How do you meet the needs of all of your children? In this week’s episode, we talk to Alex Sutcliffe from Ravenshead Church of England School in Nottinghamshire as we reflect on meeting the needs of children with SEND. As part of this, we focus on the importance of effective learning environments indoors and outdoors and discuss how physical challenge is crucial to meeting children’s needs.

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Here at Early Excellence, we specialise in early childhood education. We offer expert advice and guidance through training, consultancy and classroom design. With the Early Excellence podcast, we aim to inspire and support you as well as challenge your thinking. So if that's what you're looking for, you've come to the right place.

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Hello everybody, Andy Burt here. Welcome along to episode 109 of the Early Excellence podcast. In this week's episode we're joined by Alex Sutcliffe, who's the EYFS leader at Ravenshead Church of England School, which is in Nottinghamshire. As part of the conversation, we talk about all sorts of things really, but we focus on the needs of the children that they have at the school.

00:50

And that emerging picture, which will be familiar with many people, I'm sure, of a growing number of children with special educational needs and disabilities. And so Alex talks about how they've been on a journey, really, a journey which has included developing their early years classroom provision, their indoor provision, and also their outdoor environments as well.

01:14

She talks about a focus on physical development and the prime areas of learning too. There are lots of things that we really get into. So it's a really interesting conversation. So here you go. Here's my early excellence podcast chat with Alex Sutcliffe.

01:36

We thought we'd start off, if that's alright, by if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and your role and the context of the school at Ravenshead if that's alright. Yes that's absolutely fine. So Ravenshead is a leafy suburb school just outside Nottingham. We're about just over 400 pupils at the moment, however our catchment area is not just Ravenshead.

02:03

So our catchment percentages at the moment are about 47% from Ravenshead and the rest are from the surrounding villages. And they come quite a way to come to us. We are a two-four mentoring school and we also have a nursery attach an F1. So my role here, I started four years ago now, five years ago maybe.

02:32

as the Early Years Lead. My role's kind of evolved as the years have gone by, so I'm now also the Early Years SENCo. I'm the Coordinator for Behaviour Across School, and also other areas of the SEND role. So I organise all the speech and language across school and all the medical things across school as well. So...

02:58

This year we've kind of focused more on splitting the SENCo role because of our SENCo percentages and decided that that we would have an early year specific SENCo. I qualified as a SENCo at the beginning of Covid because a little bit about myself I've always had an interest specifically in behaviour and behaviours that challenge and have worked in areas where percentages of children with special needs and

03:28

challenging behaviour are, you know, were and that was kind of all around the world. So I've taught not only in England, but Wales, South America, South Africa, and also West Africa for some time. So I've dipped around in my 20 years in education. What an experience that is. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah. It's unusual, I think, to have that sort of

03:57

to have a kind of a foundation stage SENCo and then also a school SENCo. How did that come about? Well, it came about from our SENCo going on maternity leave. So our SENCo is also the year six teacher and she's kind of our lead SENCo. And twice now she's gone on maternity leave and left me do it.

04:18

So because of my kind of background and behaviour, it's overlapped very much with the SENCo role. So I decided some years ago to do my SENCo qualification. So obviously when she went on maternity leave, then I naturally took over the whole of the school, which was brilliant, but a massive, massive job. And so when she came back from maternity leave this year, what we decided to do was that it would make more sense for me to keep.

04:48

the early year SENCo role. And for the main reason really of looking at that kind of early identification and early intervention, but also because of the big problem that everybody has at the moment with waiting lists. So we know that anything that we're doing is kind of taking two years, three years for paperwork to go through. So we're finding now that if we're kind of getting in those that

05:16

those interventions early, getting in our graduated response, you know, right from the moment that children start with us, then we've got lots of evidence to be able to kind of look at external service support, you know, EHCPs, things like that early on, so that we can get the necessary support, you know, both for the children practically, but also financially for the school. It does make a lot of sense.

05:44

It really does make a lot of sense, I think. Also, I think you've then got, because of that split role with staff really at either end of the school, you've got that opportunity to discuss as SENCo, Foundation Stays SENCo, when you're then, in terms of transition, you know, for those children going into Key Stage One, you've got that opportunity from very much that bank of knowledge, really knowing those children.

06:13

you're explaining the needs of those children to the next year group, to the staff within the next year group, and you know what works and you know what doesn't work. And you're both the SENCo and the person who knows them from a classroom point of view as well. Which I think that's like the big picture, isn't it? You know, you're putting everything together. You haven't just got the SENCo who was doing, kind of doing the overview stuff as well. You've got to put it all together in one package. Yeah.

06:41

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, I think. It makes a lot of sense and it's made even more sense this year because as everybody will be in the same situation, we're having children starting in our early years now who've never been seen by a health visitor, never had those kind of regular visits to have development and progress checked in their very, very early years. So we're having parents...

