In recent years, the use of photographs to shed light on children's interests and motivations has developed apace. While it is often the children themselves who are encouraged to take the photographs, it was the parents and carers who were handed the cameras in one project in the London Borough of Haringey. Their task was to photograph the places in which their children enjoyed communicating - and the results have been illuminating.
The project was devised in response to the poor SATs results and general underachievement of Turkish-speaking boys in the borough. Settings with a high proportion of children from this community chosen to take part included children's centres, playgroups, and primary schools, predominantly in Tottenham. Through the photographs, the authority hoped to build up a picture of the children's preferred contexts for learning.
The project began with three parent/carer sessions, held in a local children's centre. Thirteen Turkish-speaking families took part and there was 100 per cent retention.
The photos taken by families captured children's favourite spaces in the family home, in the homes of extended family members and out and about in parks and high streets. A total of 385 photos were collected for analysis. The following significant themes emerged.
- The floor featured strongly as a preferred space for the children, with siblings and family members alongside either participating or doing their own activities.
- The photos captured the importance of inter-generational gatherings, with children engaging confidently with children and adults in their family and community. Social contact was present in a high proportion of pictures of boys.
- The children's culture was reflected in a quarter of the photographs.
- Many more women than men appeared in the images.
- Most notable was the high percentage of both home and indoor spaces. There were very few images taken outside or of physical play.
- Many of the photographs of adults and children together featured 'educational resources'. In these, it seemed that adults often led the activity, perhaps with the child's hand in theirs or sitting behind the child holding a book. Most interestingly, the group was observed to be in uncluttered environments, with little visual or apparent auditory interference.
The information and visual data gathered then informed the basis for a training programme for practitioners from 12 Haringey settings. Over a six-month period, delegates attended three Communication Friendly Spaces training days and received development visits from Elizabeth Jarman trainers.
ON THE RECORD
Practitioners were also invited to capture visual data and observe more closely the places where children liked to spend time within the group setting, and recorded their observations and visual data in a journal.
After reviewing and analysing the images taken, practitioners were able to make informed changes to their provision. They observed not just what the children were doing (or not doing) but where they were choosing to be for particular activities. In response:
- After a number of settings set up cosy spaces with muted and homely colours, staff observed calmer behaviour in children accessing these spaces for relaxation at key times in the day. Many of the spaces also enabled children to watch other activities from a position of safety.
- Some settings introduced resources that better reflected children's cultural experience and provided important connections with home.
- Many settings developed smaller spaces, large enough for one or two children only. They observed that large open-plan spaces were sometimes overwhelming for children, especially those from the Turkish-speaking community which had limited experience of pre-school or drop-in settings.
- Some settings provided more floor space for uncluttered areas for play.
There were also interesting implications for the role of the practitioner. Many of those involved in the project:
- have started to take a less 'actively guided' approach, choosing instead to stand back more and let the child lead the learning
- have gained a deeper understanding of the Turkish-speaking children's home lives and parental expectation
- have developed a clear empathy in supporting families and meeting the needs of boys in particular
- are now using visual data to record progress and to develop models for parental engagement.
All this has led to a real commitment to easing transition and engagement in learning for the families.
For more information
www.elizabethjarmantraining.co.uk
With thanks to Dr Anna Cox and Emma Willars