That's the tricky bit because how do we know if a child understands the numbers to five? I don't know. You guys tell me, what does it mean? If I said to you, all right, how do you know if a child knows numbers to five?

Fiona Smith

I'm frozen in fear. I have nothing to say.

Emily Guille-Marrett

I want, just before we get into the detail on the maths, I think is it seven early learning goals? There's communication and language, so we're kind of heading toward what we'd be perceived as for English. There's personal, social and emotional development. Physical development, and that's where we're kind of looking at obviously the gross motor skills, so it includes things that they might do in PE like jumping and skipping and things like that. But also, fine motor skills preparing for cutting with scissors and using pencils and that kind of thing. Then there's the literacy and the mathematics. Understanding the world, which you mentioned Fiona, didn't you? And expressive arts and design. And understanding the world, I think is kind of where we've got things like past and present because history, when you're that age, history could be yesterday. As well as the past in its grandest sense.

And people and culture might just be people down the road or the local shop and things like that, as well as bigger communities, like ideas about different religions within your community and things like that. And then we have the natural world and things like that. But you were saying about maths, Fiona is right. There's the number early learning goal, which is what Adam you were saying and numerical patterns. And then within that, as you... How do we take what looked like two bullet points and a few little words, and take meaning from it? Because Fiona, am I right that every time I go into an event where people are talking about maths, they get really into two things. Number one, it's all about number, which I wonder what that actually means. And number two, there's not space... Spatial awareness and measure has gone.

Fiona Smith

But it's not true. And it would be so easy to miss, because it's tucked away and it might be tucked away, but it's still incredibly important. Incredibly important.

Adam Gifford

But I think, the thing what makes it important Fiona, and this is the thing, right? This is it, whenever we get a set of things that are assessable, that we can assess them discreetly. We must never forget that all of a sudden, space or shape has been taken out of the world. It's as if overnight, road signs are being taken down and we don't use shape anymore. And do not dare describe the shape of that brick on the side of your house and these sorts of things, as if it's all disappeared, because it's no longer that the focus for assessment and those things.

And I think that this is sometimes the danger, depending on where education systems are, is we have the accountability and it's almost like the importance of things as relates directly to the assess-ability of it. And I think that that's a bit of a worry, because for these children, they're just wide eyed. They're magic. I love the kids in reception, they're the best in the world. Their world contains all of the stuff, even if it's not in an early learning goal, their world will contain everything that's in the early learning goals, but, and then some. And that's the exciting part as well because we want them to see it all, we want them to see that.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Okay. Just taking a different perspective on this. For the people that are angry, do you think it was right that shape and space and so on, has been... Because it's been perceived as not having importance in the hierarchy and the early learning goals. Do you think that is a fair point?

Adam Gifford

Yeah. In the first instance, that's a perception. That's not reality. It's still there, it's still just as important and you go into any classroom and it's there, and you look at what the children are playing with. Right? They recognise the value of shape because if you try balancing something on a sphere, if they get a wee... Like the blocks that you're using, it's really hard. If you get some shapes that have got flat shapes, they make towers really nicely. So children understand the property of shape, we don't need to tell them about that, they get it. Watch them, watch them for two seconds and they get it.

Fiona Smith

I stood on a football once and I was old enough to know better. And when I just... When my feet came out from under me.

Adam Gifford

Yeah.

Fiona Smith

I was not in reception when I did that, so these children are much more advanced than I am.

Adam Gifford

And do you know what, the rules still apply, that if you stood on a box it's a whole lot easier. Those rules still apply regardless of what the curriculum says. Yeah. And I think that's the thing, Emily two things, just very quickly is that if you listen to the people who are involved in it, of course there's an importance in that area of maths. But not just like... I think we do talk about maths, of course, that's what we're involved in, but it's also just the world. It's their surroundings and those things are really important in their lives, so if they're already there and experiencing it, we want to give them the opportunity to learn more about it. Or to at least facilitate their learning, to learn more about it.

Emily Guille-Marrett

Do you think number is too important and shape and space and so on have been shown as less important?

Adam Gifford

The government wants children to be able to count in year one. These are important things that they need to know and so, I suppose that when you put a focus on it, then you can argue yes, that these things need to happen. But I just... Is it too important? Well, it's the schools that decide that. It's these perceptions. If you're really angry and you turn around and you say to me, there's nothing on space, shape and whatever, I will try to calmly, nice smooth tones, reassure you that actually it's okay. It's okay. You can still do shape, and not only that we need to, we have to, we're obliged to. And so I think that's what I'd say, so it's not... The importance is that the children are the important ones. That's the bottom line. If a child can't count, yeah they've got to be able to count before they get into year one. Simple. I don't care what anyone says or the curriculum says. That child needs to be able to do it. So you do it.

Andy Psarianos

Yeah. This is where, as an educator, you need to use your professional judgement and read these government documents for what they are. They're not the tablets of stone that came from Mount Sinai, they are effectively mandated guidelines, right? These are the things that you must do, but nowhere in there does it say you can't do these other things. Right? And I think that that's... Because we see the same thing with other government, getting ready to progress is a good example. All of a sudden, people are changing or they think they need to change how they've taught because somebody put out a document that said, here's how you might be able to approach this topic. And it's kind of like, well, no, that's actually, that's not how it's meant to be interpreted, right.