07:05

coming to us now and children starting with us who have not seen these professionals along their journey. So have not, you know, early identification of speech and language and communication challenges, sensory challenges aren't being picked up early on. So it's become kind of more important in my role as an early years lead to become kind of the family liaison officer and start to discuss actually.

07:30

these are nearly early years milestones and have we reached them? And if we haven't, what do we need to be putting into place to make sure that they are happening? I mean, I am very, very lucky. Our SENCo is phenomenal and we work really, really well together.

07:48

and you know, and which is brilliant. But it's really supported us making sure that that kind of early intervention, early identification, and then completion of any early paperwork that needs to happen is happening before children reach key stage one. Yeah, it is really interesting, but yeah, that split role. I think I can see that that will definitely work. And as well, I think certainly from when we've talked previously,

08:18

you were talking about how the numbers of children with SEND needs has definitely risen. Can you talk a little bit about that? What's that like? What's the reality of that? The reality of it is for us, and it's not for all schools, but for us, I know for most schools, you know, numbers are rising. The first line of our Ofsted report says that we are a nurturing and inclusive school, which is wonderful because we are.

08:45

And that is kind of what we really, really, really pride here. But with that has come kind of an influx of pupils with additional needs. But to give an example, when our SENCo started here nine years ago, she had 8% special needs on her register. Now we're looking at, we've just hit 30%. So in eight years, it's risen from 8% to 30%, which is obviously...

09:14

massive. We know nationally the numbers of children with special needs are going up, but also, you know, it's what that does to you as an early years lead, looking at your environment, looking at the provision that you're offering, and looking at how we can ensure these children are making progress without being kind of isolated for interventions. And also,

09:42

nationally the picture is, you know, we don't have a lot of staff, the school budgets are short and it's tight. So it's really important that children are being included, that they're being supported by staff, but also that they have brilliant role models around them when they're engaged in play. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

10:01

Yeah, I noticed on your website, so I did a little bit of research. I went onto your website, which is lovely. You've got so many things on there. You know, you've got video clips and photos and all kinds of things. And what I thought that really sort of stood out and the sort of key messages that you were clearly putting across to parents was the importance of your learning environment. You know, you could really see it. There was a short video kind of taking you on a tour around the learning environment.

10:29

clearly showed really well thought out, really well planned environments, you know, with materials and resources that have been carefully thought about. And I wondered as I was watching it, knowing what I know about your school in terms of special educational needs, I wondered whether there was a link between that focus on the environment and the needs of the children in that way. Or has it always been the case that your environments have always been valued? You know, has there been a journey there?

10:59

There has been a long journey. Yeah, there's been, there has been a very, very long journey. And it kind of started when I started five years ago, but also just pre-COVID really. So when I arrived here as early years lead, the environment was pretty tired. It was the timetable focused very much on adult directed activities with play being kind of an add-on.

11:28

the staff had lots to do, you know, it was crackers, the timetables were, you know, staff moving from one place to another. So, I identified very quickly that we needed to kind of stop and think about what we were doing and think about what was important for the children as kind of children were changing, you know, society is changing, children are changing, and look at what we were offering. And part of that was our learning environment as an early years kind of practitioner.

11:56

I feel really strongly that your environment is your biggest teaching tool. So we started to look at our environment and at the point that we did that, we had a change of head teacher, but also we had kind of an amendment to our curriculum as well. So with the change of head teacher came looking at the curriculum and how we delivered that.

12:21

and so it kind of all slotted together really nicely. And so we started to kind of unpick the learning environment and I'm a big research buff, I love my research and I love my kind of, I'm gonna name people, you know, the Julie Fisher, you know, the Alice Sharp, all those people who have really, really excite me and looked at our environment, Elizabeth Jarvin, obviously you can't miss her, right? And looking and really, really pulling it.

12:51

pulling apart our learning environment, but also considering the needs of the children coming through. So I love my ECCAs, so I went through and did my ECCAs, but alongside that used the communication friendly settings kind of audit to have a look at what we needed to do to make our environment communication friendly, but also kind of giving children the opportunity to.

13:19

to develop their play. And what we didn't have... Having mentioned ECHOES, for those, for people who are listening who don't know what that is, it's an audit tool, isn't it, of your environment. So you can look specifically at your areas of provision and you can work out the quality of what it is that you're offering. There are a number of key points there to mark your environment against basically. And it can, I can say, that's a really good starting point, isn't it? Now, people find that really useful.

13:47

a really, really, really useful tool to have for anybody. And I use it as an early years leader. That is the main part of my action plan, my early years action plan that I share with, you know, head teacher, governors, all those kinds of people as kind of a basis of my environment. And, you know, it takes a long time, but it's really, really valuable, especially if you're on a journey, because over the years, you can see the development. It also, I think, makes you very...

14:16

precise in terms of what you're changing and why, doesn't it? Whereas I think without something like that, without a kind of an audit or something like that where you're really focused in on the quality of what you're offering, what sometimes happens is I think with an environment, we ended up changing things because we think, well, it's now looking a bit tired or it kind of needs a refresh or it kind of, you know, I'm a bit bored of seeing it, I'm gonna change it or whatever it might be.

