Gone are the days when a child may sit watching an adult going about their chores and chatting endlessly. Or have they? The Foundation Stage curriculum puts a lot of emphasis on encouraging children to talk, particularly in the Knowledge and Understanding of the World area. Here we find that to deliver a 'sense of time', children will need to spend time with adults.
While some practitioners organise circle times, Judy Harrison of Christ- church School in St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex, has found that these sessions have limitations. 'We are very careful to make sure that circle times are kept quite short. While some children do talk about things that are important to them, others need more individual times. Children can't always talk to order.'
Given that the Foundation Stage guidance suggests that children need to talk about things that are both personal and significant to them, perhaps one of the ways to deliver a sense of time is to look for opportunities when children can spontaneously talk to adults. Years ago it was commonplace for children to spend some time with adults as they shelled peas, peeled potatoes or worked in the garden. While of course we must not romanticise what were often hard times, we can perhaps see that children not only learned skills but were often able to chat freely and reminisce.
It is these type of moments that Judy tries to recreate as she explains, 'I actually design activities which enable children to talk. Each day, for example, an adult will sit down and prepare the fruit for snack time.
Children are then free to wander over and keep the adult company. To an outsider this may look unplanned, but in reality we know that children will come along and chat.'
So what is it about this type of moment that tends to appeal to children? First, children can sense that the adult is not in a hurry, as they are sitting down. This is important, because many children need time to begin talking. Second, children can see that the adult is not completely absorbed in the task and so knows they are available. Judy explains, 'We deliberately avoid thinking in terms of learning outcomes and asking specific questions. The key is to simply listen and allow the chatter to come.'
So what kind of things do children want to talk about? Judy says it can vary enormously, but reminds us that often it is grounded in what may seem the mundane. 'We have children who talk about how their baby sister has cried during the night and how they find it hard to sleep,' she says.
Cherryl Ward of the Young Sussex Nursery in Bexhill finds that birthdays figure high on the list as well as things that children have been doing at home, such as visiting grandparents or eating strawberries. 'We try to spend individual time with children first thing in the morning when they come in,' she says.
Cherryl finds that taking photographs in the nursery also helps trigger children's memories of activities so they can gain a perspective on time.
'We take lots of photographs during activities and always find that children are very excited to see themselves. Recently we planted some beans and took pictures over several days. Children were able to see how the beans had grown. One parent even carried this on after the beans went home and so the child came back with a photo story of the bean,' she explains.
Finally, for childminders thinking about taking on the Foundation Stage curriculum, it is worth remembering that they are often in a good position to do the kind of chatting that children need to help develop a sense of time. Linda Samuels, manager of the Burberry project, a support service for childminders, confirms, 'Childminders are often lucky enough to be able to focus their mind on one child at some point in the day. This is important, because children need to be listened to when they want to talk. Asking a child to wait until later is of no use. That moment may be gone for ever.'