The big three essentials
1 Literacy 2 Numeracy 3 Health and Wellbeing
By the time a child reaches three, 85% of the brain's core structure is formed. Most of the brain's growth occurs during the first two years of life, when vital neural connections are made in response to the child's environment. A newborn baby's 100 billion neurons have tentative connections which, through the child's experiences, will become the hard-wired connections responsible for all their major cognitive and emotional functioning.
But science is only one side of the coin. Anyone who has ever spent time with small children will have witnessed for themselves the remarkable transformations that take place from one day to the next. New skills are learned, new words are spoken and young personalities come to the fore.
Set against the backdrop of Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years practitioners, families and communities across Scotland are recognising the importance of literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing as building blocks for lifelong learning. Even for our very youngest children, knowledge and awareness of these three key areas can have a powerful impact. But with that power comes great responsibility, as three specialists in each of the fields explain.
Bringing words to life
'Over the last year we have been developing the concept of literacy across learning,' says Fiona Norris, Literacy and English Team Leader at LTS. 'The phrase 'literacy across learning' wasn't a well-known phrase in the past, we had 'literacy across the curriculum', but this needed to change in order to emphasise the fact that literacy is not a subject,' she says. The embedding of basic literacy skills is something that cannot be taught in isolation. 'You cannot access other aspects of learning unless you are literate. It is not just down to language teaching,' says Fiona.
Curriculum for Excellence has helped to bring about a change in thinking regarding the teaching of literacy. 'Good primary school teachers have always understood that literacy is not a subject, but something that needs to be taught in conjunction with every other curriculum area,' she says. 'The 5–14 curriculum encouraged teachers to split the language modes into discrete subjects: reading, writing, listening and talking. This resulted in each component being taught in isolation and removed the possibility of language developing in an interconnected way.'
Fiona talks positively about the impact that Curriculum for Excellence will have on the teaching of literacy. 'The great thing about Curriculum for Excellence and literacy is that people now have the freedom to develop language within a context,' she says. 'It is through listening and talking in the Early Years that children develop many of their skills.'
Innovative approaches
Kilmacolm Primary School in Inverclyde has introduced innovative approaches to help its pupils develop skills in this area. 'From the Early Years, the children are introduced to the benefits of questioning, through using Bloom's Taxonomy,' says Fiona. 'Staff have established a colour coding approach, where each of Bloom's questions is written on a different coloured flower.'
This was a particularly innovative system, as it could be easily adapted to the home environment. 'In order to ensure that parents were fully involved, the school put together a workshop on Bloom's Taxonomy. This gave parents an insight into this talking and listening strategy, and allowed them to continue developing it at home,' says Fiona.
This approach is particularly relevant in light of the many references made to questioning in the Literacy and English Early Level experiences and outcomes. 'The words that are appearing are questioning, exploring, playing and choosing,' says Fiona. 'What we are seeing is that literacy is best developed in an active, collaborative and interactive way. Curriculum for Excellence has really given us an opportunity to reinforce this.'
Counting on us
Joe McLaughlin heads up Learning and Teaching Scotland's Numeracy team. His experiences echo those of Fiona and the belief that effective teachers are teachers of children, not solely teachers of a particular subject. 'Creating the foundations for good numeracy skills and a well-rounded understanding means creating a real buzz, an excitement about numbers, right from the very Early Years upwards,' says Joe. For children from the earliest of ages, numeracy can translate into simple everyday examples, like dividing an orange into equal parts, sharing their lunch with a friend, or simply recognising their front door number.
'Numbers can become very personal to children,' says Joe. 'Even something as simple as their age or the number of the bus they get to nursery. It’s important we acknowledge this early recognition of numbers and use the numbers that already exist in a child's environment to best advantage.'
It's here that active learning has a part to play. Joe points to instances where even very basic 'active' techniques such as dropping objects into a cup and listening for the noise as they hit the bottom, one by one, can form an early awareness of 'adding up' and help young children understand the idea of progression in a sequence. 'Capturing young children's imagination is key,' he says.
Early exposure to numbers and sharing best practice has been boosted by the ability of nurseries and schools to log on to the virtual learning environment Glow. 'Glow can really help generate fresh ideas and allow practitioners to talk openly about what works well for them and share what might be helpful to another nursery or school. The chat board is also a great source of inspiration,' says Joe.
