A tumultuous 18 months
Sue Asquith – Early Childhood Consultant and author
Although many of us work all year long, summer is often an ideal time to reflect and plan for the academic year to come.
Looking back
We certainly will not forget the last 18 months in a hurry! Predictability and routines are part of our biological physiological needs in terms of feeling safe. We have experienced unprecedented times and uncertainty and shown our resilience. We have led and managed, steering our way through the pandemic, reams of (often very confusing) guidance, risk assessments, planning bubbles, etc. Then there’s been the added issues of keeping up with the updates, tweaking our policies and risk assessments accordingly, often with little or no warning or time to prepare and then managing burst bubbles, contacting parents and more recently the pingdemic exacerbating staff and ratio issues.
If no-one has acknowledged your hard work and first-class resilience and management skills, please let me do so! You have used your proactive and reactive leadership skills daily to consider everyone’s well-being and to keep your staff and the children safe. It’s often been a tricky path to navigate but navigate you did, well done! Please ensure that you take the time to consider your own workload and well-being. You need to ensure that you do not burn out!
Forward planning
We are likely to be living with COVID for some time to come, but hopefully we can start to welcome some elements of our ‘old norms’ back into our lives. Perhaps you have already started your journey back to ‘the old norm’ whilst also retaining some elements of your ‘new norm’ practice and routines?
Ofsted Inspections resumed
After a halt in the usual inspection activity, Ofsted inspections resumed back in May. Whilst an inspection could be viewed as your chance to shine, the thought of an inspection may also be the cause of lots of stress, worry and anxiety. The current inspection framework, Education Inspection Framework, came into force in September 2019. However, with 15 months of no routine inspections, the revised EYFS as well as all the COVID updates, now might be a good time to reacquaint yourself with the early years inspection handbook. You will have your own unique 6 years inspection window now, which is informed by several factors, including your last inspection grade.
The revised EYFS
The revised EYFS comes into force in England in September. There are changes to all 3 sections of the Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework. The seven areas of learning and development remain the same, but early learning goals are changing. For example, currently the personal, social and emotional development (PSED) aspects are ‘making relationships’, ‘self-confidence and self-awareness’, and ‘managing feelings and behaviour’. In the revised EYFS 2021, the PSED early learning goals are ‘self-regulation’, ‘managing self’ and ‘building relationships.’
Key messages behind the reforms include reduced paperwork and workloads and relying on professional judgements rather than lists of child development as check lists.
On your inspection, Ofsted ‘inspectors will want to know how leaders design an ambitious and well-sequenced curriculum that prepares children well for the next stage of their education’ You will be asked about children’s starting points, interests and the progress they are making. What do you want children to learn and why (i.e. your intent)? How you implement your intent and the impact of this. How do you know that children are learning and that they know/remember more? How are you adding to children’s cultural capital and how you measure this success/progress?
What are your priorities?
Here are a few questions to start with:
Where are you now?
Where do you want to be?
What is working well?
What are your priorities?
How has the pandemic affected you/your setting/the children and their families?
I have been helping to support the early years workforce thorough the pandemic in various ways. You will find daily posts in my FaceBook group to inspire and support you. For example, alerts to the updates from the DfE and Ofsted, supporting your CPD with blogs, articles and news and posts about forthcoming awareness days and activity ideas. It’s a space to ask questions of others and there’s the group files with a letter to explain the revised EYFS to parents, example planning, safeguarding and revised EYFS quizzes, etc.
You’ll also find out about my on-line training events in the FaceBook group and these are all on my website. I am passionate about offering quality training at affordable prices. You can join others on open on-line events or book your own all staff/INSET training. This can be face to face or on-line. You can use the contact me facility on my website to enquire about bespoke training events for your team or consultancy visits.
You can read more about self-regulation, executive function and child development in my book ‘Self-Regulation Skills in Young Children; Theory and Practical Activities for Practitioners and Parents’ published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers UK last spring.
You can follow me on Twitter here join my Early Childhood Consultant Facebook group here and access my website here