The idea that practitioners notice and use children’s interests to create learning experiences is not new. We know that being in a state of interest can energise learning and increase motivation.

We all have interests, some may be long term hobbies or activities, some might be something new that you saw recently, it sparked an interest and you found you wanted to know more. It’s just the same for children.

The EYFS tells us: Practitioners must consider the individual needs, interests, and development of each child in their care, and must use this information to plan a challenging and enjoyable experience for each child in all areas of learning and development. 

Knowing what children enjoy engaging with at home, and putting this into your environment can help with transition, and to develop a sense of belonging. It is comforting to a child to see familiar resources; these are usually quite broad and can easily be put into continuous provision or used to create an activity. These can be called children’s preferred resources and are very useful to know.

Preferred resources are also useful to engage reluctant children to areas they might not visit, putting the animals in the sand, or using them when introducing a new skill, for example categorising cars and trucks.

But we don’t stop there. Now we need to really understand what it means to follow children’s interests.

There are similarities between preferred resources and following interests, but there is also a difference:

- this is what the child is already interested in, therefore I will provide learning linked to this (preferred resource) and

- I see an idea (interest) forming and I will extend and provide for it. (Following interests.

It is important to know the difference as children’s drive to learn is often sparked by their immediate interest.

When a child thinks:

• I find that interesting.
• How fascinating.
• I am curious about that.
• I want to know more about that.

Practitioners can hear:

• I am motivated to learn.
• I will be engaged.
• I will concentrate more.
• I will listen to information about this.
• I will express my own ideas.

Any idea or focus can become an interest, some will be quick, as part of a conversation, and a small acknowledgement will be enough, some however, will set you up for hours or days of new experiences and learning. It’s like going fishing every day in your own environment to see what interest’s you can hook.

Ferrer Laever likened this to mining for gold, sometimes, he said, it’s just a flash of gold, other times, it can be a long streak of gold that can be mined for days.

We must remember that children can only show a preferred interest in what they have already seen or know about. If we know a group of children are interested in dinosaurs, we will have a limited run of ideas. The dinosaurs should, of course be in continuous provision and made use of, but children need a rich and varied curriculum.

It is therefore part of a rich learning environment that new resources, ideas, and artefacts are introduced to children as part of quality practice.

Example of following children’s interest as they happen: One sunny morning two nursery children were drawing by the window; they called a practitioner over to tell them they could see their hand on the paper. (a shadow) more children joined and noticed their shadows, the next 45 minutes was all about shadows, the children retrieved resources from around the room, they drew round the shadows, the adult explained shadows, they saw what happened when the sun briefly went behind a cloud. The children were excited and focused on what they were doing. They learned new information and new vocabulary, none of which was planned. This prior learning was built on outside later in the session, and in the following days.

There will be skills and experiences that may never come up as a child’s interest. Learning about gardening, cooking, or watching chicks hatch may never be mentioned and what lost experiences that would be. Knowing the cultural capital of your children helps you to plan to widen children’s experiences, this can be small, such as enhancing the home corner with utensils children might not have encountered, to writing and posting letters.

You do have to be selective; you can’t jump on every idea or fascination, everyone will be exhausted and not all will be appropriate in a setting, an acknowledgement, adding resources, or an open-ended question, might be enough if it just a flash of interest.

Perhaps it is time to reflect on whether both types of following children’s interests are in your setting.  Can we use continuous and enhance provision to provide preferred resources. Then equip your environment with awe and wonder and tune into the children to see their response.

Look for the widening of the eyes, a smile, a hop of excitement that’s where the magic is, a sure sign that the brain firing up, neurons reaching out for new information and connections.

You never know where it might take you.

“If children have interest, then education happens” Sugata Mitra

We rightly work hard in schools to develop competent readers and a reading for pleasure culture. Of course, reading is also a vital vehicle for learning across the curriculum and beyond.