With health in mind
'Early Years development is about learning and living,' says Iain Ramsay, Health and Wellbeing Team Leader at Learning and Teaching Scotland. For Iain and his team, a holistic ethos underpins every aspect of health and wellbeing and the way these areas interact with each part of a child's learning. 'Everyone who makes up part of a child's learning environment has a responsibility to develop, reinforce and extend learning in these areas. And it's about so much more than learning, it's about developing a real awareness of how learning works in practice,' he explains.
While the phrase 'responsibility of all' might sound like jargon, Iain stresses the importance of breaking down what it means in hands-on terms. 'That means thinking about how we engage with children. We're all key in relation to their mental and emotional health. In real terms, that might be about celebrating achievement but it might just as importantly be about teaching coping skills and resilience. Health and wellbeing isn’t as simple as teaching children about eating healthy foods or doing exercise, it crosses all disciplines,' says Iain.
The impact of health and wellbeing
Wellington School Nursery in Ayrshire fully understands the impact health and wellbeing has on a child's development. Nancy Allan, Head of Nursery, ensures that a range of activities are available each day which demonstrate its commitment to health and wellbeing. 'There are a number of physical activities available for the children to participate in on a daily basis, and we ensure that the children spend part of each day outside,' Nancy says. 'The children consider hand hygiene carefully, and understand the importance of tooth brushing.'
Iain says a holistic approach to health and wellbeing extends beyond the nursery or school setting. 'Health and wellbeing must be supported by knowledgeable adults. It isn't only the children's awareness we need to raise and harness, it's the adults' and the learning communities' the children are part of. The environment that the school or nursery provides to support all this is also key,' he says.
Iain calls these 'enabling environments' and explains: 'Things like what food they serve, and how play time and rest time are organised are important. These are day to day examples of how the issues on paper translate into practice.'
Involving parents
Wellington School Nursery recognised this need to improve its partnership with parents. 'We wanted to get parents fully involved in health promotion at Early Level. In order to do this effectively, we decided to organise a Health and Wellbeing Fair. We also got the local health community to raise awareness of the services they provide.'
On the day of the event, displays were set up by a professional who provided key information about health and wellbeing in the Early Years. The event turned out to be a success as Nancy explains, 'The Health and Wellbeing Fair was very well attended by parents who commented on the usefulness of the information provided,' she says. 'They also appreciated the opportunity to learn more about Curriculum for Excellence Early Level, and the importance it places on health and wellbeing.'
'Consistency is also crucial and that's where we need to think about how what a child has learned at home, before they even start nursery, links in with what they learn at nursery. And, going forwards, how that knits in with what they'll learn when they move on to primary and eventually secondary school. Health and wellbeing runs right through the Curriculum for Excellence from 3–18, but for the Early Years it's about building on what has gone before,' adds Iain.
Social and emotional impact
Iain says that an awareness of health and wellbeing at all levels, in families and in the nursery or school, helps nurture social, emotional and mental skills that form the basis for a child's lifelong development. 'It's vital that everyone who works with children understands the social and emotional impact of their actions and behaviour,' he says. And it's in the process of ensuring good transitions that partnership working and joined up thinking has a valuable role to play.
'Health and wellbeing crosses all disciplines. It has to be a partnership effort between schools, communities, parents and carers, in fact all those who interface with children,' he says.
Considering that health and wellbeing is broken down into six 'organisers' with issues such as relationships and substance misuse making up two of the curriculum categories, you would be forgiven for thinking these aspects simply don’t apply to the Early Years. But they do. Iain explains that substance misuse could cover making sure young children understand that some dangerous items are stored in kitchen cupboards and medicine cabinets. 'It might also cover making young children aware of how and when to get help in an emergency situation,' he explains.
All teachers and Early Years practitioners have a responsibility to promote literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing. These core building blocks will enable children in the Early Years to be successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens.
- Posted on 08 September 2009 under Literacy, Numeracy, Early Years Matters, Issue 16, In this issue.
- Tagged as curriculum for excellence, health, wellbeing, literacy, numeracy.
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