14:45

Whereas actually, of course, that's not really precise in terms of the quality. That's just about whether we feel like we need to change it or not. And that to me isn't enough in terms of action planning. I think if we're changing something, that's fine that we are, but there's got to be a good reason. I think doing it like an ECHOES tool or doing something like that, I think it gives us that, like you say, it gives us that precision of saying actually, why are we changing it, what's the reason for it and what will be the impact of it. Yeah.

15:15

And I mean, obviously, early excellence have their kind of audit tool, which is always a brilliant starting point, but the ECHOES just goes that one step further into the detail. And it also gives you those sections to allow you to look at things like your interactions, behaviour, kind of, as well as your kind of provision areas, which is brilliant. Because once you've got that provision, it's what happens next. It's the next layer, isn't it?

15:44

of how those interactions happen. So yeah, so we used that and it was brilliant as well for me coming into the school as a new early years lead, you've kind of got to establish yourself haven't you, you've got to prove yourself as a leader, to do a team when it's a big team. I'm here, yes. Yes, I'm here and this is what I'm going to do and this is why I'm going to do it.

16:07

I can get very, very passionate and sometimes it's quite overwhelming. So I think having something to be able to focus on with staff is brilliant. So, yes, so kind of everything went together. And the only thing we didn't have was money. We didn't have any of that. And so it was a beg, borrow or steal. We do have some wonderful parents, but we, you know, free cycle is our best friend.

16:35

And, you know, so for those people kind of wanting to look at their environment and thinking, well, but we don't have the money, it cost us, I think, £280 to do our unit. Obviously, there were some bigger bits of furniture and things that we asked the PTA for and they gave us some money, which was lovely. But yet we really did think creatively about how we could use things like pallets and old boxes and things like that.

17:04

And actually, I think, I always say when I speak to people from early excellence, but my classroom doesn't look like an early excellence classroom. And they go, no, but that's wonderful. When Sarah came, she was like, whoa, this is brilliant. Because we don't have that money. Yes, but I think it's about the learning possibilities of what you're offering, not about necessarily the monetary value of it. It's about the number of learning possibilities. And quite often the most,

17:33

The most open-ended things that you can possibly get hold of are often things that are kind of, like you said, recycled or reclaimed materials are often great for children in terms of learning through play because that thing that looks a bit turrity or whatever, the things that you get that are kind of like almost like little cable reels and cotton reels and things like that.

18:02

They're so open-ended that children can use them in loads of different ways. Yeah, yeah. So quite often not having the money means that actually you end up with sometimes better things to a certain point. Yeah, because they've got to think creatively about how they're going to use them. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then the same for outdoors. You know, I think, you know, it's when sometimes, not always, but sometimes when schools have lots of money to spend on outdoors, because they've got a lot of money to spend, they get lots of fixed things.

18:32

The fixed things, to me, they don't offer a huge amount. And to the children, they don't offer a huge amount. You know, to me, because once you've done it, once you've clambered over that thing, whatever it is, you've done it, haven't you? Whereas the reclaimed things that you can lift and carry and move around that are physically challenging, actually, you could argue that offers a lot more.

18:54

And you've got to think about the motor skills that they're developing by lifting and carrying and moving these things. We do have, we have a huge pirate ship outside, which is wonderful for the climbing, but a pirate ship is always a pirate ship. Whereas a stack of crates can be anything you want. Absolutely. Especially if you took a bit of fabric and some pegs with it. And I think kind of looking at...

19:21

development and looking at what you're offering, it's thinking about kind of how can I push this one step further, you know, how can I use this bit of equipment in a way that, you know, just gives them a little bit more of a push towards something different or something more challenging. That's something that we've had to think about a lot because we have F1s and F2s within our unit, so they're coming to us at three and then they're kind of leaving at five, the majority of them.

19:51

But what we've had to do over the past few years, since kind of looking at our environment is going, well, actually they're coming in at F1, they've mastered the climbing frame by the end of F1. So how are we gonna push this even further? They've mastered the, I don't know, the art of how I'm trying to think now, the creative area, what do we put in there that pushes it that little bit further?

20:18

And so we really have had to think about kind of the next step in the development journey for those children. Yes. And do you feel that there are, in terms of developing that environment, have there been particular strengths that have emerged? You know, are you looking, do you look around your indoor space and presumably you know that there are certain areas that really, really work well?

20:46

And I just wondered which areas they are. Which areas do you think are working particularly well? I think for us, oh gosh, it depends on the cohort, you see. As a cohort, it's changing. We have to tweak our areas. Last year, our construction area was much bigger, a large construction, than it is this year because they're more creative this year. So we've added to the creative area and kind of taken away from the construction. So one of the things we had a huge push on a number of years ago,

21:15

hmm it was just after covid I think no just pre covid actually was physical development and we were finding that children were coming in and their their baseline for physical development were really really low and of course then covid hit and that whacked that even further because they weren't going to the swimming or football or whatever and all the park or all those kind of things so we looked really really carefully at our environment and what that's

21:45

offering physical development-wise. Because actually, you know, it's so important for so many things for them to have those kind of really, really strong growth and design skills. So we walked around our environment with a clipboard together and went like, what does that environment offer physical development-wise? How can we change it? How can we up it? So we put in, as a consequence of that, we put in some, the woodwork. There was no woodwork prior to that.