What it is, is like, if you don't have an idea, here's some good ideas for you to get going. But if you already know what you're doing, then please keep doing that, but don't forget that you have to do these other things, right. And that's kind of the light that these documents are written in, but they're not always interpreted that way.

Shape and space, you can't operate in the world if you don't have a concept of shape and space. And if I were to try to imagine, why is it not explicitly included in this document? Or is it not included to the level that we think it should be included? It's probably because whoever wrote it, or whoever influenced it, thought that the kids are going to pick that up anyway because they have to operate in the real world. So they're going to get a sense of shape and space enough anyway, to start formal learning in grade one or year one, right? That they're going to have enough informal understanding of it that they should be able to get by. That's probably what they're thinking. Either that, or they're just not that aware of the topic. We forget that some of the people who influence these things are educators

Emily Guille-Marrett

It's through play in the early years that children really develop some of these... Sense of size, big and small and it's through play and so on that you can actually get a lot of that. So I don't know what you think about that, Fiona.

Fiona Smith

I agree. And I think that actually the way that, certainly the shapes and that side of the early learning framework is actually an opportunity. So as Andy said, if you're not sure what you want to teach, then there is guidance out there. But for this, there's this real opportunity to explore with those children. To teach shape by giving them different... A ball to stand on, or to play with teddies that are different sizes and teach about size in that way. It has a lot of opportunity in there. And this idea that it's... Because it's not an early learning goal that it's either not important or shouldn't be taught is-

Adam Gifford

But I think that's the terrifying thing though, Fiona, is that sometimes I think... I just think that sometimes that the scary bit is that if we provide something like a document and it has a list, that that is the only ingredients. It's like making a cake. Right? It's the only ingredients that are needed to create a well rounded child, a well rounded, happy child. That if we do these things, done.

And I remember having a conversation once, I'll keep it really short, but this lovely, lovely couple, Anna was their daughter's name. They came over from Germany and they came to us and they said, Mr Gifford, we're really worried. Everyone's got tutors around here. And we're not sure that that Anna should have a tutor, and he looked at me with sincerity. This man was a consultant brain surgeon. I think. So he could... He was okay. School didn't fail him, I guess. He looked at me and he said, genuinely, he said, I don't know that Anna needs it. I said, no, I don't think she does. She's wonderful and she's brilliant, I love having her in class. He said, I learned the most when my father took me... My grandfather took me for walks through the woods.

Fiona Smith

There you go.

Adam Gifford

And I think that's a really powerful statement. Not because it's romantic and a bit whimsical and all that sort of stuff. It's because it's holistic. And I think that's the thing. I think that if we just concentrate on these descriptors alone, then it's terrifying. And I would hate for anyone to fall into the trap of, these are the things that get assesses therefore, they are important. They do give us a steer and what's needed, but we never want to miss the opportunities for learning that we never know are going to take place. Especially in an environment like reception, where there tends to be more flexibility, where there tends to be more impromptu learning. There tends to be, in my experience. And I think it'd be a shame to miss that.

Andy Psarianos

All right. So what's the hope for educators then? How do, what... Wrap it up because we got to... We're running out of time now. So what do we... What's the advice that we can give?

Fiona Smith

Well, I mean, I think it's an opportunity. I think there's so much within these documents to help educators with taking these brand new kiddies and getting them to year one with a whole world of experience and knowledge. Not just in maths, but across all these other areas as well. And that, this, there's so much in there and it will really chime with those educators who've spent time with those young children.

Andy Psarianos

So, just to go a little bit further on what you said. You see I think, as an educator, you have to look at these documents as a framework. So you say, these are the things that I must do. Now, me as a professional, as a passionate professional in my career, I need to put my understanding of education around this and fill in all the bits that it doesn't talk about. Right? And that's where the teachers add the value.

All those documents say is, this is what you must do. Now, you got to put your magic into it. And that means dealing with all the stuff that it doesn't say that you know, right. And being confident that you can do that. And I think teacher confidence is maybe the primary issue here. As a teacher, you need to be confident that you know what you're doing. And if you're not confident, that you seek the answers for the bits that you're not confident about. Don't just kind of hide in a hole and say, I don't really know about that so I'm not going to deal with it. That's my advice.

Adam Gifford

I think my two…just to throw it in, just to... Off the back of what you just said there, Andy. I think, also looking at these statements and realising that we can see them in so many different places. So, and that's something that I found really exciting as a teacher. It was like gardening. Like every year when you garden, you have a chance to learn something new and then you've got to wait until the next year. Right. And then you can start again and prepare your garden differently and know that if I do this and do that... So teaching to me is a wee bit like gardening like that. You get these chances to learn, year after year.

And I think that confidence to ask your colleagues, what does this look like for you? So what does counting look like for you? You've been in the game 20 years. And they might say, oh, you see that over there, that's this. And you could do it here and you could do it there. And I think that seeing the same thing, but knowing that there's an infinite number of ways to see it. And there's an infinite number of ways to develop it and support kids and make it fun for them in their classroom. And you should be excited by that because every time you learn that new way to do it, it's ace. It's cool. And your kids benefit too.

Andy Psarianos

Well, that's great. Thanks everyone. Thanks for joining.

Closing

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