Disciplinary reading at primary school

There’s growing interest in how disciplinary literacy can support children in their learning across the primary curriculum. Much of what has been published historically on the matter has – understandably - focused on secondary school disciplinary literacy. While teachers of science, geography or maths in the secondary phase know that they are teachers of reading too, disciplinary literacy lights the path to understanding how literacy truly underpins all subjects – not for the sake of improving literacy itself, but for a deeper, richer experience of the subject at hand. If a pupil can read with a view to identifying bias, drawing together information from a range of sources, identifying cause and effect, then they are on their way to becoming a better historian with the ‘tools’ required to make sense of the area they are studying.

More recently, work has been done on the roots of disciplinary literacy for the primary age range. This recent article from the EEF explored ‘Sowing the seeds of disciplinary literacy’, describing disciplinary literacy as ‘an integrated and powerful approach to explicitly and deliberately unlocking the knowledge and skills to support the branching out of curriculum domains.’

So, how can we teach children to read like historians, for example, when they are still in the early stages of learning to read? As primary teachers, we have the benefit of teaching children for all subjects, and can use our expertise to support children to use literacy to underpin learning more widely. In this blog, we will focus on reading.

The mutual benefit

Reading across the curriculum provides mutual benefits. Using reading in different subjects can deepen children’s ability to read in the style of a professional in the area, adopting the skills and tools required by a historian (for example) to construct meaning in the discipline (disciplinary literacy). It also enriches and deepens understanding in the subject at hand; children can learn about something by reading about it (known as content area reading). Research suggests that our brains learn well from stories, so dipping into the rich range of texts available (non-fiction, fiction and even poetry – as long as it supports the intended learning) has the potential to make learning memorable - not to mention, enjoyable - for pupils.

Of course, the other benefit is that it affords children the opportunity to flex their ‘reading muscles’, to apply their learning from English lessons in other contexts and broaden their all-important world knowledge by doing so. Could this be a win-win? Or a ‘two-fer’, as Dr Tim Rasinski coins it in our training. 

Why is fluency important when reading across the curriculum?

For many of our younger children, content area reading is the starting point: using reading to learn about the content of the subject. We might read a fact-file about a habitat in KS1 science, or a biography of an artist in KS2 art. We might choose a wonderful story that captures a certain period of time. However, if we want children to truly learn the content that they are reading about, then they need to be able to read the text with an appropriate degree of automaticity. Without it, their brain will be focused on decoding the text in front of them, rather than making meaning of the content on the page. Whether it is content area reading or disciplinary reading we are after, what must come first to be successful, is the child being able to read the text with requisite fluency. It must feel automatic enough that the brain can turn its attention to making meaning. If not, the child will need the information presented in another way for the learning to take place, or be supported with strategies to access the text, so that the learning opportunity is not lost.

How might fluency instruction help to lighten the load?

We have seen the power of fluency instruction on pupil progress in accuracy and comprehension when reading. In our new course, Reading Fluency Across the Primary Curriculum, we work to harness fluency strategies to support learning across the curriculum, not instead of the learning of the subject at hand, but to underpin and enhance it.

Let’s imagine you are teaching a KS2 geography lesson, exploring what life is like for people living in the vicinity of a volcano. You are using some personal accounts from different people who live near a volcano as one of the sources of information that you want the children to analyse and interpret. The accounts will build on some of the substantive knowledge that children have about volcanoes and of Ecuador, the chosen location for study in the Americas. However, the task is also designed to make use of their disciplinary literacy, as they extract information, analyse and interpret it to make meaning as geographers. Of course, for the children’s focus to be on the geography learning at hand, the text must be carefully selected to ensure it is matched to the intended learning. (For the purposes of this blog, I have created this example - it is not from a genuine source.)

My name is Luis, and I run a small farm in the highlands near Cotopaxi, one of the tallest and most active volcanoes in Ecuador. Life here is centred around the land, and the fertile soil is a big part of why we choose to farm in this region. The ash from Cotopaxi’s past eruptions has enriched the soil, making it ideal for growing crops like potatoes, corn, and quinoa; our cattle graze on lush pastures, and we produce some of the best dairy products in the region. This fertile land is the foundation of our livelihood, and it's why my family has farmed here for generations.