22:14

We put in a Duplo area and a Lego area. So the Duplo is within the F1 kind of section, but it's accessible to all. Lego is the other one that we put in. We've always had the kind of small construction, large construction, but then we went into our creative area and we looked like, really, what are we offering here? Do we have different types of scissors so they're accessible to all? Do we have different sized paint brushes so they're accessible to all?

22:44

changing the, previously we were kind of mixing the pounder paints and we thought, right, how can we make this more physically challenging? So we've put the big pumps instead, you know, and again, the core strength and the arms that you need for the big pumps to get paint through is really, you know, so we really, really thought about how we could tweak that. We introduced, we had a snack area previously, but we went, right, what does this look like?

23:11

a physical development where I say we introduced that they would have three days a week cereal and milk and they would do it all themselves. Two days a week they have toast and they spread all the butter and the jam, well they use the toaster themselves, they spread all the butter and the jam and everything themselves, I mean they love the snack area. But even things like teaching them to use the big pinchers to get their toast out of the toaster, you know the F1s come in and they can't do it, but the F2s are...

23:38

live them to it, they can do it all themselves, you know. So really kind of stripping back those areas and going like what are we offering? Yeah and the key there as well that struck me is that what you're talking about is our physical skills that are done meaningfully. I think sometimes what happens is we end up with, often the focus in terms of developing physical skills is often done in a meaningless context.

24:06

So it's a kind of a busy fingers area, and in this busy fingers area, there's some fluffy pom poms and some tweezers. And there's no real reason why, if I'm four, I would want to go over there and use the tweezers to pick up the fluffy pom poms and put them in an egg crud or whatever it is. You see what I mean? It's just a task. Whereas if you have tweezers and they're there to get your toast out of the toaster,

24:33

or if you've got to use it to get your powder paint out, or if you've got, you know, whatever, if you're using your physical skills in meaningful contexts every day as part of routine, that's, to me, is far more effective, I think. Yeah, yeah. It gives them a reason to do it, and they don't realise they're doing it. And I think the thing is, as well, is when we were looking at the environment, it's looking at kind of, I say policing it, but looking at how is it that you can have these children who are independent, who use the environment,

25:02

environment meaningfully, but you're not having to kind of go after and go, well, are you doing this? Are you doing that? Well, no, actually, because, you know, so those adults can have those interactions with children that are, that are kind of longer, but also more meaningful for their play, rather than kind of policing, yes, what they're doing with the tweezers and the pom poms, because probably they're throwing them up in the air or taking them to the craft area and they're sticking them on a box or whatever. Yeah, exactly.

25:30

So yeah, it's about bringing the physical skills into what they would be doing anyway, rather than actually taking them out of what they would be doing to do something else, I think. Yeah, that's really interesting. And presumably as well, what fits into this is what you were talking about earlier on about your numbers of SEND children. That actually, you've got, what you're doing here is you're focusing on the prime areas of learning, aren't you?

25:57

you're thinking carefully about physical development, you're thinking carefully about BSED, and presumably thinking carefully about communication and language as well. That underpinning process really. Yeah, yeah. And like you said, you know, with the high numbers of SEND children that we've got, it's also teaching them kind of, go back to the snack area, you know, these independent skills. All my children, all RF ones, all RF two, can make toast. They can put the jam and the butter on it. They can wash up after themselves.

26:25

they can organise what things that they need to do that, you know, the same with the cereal. So they are, you know, absolutely, we were laughing because we were looking at the DT section of the whole school curriculum. And in year two, it said something about making sandwiches and we often, but they can make, they can make sandwiches. Why are they making sandwiches in year two? That needs to come out, you know, that needs to be something far more tricky for them because, and that's what we've started doing now actually is,

26:53

pulling our curriculum apart and looking at the progression into Key Stage 1, you know, and across school. Because actually, they are incredibly independent in our ideas, they do everything for themselves. And we encourage that, you know, and parents are usually shocked when they come in. But that's kind of part of what we do is, I always say,

27:16

an ADS practitioner you should be able to walk into an ADS setting and nobody comes to see who you are, you know, that they should all be so busy that they don't they don't worry about somebody. It should be really, it should be about engagement shouldn't it? Yeah. Absolutely. Just going back a step, I love what you were saying about that idea of, you know, because your children have been using the toaster and making their own snack and all of those sorts of things that it's led into that conversation about making sandwiches at year two and whether that's then appropriate. Yeah.

