One year on since The Early Years Coalition launched the Birth to 5 Matters guidance, we have celebrated with ten days of free online professional development sessions.
Our recent interim evaluation showed that practitioners are finding the guidance helpful to support implementation of the revised EYFS. They reported that the guidance had a positive impact on staff professional development, increasing staff confidence in their professional judgement, and impacting positively on assessment, curriculum and learning and outcomes.
It is also having some impact on diversity and inclusion and closing the ‘attainment gap’, although there is clearly more needed here and in relation to working with children with SEND.
This feedback reinforced the importance of including sessions on diversity and inclusion within the festival, but we wanted also to continue to stress the key messages of Birth to 5 Matters about valuing and respecting children’s agency, and considering the world in which they will grow up.
Hence as well as further sessions supporting the development of practitioners’ professional judgement and addressing the need identified above to further support practitioners to consider equity and inclusion, we kept our focus on key themes within the guidance.
Children’s rights must remain at the heart of our provision, especially at a time when these are so often overlooked in government policy, where children have no voice and their needs are rarely a priority. To support the EYFS vision of the child as active and capable learner, we focused on Funds of Knowledge, rather than on the related concept of ‘cultural capital’ – recognising that every child brings with them learning from their family and community is vital to an equitable and inclusive approach.
Sustainability must be central to all our activity going forward and while the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy is not yet integrated with the EYFS, we wanted to support practitioners to think about what steps they can take now.
Finally, we wanted to provide scope to explore the areas of learning which are most likely to be needed as 21st century skills, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Maths (STEAM) and socio-emotional skills.
Most of all, after an incredibly tough two years working through the pandemic, we wanted to offer colleagues in the sector CPD opportunities that were inspiring, positive and focused on the future, while rooted in core principles such as the importance of play in young children’s learning.
Our six keynote speakers were all inspirational and it doesn’t do them justice to try to capture the sessions in brief, but as an illustration, Michael Rosen explored the complexities of language learning and taught us a poem. Lemn Sissay reflected on story-telling and the importance of really listening to children. Nancy Stewart mapped out the complex process of exercising professional judgement. Chris Pascal reflected on the challenges of participatory practice in early childhood education. Cathy Nutbrown showed how children’s drawings map the process of development towards learning to be a writer, and all the varied experiences which they need along the way.
We were thrilled to be joined by practitioners not just from around the UK but from all over the world. As well the contributions from speakers, the chat was full of insights shared by participants with one another – a real community of practice in action.
Our wonderful speakers were hugely generous in sharing their time and their insights, and we couldn’t have done it without them and our sponsors (Froebel Trust, Montessori Group, Famly, Connect Childcare, SEFDEY and Watch Me Grow Development Map). In the spirit of the Birth to 5 Matters, it was very much an event “by the sector, for the sector” and for the benefit of practitioners and young children everywhere.
If you missed any or all of the sessions, most are available to watch as recordings until mid-May.