However, living near Cotopaxi is not without its dangers. When the volcano becomes active, the threat of lahars—mudflows caused by volcanic ash mixing with glacial melt—is very real. These fast-moving flows can destroy everything in their path, and we’ve seen this happen in the past; the last time Cotopaxi erupted in a big way was 1877, but the stories from my grandparents still circulate. We’re always aware that the volcano could erupt again, and we prepare for it by having emergency plans in place. The government monitors Cotopaxi closely, and when it shows signs of activity, we receive an alert to evacuate if necessary.

Despite the risks, we remain because the land is so productive. The highland communities have learned to live with the volcano, and we work together to support each other during times of unrest. We keep our animals close to home when warnings are issued and store extra food and supplies. We’ve adapted to the rhythms of Cotopaxi, and as long as we stay prepared, we make it work.

In geography, information is likely to be presented in different forms: maps, photographs, tables, etc. The demands placed on many children in this context are high, as on top of reading and understanding, they are required to collate and analyse information from the range of sources. What can we do to help?

Read it more than once

Decades of research suggests that repeated reading has benefits for readers’ accuracy and automaticity, and in turn their comprehension, and we have certainly seen the benefits of this for pupils partaking in our Reading Fluency Project. If children are to comprehend the text in the lesson, and work with it in increasingly complex ways, then they need to be able to read it with enough automaticity for their brain to attend to the meaning. Reading a text more than once is an easy way to support this. You might pre-read the text with a group of children whose fluency could be a barrier to accessing the text, then in the lesson read the text to the whole class, before asking them to read it in pairs one more time before diving into the task at hand.

Something to consider when using repeated reading is how to motivate the pupils to read the text more than once. In his article, Why Reading Fluency Should be Hot, Dr Tim Rasinski talks about performance being powerful and authentic here; most of us would practise before presenting to an audience. In the case of the accounts of people living near a volcano, groups could prepare to read one of the accounts by practising it a couple of times, before reading aloud to the class with prosody. Then, open up a rich discussion about similarities, differences, and trends between the accounts, once all have been ‘performed’.

Plunder the vocabulary

There are some words in the account that will no doubt be key learning/content for this unit of work which capture the concepts being taught e.g. volcano, erupt, ash, active, fertile. In the account above, the children will come across them in that (all-important) context, helping them to develop a deeper sense of their meaning. For some words, you may just check for understanding. Others may need defining, exploring in context, and adding to your working wall. Looking more closely, though, there are words here which may not be familiar to the children but are likely to come up in other texts that they read. Understanding these could improve the children’s comprehension of the text in hand, and other texts too. Words such as foundation, generations, productive and prepared also require attention in this text. Here, you may use some different strategies that support children to make meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary in context. For example, you may use morphology to explore ‘productive’, linking to its root word ‘produce’ to unlock its meaning.

Look out too for polysemous words: words which have more than one meaning. Many curriculum subjects hold these words as our language is rich in them. Again, context is key here, so exploring the specific meaning of the words alert, foundation and active could prevent misconceptions. Making connections often helps. If we expect children to go on to use any of the key terminology in their writing or speaking about the topic, then they will need to become comfortable in its meaning.

Repeated reading and vocabulary exploration are just two of a broad range of strategies which can support children to access the text in front of them. As you introduce these strategies, children will become more confident with drawing on them independently when reading for meaning.

Using fluency strategies across the curriculum should not only build on pupils’ wider reading practice but, crucially, allow them to unlock learning across the curriculum.

Join us at our Reading Fluency Across the Curriculum online course to learn more about the research that underpins this work, and discover a huge range of strategies to use with your class.