27:44

Because often I think it's the other way around. Often I think the year can have, not necessarily the year two teacher, but somebody further up the school with their curriculum all set out will say, well, you can't talk about this. You can't talk about this then in reception because we're doing it in year two. You know, don't talk about it then because we're doing it then. You've jumped the gun kind of thing. Whereas to me, I think for it to work really, it's about the reception or the EYFS staff.

28:13

kind of leading the curriculum and saying, well, actually we've got them to here. This is what they can do. So you've got to then move on. So if it was making sandwiches, you've got to be moving on from making sandwiches to something else that's more complicated, more challenging. So to me, while sometimes it's the other way around, it's almost like we slow them down.

28:33

because actually you can't get there yet because we're doing it later on. Yeah, and it's the, I mean, that's kind of the running theme throughout our foundation, including, you know, our planning when we look at what topics we're doing and how we plan. I love the work of Claire Warden and looking at the kind of the using the talking and thinking floor books, the 3D mind mapping, all of that kind of stuff. And that's how we do our planning and that's how we work our topics through that we always start the beginning of the topic using the.

29:00

talking tubs and the 3D mind mapping and looking at actually what the children already know and where we can take them next on their journey. Because, well, one, it's lovely because we do different things every year, you know, but two, children's starting points are very different from year to year. And three, you know, you've got to kind of weave in those children's interests. You know, keep them engaged. And I mean, we were meant to be looking this morning at

29:27

making recycling posters and we ended up having a massive discussion about landfill this morning with our reception children because we've been looking at you know keeping our wheel clean and recycling and all those kind of things but their questions yesterday were you know all about what happens when we don't recycle, what happens when you know we do put these things just in the normal bin, where does it go? So this morning there was great concern over these kind of landfill sites and what we were doing there and our planning you know

29:56

moved and shifted because of those questions that the children were asking. And I think that that's really important when you're looking at an EYFS curriculum. Yeah, it's the flexibility that's key, isn't it? I think I'm nothing against topics at all, but I think there's got to be flexibility within it, because otherwise what you end up with is a sort of delivering the same topic that we delivered at the same time last year.

30:26

to a different group of children with potentially different needs and different interests and fascinations when actually we could do it differently. We could have a starting point for it where we know where we're starting with it, but then leave enough flexibility to go in different directions and to see where the children's ideas and questions take us. I think that balance, I think, is often not something that is taken on board enough, really.

30:55

for those people perhaps listening that have kind of a curriculum that's set by school, our themes and our topics are set by a whole school curriculum, we have those, but within that we look at kind of the flexibility of adding some extra time or taking time away to do things that the children are interested in, you know. Yeah, I think that sounds very sensible. Going back to the thinking about the environment, just that idea of your

31:22

your learning environment, you talked about some of the different things that you've got there. So you mentioned woodwork and you mentioned the snack area, you mentioned the workshop, you know, the creative space and the construction and so on. It struck me that thinking about your 30% of children, your SEND 30%, it struck me as well that if we're talking about, particularly with open-ended materials, you know, those open-ended materials that we mentioned earlier,

31:52

they provide lots of learning possibilities. But at the same time, the challenge there is that not all children will know what to do with the resources. Yeah, so if you're used to, if you're three or four and you're used to just having a toy, and it's one thing and one thing only, and you've never seen anything like just different shapes of things that could be anything.

32:17

I guess there's a challenge from the beginning where actually some children will access that really well and thrive and other children who might not know what to do with it will find that more difficult. And I guess just from the conversation already, I know that you'll have thought of this and you'll have put things in place. So I'm just interested to know what the process is like. How do you counteract that? Okay, so thinking about, I mean, the value of having

32:47

F1s and F2s together. That's the first thing that springs to mind immediately because the F2s have been through the F1, the majority of them, and they are the role models. They are the ones that then take the F1s in and show them and help them and develop the play with them. So they are kind of wonderful for moving them on. Something that springs to mind when you're talking about that was the children who are possibly on the spectrum. Children who a box is a box.

33:16

You know, and that kind of imagination is a real challenge for them. And it's about then kind of thinking about identifying those children early, for starters, and then thinking about how you can develop their engagement. We have quite a few F1s at the moment who are, you know, they're imaginative play, perhaps wasn't, you know, as kind of developed as other cohorts.

33:45

And so we were talking the other day, me and my F1 practitioner, and that we've put kind of more small characters into the Duplo, characters that they might be familiar with. So mixing in with those kind of generic little people, mixing in some superheroes and things that they do know, Paw Patrol, all those kind of things, to kind of overlap their play so that they've got characters that they know.

34:11

but then they don't know how to use the duplo. So you've got kind of a way in there. They know that there's a Paw Patrol tower. So perhaps we can build the Paw Patrol tower, but then there's other characters in there. How do they fit into there? You know, who are they? What do they do? So there's kind of an overlap between the two. So the mix of that plus our F2 children who are really well-developed in their play, helping the F1s.

34:37

Plus then those adults coming in to support those interactions works really, really well. And then if then there are children who you can still see are struggling, then it's looking at why they're struggling and how we can support that. And it might be that a specific character is of interest to them. And then we'd look at that. Or a...

