Transition for children from the Reception class into Year 1 in England remains fraught with challenge. Because there are no national guidelines about which pedagogy is best suited to the learning needs and dispositions of children age five, six and seven years, schools have no universal principles to guide their practice, and senior leaders too often lack the knowledge to make informed choices about an appropriate KS1 pedagogy.
There are many reasons why transition at this point remains problematic. Historically the principles and pedagogies underpinning the EYFS and the National Curriculum and national strategies for literacy and numeracy were never aligned (Fisher 2011). Messages about practice and the role of the teacher were conflicting, with Reception teachers being encouraged to engage in and support child-led learning whilst the National Curriculum and national strategies required KS1 teachers to lead learning in order to fulfil the stipulated objectives.
While many schools worked hard to build on the pedagogy in their Reception classes to give children as smooth and seamless a transition as possible, too many others took this as the opportunity to view KS1 as the beginning of primary school rather than a continuation of the early years.
Those schools where changes in pedagogy were ‘too abrupt’ (Ofsted 2004) were often led by headteachers without sufficient knowledge of or experience in the early years to appreciate the pressure such a view would impose on children and on their teachers. Some of these appointments reflected the long-term impact of a national programme throughout England in the late 1980s/90s, amalgamating infant and junior schools into all-through primary schools (Richards 1999). Many headteachers of these new primary schools had no experience of teaching children younger than Year 3 and practices were encouraged and initiatives adopted that may well have been suitable and appropriate for children in the junior school, but proved far too formal and restricting for children who had just enjoyed the pedagogy of the infants.
Since then, headteachers have continued to be appointed without the relevant experience to be advocates for practices that are developmentally appropriate for children up to age seven. Scrutiny of data from the EYFS Profile, managing expectations surrounding SATs and the Y1 Phonics check in Year 1, the requirement to monitor the quality of teaching and learning have all too often exposed gaps in the knowledge and understanding of those in positions of senior leadership in our schools, exacerbated of late by the school readiness agenda (Neaum 2016) and demands to focus heavily on ‘end points’ and ‘next steps’ (Ofsted 2019).
Yet ‘transition will likely be smoother for the child if play remains and continues as the main vehicle for their early learning in Primary 1 and beyond’ (Scottish Government 2020). The problem in England is that too many of those who are in positions of responsibility in our primary schools regard play as trivial and a distraction from the real business of schooling.
However, my recent research into the place of play in KS1 classrooms (Fisher 2020) is brought alive by accounts of teachers committed to an approach that recognises the motivational drive of children learning through self-directed activity, alongside the importance of teaching what national frameworks lay down for children of this age to learn.
These teachers recognise that much of the curriculum that they teach is followed up and consolidated by children in their play, deepening their understanding as they explore and rehearse skills and concepts in the security of activity over which they have control. Teachers also understand that positive attitudes to learning and being a learner emanate from children’s opportunities to set their own challenges, use their initiative, collaborate with others, develop independence….all life skills that a learning day planned by and directed by a teacher can never adequately develop.
This research focused not only on KS1 teachers but on headteachers also, and the impact they have on the development of a play-based pedagogy in their schools. Headteachers were interviewed who not only supported but actively encouraged their KS1 staff to find an appropriate balance between learning led by adults and learning led by children. In doing so, they motivated their teachers as well as their children by giving agency to both.
This pedagogy, rooted in children’s interests, positive attitudes and strengths, was developed because headteachers trusted their staff to do what they believed to be appropriate for their children, in their school. But they also expected evidence that this approach worked.
These expectations, however, did not come without an appreciation that the development of a play-based pedagogy would take time, and so the headteachers gave time to their staff to continue improving this approach without losing faith when things went wrong or progress stalled.
In the end, the headteachers in the research were able to see and be convinced by the progress their children were making and their enthusiastic engagement in learning. Their clear message to more sceptical colleagues was to see play as a rich, motivating learning opportunity rather than a distraction from learning and that, in doing so, they might also see standards in their schools rise.
This research builds on years of anecdotal evidence that the support of headteachers and senior leaders is critical to the development of an appropriate pedagogy in KS1, and that too many teachers struggle to adopt this approach in the face of opposition from school leaders who sometimes have little or no personal experience of teaching in the early years.
I believe there is an urgent need in England for all applicants for the headship of primary schools to have either early years experience or, if not, undertake an early years leadership qualification, similar to one currently provided in Scotland (Education Scotland).
It is high time that English policymakers understood that if the early years of education is as profoundly important as they claim, that their policies need to acknowledge the central, critical and unique place of play in achieving the ambitious outcomes for learning and development we all want to see at the end of KS1.
Julie Fisher is an independent Early Years Adviser and Visiting Professor of Early Childhood Education at Oxford Brookes University. The second edition of her acclaimed book Moving on to Key Stage 1: Improving Transition into Primary School (Open University Press) is now available.
References
- Education Scotland (2020) Leadership of Early Learning, Available at: https://professionallearning.education.gov.scot/learn/programmes/leadership-of-early-learning/
- Fisher, J. (2011) Building on the Early Years Foundation Stage: developing good practice for transition into Key Stage 1. Early Years, Vol.31, No.1, 31-42.
- Fisher, J. (2020) (2nd edn) Moving On to Key Stage 1, London: Open University Press.
- Naeum, S. (2016) School readiness and pedagogies of Competence and Performance: theorising the troubled relationship between early years and early years policy, International Journal of Early Years Education, Vol.24, No.3, 239-253.
- Ofsted (2004) Transition from the Reception Year to Key Stage 1: an evaluation by HMI, London: Ofsted.
- Ofsted (2019) School Inspection Handbook, Manchester: Ofsted.
- Scottish Government (2020) Realising the Ambition, Edinburgh: Scottish Government.
- Richards, C. (1999) Primary Education – at a Hinge in History, London: Falmer Press.