So what challenges are we facing? Balancing budgets, ensuring academic standards and outcomes improve, addressing staff shortages and retention, managing stakeholder expectations, monitoring and ensuring your policy framework is fit for purpose, fostering inclusivity, navigating the wider DfE, Ofsted compliance and governance regulations, ensuring safeguarding is effective, managing staff and leadership wellbeing, monitoring behaviour and attendance – and so much more.

So where to begin? The above should all be considered with short-, medium- and long-term strategies to resolve and manage with actions and KPIs to enable tracking, evidence gathering and measuring the impact of initiatives and support put in place to tackle them. I think to consider each of the above (and all the other unlisted challenges) in isolation risks overwhelming us, the fact is every institution, business, public body, charity in the UK is facing a similar tsunami of challenges. So, it must be a reassurance that ‘we are all in this together’ and that schools are not uniquely impacted. As a board, every governor whether in their work, social or family life will be dealing with similar things and therefore can bring this experience and the strategies to overcome many of them to the table. It’s vital then to tap into that lived experience and resource, discuss and agree what will help your school, and what won’t, and get applying that lived experience and evidenced knowledge to bear down on the challenges working with school leaders and other stakeholders.

It's not really a stretch to say that for the past 20 years the above challenges have been faced by schools to a greater or lesser extent, this can only help with where we are now. Tapping into the knowledge of longstanding headteachers (sharing challenges they have faced, addressed & overcome), experienced governors & members of staff (maybe those that have retired as well), volunteers, suppliers and members of the local business and wider community could provide much needed support and answers to today’s challenges. Maybe hold some focus group style meetings with these stakeholders to distil out how they approached and resolved the challenges they faced or invite them to attend a board meeting to contribute at a focussed session. Equally minutes and papers from meetings of yesteryear may provide nuggets of best practice. 

I think we feel the weight of responsibility too heavily at times, that we become siloed in our schools feeling that the draw bridge has been pulled up and it’s us against the world. The fact is that there’s a wealth of support out there to help mitigate and resolve these challenges. This comes nationally from the DfE, Ofsted, Ofqual and our LAs who all hold regular briefings and webinars to update school leaders and governors/ trustees alike - ok this may not be up there with a quiet night in but they genuinely are framed to support and improve practice! Next are organisations such as National Governors Association, Confederation of School Trusts and of course HFL Education (excuse the plug!). Organisations such as these have a long and rich history of supporting governance with training, briefings, bulletins, thought pieces, blogs that are solely aimed at providing governors, trustees and their boards with both generic and bespoke support. Finally, there are the third sector providers such as the NSPCC, Education Endowment Foundation, School Home Support or National Federation for Education Research who can provide much research-based evidence to support schools when planning strategies and policy to particularly support the underserved, SEND and Pupil Premium pupils.

Depending where you find yourself on the challenge curve will depend on how much you need to deploy or engage with the range of support ideas above. Whatever the challenges are we must get them in perspective and set a clear, costed, evidence-based strategy with clear key performance indicators to get to the point where at the very least the challenge is managed and at best resolved. There’s a certainty that with many of the educational challenges that schools face that they will at best either be contained, managed, ring fenced or a combination of these. I am mindful of the words of Steve Bartlett (Diary of a CEO) on overcoming challenges:

‘You’re overcomplicating it.
Just start trying.
See what works.
Adapt as you go.
Imperfect action always
beats perfect inaction’.

Does this ring true for your board? If it does it’s far from a criticism, it’s a recognition of where many organisations can end up in difficult times, battening the hatches down, weathering the storm, pulling the levers that have worked in the past and hopefully searching for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. There’s nothing gung-ho about this quote, break it down and it’s almost a ‘baby steps’ approach to resolving problems – try things (monitor and evidence the impact), progress with what works (review progress and impact and fund what works), monitor what’s working and tweak and adapt as you go to improve its impact, doing nothing won’t move the dial on anything!

I hope this blog has at least given you pause for thought and at best possibly inspired a new approach and mindset when it comes to the challenges we face as a sector. It’s about perspective and Rome not being built in a day, it’s about pausing and reflecting, it’s about not missing tapping into the vast wealth of experience and resource that our experiences beyond our governor role bring to the table and it’s about thinking that solutions are possible rather than impossible!