35:04

I'm just trying to think of an example now, had a little boy who absolutely loved Star Wars. So how is it then that we engage Star Wars into let's say the creative area? What do we do? Do we put some Star Wars pictures and think about then how we talk about with them those interactions of how we can kind of maybe develop a, make a house for the Star Wars characters or whatever. And then they have a way in.

35:30

Yes. That makes sense. It does. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the other thing I was interested in, sort of when I watched your video clip of your learning environments, one of the things that stood out to me was something that is a real passion of mine, and that is risk and challenge. Okay, big physical challenge and risk. Okay. And I could see it in different contexts. So I could see it in terms of

35:59

the forest school site that you've got. So there was a part of the clip where it took you into the woods and there was a rope swing that the children were absolutely having a whale of a time on. And then there were things like logs for the children to balance on, planks of wood that they could put onto crates and the balance on different things to make kind of like obstacle courses and balance across all of those sorts of things.

36:29

and then also in the indoor area, a woodwork area. And it struck me that actually, you know, risk and challenge, I know of course, is clearly important to young children. And I think that it's important in terms of engagement. I think you tend to get, certain children will be absolutely more engaged when there is risk and challenge involved in that risk and physical challenge. And so...

36:55

But it intrigued me that when we were talking about, when you mentioning earlier on about your, the numbers of children that are coming in with a lot of need, a very varying need, that it's a brave move to have your woodwork area in the room. And I know there'll be lots of people listening to this. We'll be thinking, crikey, all of that need and a woodwork area, you crazy, you know, that kind of thing. So.

37:24

I was interested to talk to you about it and kind of I know my opinion on it and I know my experience of it but I'm interested to know whether your opinion and your experiences kind of match up I suppose. Yeah I think that risk and challenge is more of an adult problem than a children problem and it's all about being confident in allowing your children to take those risks and

37:53

being confident to know what to do when they go wrong, because sometimes they do, you know. And I think it's about kind of that risk assessment, isn't it? It's about balancing what are the children getting out of this, and what would happen if we didn't give it them. The hot toaster is a brilliant example. You know, the hot toaster is the parents, you know, they use a toaster. Well, yeah, but how can we show them?

38:23

how to take those risks and manage those risks and why they need to manage those risks. And it's all about the conversations that happen around those things. So, why is it that we use the tongues? We've had a toaster in Ernie's now for probably four years and we've had one burn. I think we've had woodwork for, yeah, probably about the same time and we've had two children hit their finger with a hammer.

38:50

It's about teaching children how to manage those risks and how to use things safely. I had some visitors not long ago and we have a climbing frame outside. It's just an A-frame and the ladder was right on the top rung and some of our F1 children were stood on the ladder at the top and they were ready to jump and these visitors were looking at me, what I was going to do, looking at this kind of A-frame, looking at me, look at it.

39:18

And I just looked at one of the F1 and I said, what do you need to do to make sure that's safe? And off they tottered, four of them, and went to get a mat. Pulled, dragged the mat, put the mat there. The little boy on the top said, I'm coming, make sure it's safe. Looked what he was doing and jumped onto the mat. So it's about kind of saying, well, you know, the risk is there, yes. I can spend all my time policing them and saying, don't jump off the top, don't jump off the top, but the value of them jumping off the top for their physical development is phenomenal.

39:48

for their emotional development is phenomenal. For their perseverance, all those kinds of things are just brilliant. Managing risk is such a massive thing. And it's about kind of saying, yes, there is a risk here, but how do we best manage it? How do we ensure that these children know to keep themselves safe? And even the children who have really complex needs know how to manage those risks because one, they watch the other children to it.

40:18

To those always, we're always pushing, if you can't do it, what do you need to do? You ask somebody for help. So they will seek out a trusted adult. And it might be that I'm not that trusted adult. It might be that they feel more trust in one of my male TAs, that they go and get them and say, can you help me with this? And then we go through the steps of teaching them how to manage that risk. So for development-wise, these risks tend to be more physical.

40:47

you know, the big rope swings, the climbing frames, that kind of stuff. And children need it to develop those physical skills. But also it's about their, the personal and social skills, their emotional skills and managing risk and thinking about what does that look like long term? What does that look like when they're 30, when they're 40? You know, how is it that we teach them those skills to deal with the emotions of the challenge and the risk? And

41:14

and put things in place to protect themselves. And that is a life-long skill, especially in this day and age when we're talking about social media, we're talking about kind of children playing on games on the internet and things like that. You know, managing risk is so important. Yes, and arguably, well, not even arguably, I think it is the case that actually children...

41:43

and young adults are safer because actually they've been able to take more risks and to manage that risk themselves, to have those opportunities to do that without a doubt. So yeah, I think it's really interesting. I also think as well that that takes real skill from the adults and real joined up thinking in terms of the adults. Because say if you've got a team of adults there and you're the person, you know, Alex, you're there and you're

42:12

you're the advocate of taking risk and giving the children the opportunity to take those risks. Meanwhile, you've got another member of staff who basically follows the children around and kind of holds their hand every single time, whether they want it or not. Actually, you're not getting that consistency potentially. So it shows, I think, a whole team approach, doesn't it? When that works. Yeah, I mean, I am very lucky.

