Tag: Curriculum

Bloom’s Taxonomy?

Steve Wheeler, the author of this post argues that “often a mistake to try to represent complex ideas in the form of simplistic diagrams,” and goes on to suggest that Bloom, so much hailed as a model of thinking, requires serious revision in a “digital age.”

He goes on to state in Bloom Reheated (the significance of the title is in the blog post – ergo, read it) that “We need to find ways to nurture the agile, flexible, critical and creative learners we desperately need in our communities today.”

All agreed.  No problem – except that how do I work with students to give them effective models of learning that will stand them in good stead in a classroom? There might be holes in the Bloom taxonomy (not least, for me, its pyramid structure)  but it is still very current, (as in this guidance on University Learning Outcomes), and does allow students to think about how they teach, how their pupils learn; it is an effective tool for the reflective teacher who wants to move beyond “you do what works.”

Every child is an artist?

What are we to make of the powerful assertions here in the HATCH blog? Is every child really an artist – or are we over-using the idea of Art? How practical are the ethos-based key words here of trust, choice and environment?

While wanting to raise the issues as questions, because I think these are fundamentally more about personal philosophy than a quick fix for success, I would hurriedly add  that this is a very good way for trainee teachers to view their artistic/creative curriculum, especially in the light of latest thunderings (also here and here) about the death of the creative curriculum in  UK after the new curriculum proposals were published amid criticisms that the proposals were “flawed” and “prescriptive.”

New toys

Thanks to Paul Wickens, I have been able to play with word clouds, using the Wordle software. Of course these kinds of  results need interpreting – but note the “must” in the Wordle cloud word frequency for the first chapter of EYFS – and am I right the wordle for chapter I have laboured so hard at looks rather woolly?

Or is this just the font?

The new header image, btw, is a Wordle of the introduction to EYFS.

Starting the PGCE

Well, the sun is shining, and I ended the teaching day sat under the trees in our Arboretum with the people who are going to be my personal tutees. It was easy to be upbeat, while remembering that this experience, the workload and learning challenges of the PGCE never make for an easy year. So much to learn, for some a lot to unlearn, and this year above all some key messages the Government want us to deliver.

This isn’t going to be a moan. I read, for example, the latest drafts, tweets and releases on redefining SEN and am determined to think  “here is another challenge” and then worry how the trainees and the trainers – and most importantly the schools – will deal with this, but today of all days we need to look at all this with some hope. Here is a large and competent bunch of students all looking at us, keen to get going, nervous of the step they’re taking and I feel I need to say

“We are professionals with you. As I’ve said before, we have beliefs we profess – and we want to share our vision with you.“

So what are we asking the Early Years PGCE students to learn? What does an Early Years teacher need to know?

I could list phonics, transition, pedagogies, child development, curriculum documentation, leading the team, dealing with parents, answering critics – the list is very long. Maybe I want them to know one thing: how children learn best. All being well, the rest may fall into place when they have grasped the beginnings of that.

Fighting talk

Perhaps it’s fighting season. Michael Gove has set up one target – school playing fields -the disquiet around which could be a topic for some of my Outdoor Learning module this coming semester, but it’s various postings from Michael Rosen that drew my attention today, and which are linked here without comment.

This first one is a reposting of his, from the blog of a childminder reflecting on phonics. The second is from Michael himself addressing Jim Rose, replying to Rose’s letter in the Guardian which is itself a reply to Michael Rosen and others…

Thinking again about play

To start with a quotation:

“Psychologists and educators have found it difficult to come to a definition of what play is – partly, perhaps, because the phenomenon is more easily recognised than it is pinned down to a rigid classification. However, understanding some of the complexities of play needs some unpicking. We can identify play when we see it, but going beyond a mere description is a more complex business.”

So much from the Reflective Reader we wrote back in 2007.

Has the new framework for Early Years changed any of this?  It has to be admitted that there are a number of other documents  and web sites which augment the framework, not least Early Education’s key Development Matters material, which must not be overlooked. But a quick look through the framework makes for depressing reading in many ways.

If we look at para 1.9:

Each area of learning and development must be implemented through planned, purposeful play and through a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activity. Play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, to think about problems, and relate to others.

Children learn by leading their own play, and by taking part in play which is guided by adults. There is an ongoing judgement to be made by practitioners about the balance between activities led by children, and activities led or guided by adults. Practitioners must respond to each child’s emerging needs and interests, guiding their development through warm, positive interaction. As children grow older, and as their development allows, it is expected that the balance will gradually shift towards more activities led by adults, to help children prepare for more formal learning, ready for Year 1.

We are clearly here in the realm of an instrumental view of play, one in which practitioners view play not as having intrinsic value but as a means to an end.

The gloom that hangs over this for me is the increasing interference of adults in children’s activities “to help children prepare for more formal learning, ready for Year 1.” Not only school readiness, but ready for a top-down curriculum done to children… So the official/enacted curriculum is already strong on what we need children to be like and we are no further on than the Desirable Outcomes in the 90s.

Or am I being too gloomy?

At the heart of my disquiet, I think, is the lack of clarity I started this post with.  Part of me sees this difficulty in coming to a shared understanding  about what play is as liberating – an ambiguity that allows for creativity, for risk-taking, for making time to read a book or whittle a stick; part of me would like a definition, and if I’m honest I’d like it so that we could have a bulwark against the intrusion of issues such as “school readiness” and top-down pressure. But there is a third element here, and I’ll end with a question:

As tides turn and fashions change, to what extent can EY practitioners steel themselves to live with this ambiguity, since the lack of definition actually makes us easy prey to the notion that Early Years practice is in effect just preparation for real learning?

Grenier on Nutbrown

Julian Grenier is a thoughtful blogger, so it was interesting to read his reflections on the Nutbrown Review on his Inside the Secret Garden blog.  I share his disquiet about EYP status, I must admit: in 2002 I waved the flag for Senior Practitioner status and the Sector Endorsed Foundation Degree – and am still proud not only of our achievements in HE, but of the journey (yes I know it’s a cliche) of the thousands who have done the programme up and down the country. Then the goalposts changed, and I have since talked loud and long about Early Years Professionals, and we made a point of including EYP standards when the team here wrote the reflective reader (pause for a quick plug) . Now we move to maybe where I would have liked to be when I moved from being a headteacher ten years ago: an increasingly graduate group of professionals and certainly a well-motivated work force with access to Higher Education.  Places like Oxford Brookes will continue to work energetically with and for these people, as well as work training Early Years teachers in line with whatever is accepted from the Nutbrown recommendations and in accordance with the vision of the Government and the sector.

But until the sector bites the bullet and calls teachers teachers (and pays them accordingly), and recognises that expertise, we will continue to have this rather odd and too-casual upskilling of some of the most important people in our society.

Julian is right to be concerned.