We are here to help and support, please don’t hesitate to contact us:

Phone the helpdesk on 01438 544487 or email us at governance@hfleducation.org

Memories and motivation 

I think I only had clay classes for about a term in secondary school, but they were my favourite. The promise of what a lump of the grey stuff that smelt of the earth could become, the satisfaction of rolling out perfect coils and the patience required to wait for the finished, glazed pot from the kiln are core memories. 

Recently, to carve out more time for myself (excuse the clay pun!) I’ve re-started classes at a friendly studio located near to me in North London. As I’ve been working through the classes, I’ve been keen to reflect on how the therapeutic and creative benefits of playing with clay can be offered and supported in the Early Years. 
 

Clay as a malleable material 

Clay is a natural material and has unique properties in terms of its ability to be moulded, left to harden, made softer, carved into, rolled flat or joined. The history and use of clay is interesting to explore with children as the earliest clay tablets and writing date back to 3300BC and ancient clay pots, pipes and decorative jugs tell us so much about civilisations long ago. 

The beauty of clay is that it is open ended, an ‘intelligent’ material, and can be anything at all that a child wants it to be. The possibilities clay holds for children far surpasses our own ideas and expectations and gives a child the opportunity to represent in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional form. 
 

Ordinarily available provision 

Clay can be handled and explored by children of all ages who can then follow their own interests as they explore it in a way that is developmentally appropriate to them. This might start with exploring a huge lump of clay in a tuff spot, pulling off bits, adding water, pressing natural materials into it or simply exploring its consistency by covering their hands and arms with it. Later, children might start to use it to represent objects or forms that they are more familiar with, possibly even learning how to dry or fire their creations to produce a more permanent object. 

If clay is available regularly, as ordinarily available provision, children will quickly develop their ideas with increasing complexity, detail and focus.
 

Tips for setting up a clay area

• Tools are not necessary at first, they can be introduced as and when you want to move learning on or introduce a technique such as trimming or smoothing. Remember at first, that children will benefit from long periods exploring the material with their whole bodies without a pre-determined product.
• Introduce clay as a large solid lump to start with and make water available so that it doesn’t dry out. In my experience, discarded, used clay can be squidged together again and if kept in a sealed plastic bag or wrapped in a damp cloth it can be used again and again.
• Encourage children to use every part of their hands to explore the clay; their hands are the most important tool. Model to them how to use their knuckles, fingertips, fists and palms. They will quickly discover that how the clay behaves is led by their hands.
• Ensure staff are aware of the skills that they might like to model such as sculpting, rolling, engraving, pressing and patting. Consider what this progression might look like over time for children in your EYFS.
• Mister bottles used for plants are good for keeping the clay lightly damp whilst children explore it.
• Large wooden boards are good for working on but tuff spots or covering tables with hessian or cotton sheets work well too.
• If adding water, then consider tools which will not ‘flood’ the clay such as pipettes, small spray bottles or paint brushes.
• Clothing such as baggy T shirts or overalls work best for clay play. Clay washes out easily. 
   

Development of knowledge and skills 

As children explore clay and become confident with it, you might want to consider looking at how clay is used by other artists and ceramicists with children, or even visit a local studio to see pots being thrown on a wheel. 

You might also want to look at more technical skills such as slab work, using slip to join, or even making simple pinch pots and building up height with coils. Some schools I know have worked with community artists on a group or class project, the opportunities are endless. 

As ever, I have only touched on the possibilities open to you by introducing clay into your classroom. For a much more comprehensive look, please look at the Froebel ‘Exploring Clay’ pamphlet below, and if you do decide to develop the use of clay in your setting, we’d love to hear from you.

Resources

Exploring Clay pamphlet - written by Lucy Parker, Deputy Headteacher at Ludwick Nursery School in Hertfordshire 

Place to play every day