42:41

And I will say this aloud, my team are phenomenal. I have a phenomenal team who go with my crazy sometimes. And they're brilliant. But I also have, it's a bigger picture. Our school moved to a kind of relationship restorative based approach to behavior a number of years ago, which was something that I'm an advocate of and moved through school.

43:06

But that really, really links to children kind of learning about their emotions, about how to handle themselves, about how to handle situations. So as a school, we look at, you know, what's happening here, how do we manage it, how do we move on to make sure that everybody is safe and happy? And that's not just about taking risks, that's about, there's a much bigger picture there.

43:34

and looking at, you know, teaching children those lifelong skills to manage their emotions. And, you know, fear comes under that, worry, anxiety, and they're all linked to those risk-taking activities. You know, and what does that feel like in my body? How do I articulate that? And how can I make sure it's okay? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, really, really interesting. And I can tell it's one of your passions. You know, it-

44:04

Yeah, when you're talking through, I can really tell that. That's brilliant. Brilliant. And I was going to ask you as well, I would think, you know, hearing what you're saying about the children's needs, so your percentage of SEND children, I would imagine, you know, we were talking about the environment earlier on, I would imagine there'll be some people listening to this, and what their picturing is an environment that works for the kind of 70% of the children.

44:33

the other 70%. Meanwhile, your SEND children are perhaps being taken out to do kind of interventions away from that environment and then brought back in for a short period of time and maybe going back out again. And I wondered whether that was the case. In terms of your environment, is it used for kind of the children who were sort of on track, meanwhile your SEND children are...

45:00

of having interventions outside of that space. Is that the case? No, no, no, no, no. There's two things there. Firstly, who on earth in which school ever has the staff now to take children out to do interventions in a back room? If you do, they're very lucky. And the other thing is that I have...

45:25

a big passion in making sure everything is inclusive. And we as a school, it's not just me, it's we as a school have that. If a child is in a back room doing an intervention, they are not being included in what you're doing. And I think that it's so important that children have the opportunity to also have role models around them. If you have a child with communication and language challenges.

45:51

then they've got to have those children around them, you know, who have a good vocabulary or, you know, who can extend their play using a good vocabulary. So it's all about, for us, making sure that children are included into everything, but that is at their level. So I do have children that work in a small group.

46:17

who maybe do, let's say a speech and language programme, the NHS have given us a speech and language programme to do with a couple of my children. Yes, they might go out for 10, 15 minutes, never on their own, always with two or three other children to do an activity. But the only interventions that we run like that are speech and language that are given to us by NHS professionals. All other interventions are run

46:46

within our environment. So it might be that we have, you know, a little girl, one of my little girls, who loves playing in the sand, who doesn't have very much vocabulary. It's how do we use her interests to develop her vocabulary. And, you know, it's about how we do that as adults to ensure that she's getting what she needs.

47:13

The other thing is that that then encourages other children to come into the play, you know, so they're not on their own, they're developing friendships as well as communication. And I think that that's really important. I feel really strongly that these children shouldn't be kind of isolated in a back room and should be involved. There are some children, as we know, those on the autistic spectrum that sometimes are like that time on their own, away from the busyness.

47:40

and we have a small, what we call the calm corner. It's like a small sensory area. And also we have other areas within the setting that are quiet that they can kind of retreat to if they need a quieter environment. But the majority of intervention is done within the classroom. Yes, yeah, fantastic. And yeah, I think to me that makes a lot of sense. You know, that because

48:09

If you think about the needs of children, particularly around speech and language, they generally are linked to social skills as well and difficulties socially. That's generally how we socialize, isn't it? You have trouble with speech and language. You've also probably got children who are not really able to engage with other children in quite the same way. And so to me, if we then take them out at regular intervals away from that learning

48:39

We might be giving with one hand, but we probably are taking away with the other. I think in terms of those opportunities to socialize and to be involved and to be included in different things, in that when you come back into a room, with, you know, in any kind of setting really, you come, if a child comes back into that space, having missed the first 10 minutes or half an hour or whatever, they've got no chance of joining the play, particularly if they struggle socially anyway.

49:08

Whereas actually they've got more chance, particularly with an adult alongside them, they've got more chance of that adult supporting them and finding a way into being able to join in with that play, I think. And it's about knowing the needs of the children, isn't it? Yeah, I think, yeah. It's definitely about knowing the needs of those children, but it's also about giving the children those kind of skills to identify their own needs, really.

49:36

and how to deal with those. Because I mean, we have a lot of children with sensory needs and we have a lot of children with communication needs. And it's about making sure our environment works for them. So one of the things that we've done as a team is look at the communication friendly setting. So ensuring that let's say there are symbols and things like that around the setting, but also something that we've done as a team

50:05

pushed our kind of understanding of basic sign. So we use basic Makaton with all the children so that the children can use it together as well if they need to. And that's something that we decided to do. And it's not something we're trained for, we've Googled, Googled, what does this sign look like? What does this sign look like? And so we use basic Makaton as a blanket. We have basic signs and symbols as a blanket, as kind of universal provision.

50:34

And then we might look at developing, you know, it's that language. So we might say to a child, I can see you're trying to eat the sand. I think you might need some snack or you might need your chew buddy or you might need, you know, so looking at those children who have those needs and what we can do to support their development and their understanding of their own needs. Yes, yeah.

51:01

Yeah, it's really, I really like the idea of having something that you want to include for perhaps a smaller group of children. So your children with SEND, but including that for everybody. And there are lots of examples of that. You know, things like a visual timetable, for example, is the sort of thing that actually you would do, probably, you're more likely to do it for a small group of children, for your SEND children.

51:29

But actually every child will benefit from that. You know, every child at some point has forgotten whether they've had their dinner yet or not. Well, you know, those sorts of things, when they're three or four or five, that's life, isn't it? You forget whether it's nearly home time or whether we've had this or that yet. And so it kind of keeps you on track, doesn't it? So, and the same with the sign language and the macotone, it will benefit all of the children, won't it?

51:54

Yeah, and that's the brilliant thing. You know, as a school, we've had to look at our universal provision because our number of seven children is so high. We've looked at our universal provision and gone, you know, our universal provision is probably different to other schools. But that's the way that we have we have to look at it. That our provision as a blanket is that we ensure that every class has a visual timetable, something that you just brought up, that every to every class has, you know.

52:21

Throughout Key Stage 1 and Early Years, we have the, in all of the toilets, we have the visual step-by-step communication imprint, how to go to the toilet, you know, and that's in all the toilet cubicles in all the toilets in Early Years and Key Stage 1. And that's not just, you know, helpful for the children with autism, let's say. It's also helpful for the children who possibly may be dyslexic.

52:46

or maybe have communication and language challenges. It might just be that our three year olds that aren't toilet trained, that might be handy for them. I've had parents come into me this year and say, can I have a copy please? Because my child says each step as he's doing it but he's on the phone, brilliant, wonderful. So universal provision has changed but it doesn't just help one child, it helps so many. The children with EAL coming in, it might be that there are things that are useful to them as well.

53:14

So it's kind of how do you as a setting support these children with different needs? Yeah, and potentially help children to help each other in some context. You know, if there is a child who's upset because they don't know what's happening next or whether it's home time or whatever else, another child can point out that it's not just yet but it's coming up or whatever. You know, it does...

53:40

and the same for the Makaton and things like that, that actually, you know, it provides an opportunity for children to engage with one another in a different way, doesn't it? Yeah, and some of the work that I've done this year in early years is that we've partnered up with our local, one of our local special schools who are an ICANN school, a communication language charity. And so we've done some work with their new early years Key Stage One kind of department.

54:09

and I took a group of children up there swimming the other day because they have a swimming pool, we don't, you know. So I took a group of my early years children up swimming. And while we were there, one of their children was very overwhelmed and and became quite dysregulated and upset. And it was just beautiful to watch my children because none of them made a big fuss. None of them were scared. They all went.

54:34

Oh, he's probably feeling a little bit worried. And somebody said, he's probably feeling a little bit anxious. Maybe he should. And started talking about things that this child could do to help regulate themselves. And it was just a beautiful, beautiful moment. On the other hand, I have a little girl who's diabetic. All of my children know that when her monitor beeps, what she needs to do, they go and tell her, you should be drinking your monitors beeping, you know. But how brilliant, what an amazing skill for our children to have.

55:02

to be able to identify when a child is struggling and what they might need to help them. Yes, no, absolutely. I think the other thing that strikes me from what you're saying is that for many people, I'm sure, that if you were to say, you know, we've got 30% SEND, or you know, SEND, that actually that would be talked about negatively. And actually it strikes me that what you're talking about here is a positive.

55:32

that you're saying that these are the needs of our children, but actually, you know, you haven't said it directly, but you kind of in what you're saying, to me it comes across that actually you see this as a positive, that actually, you know, you're seeing the individual needs and you're getting to know the individual children. And you're using the fact that you've got children within the group with these varying needs as a positive, because then other children will learn how to look after those children. So you're almost using

56:02

using the needs as a teaching tool in a way. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think developing the empathy of children, developing the understanding, you know, our world is complex at the moment. Children having that empathy and kindness and understanding for each other is to me a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful thing. And yes, that takes time to develop. Yes, that takes kind of those added moments where we all have to go, hey, stop.

56:29

somebody's feeling really dysregulated right now, how are we gonna help them? What could we do? But taking that time and putting that time in when they're younger, will really support their development moving through the school. We don't have consequential others, we don't have missing golden time, we don't have those things as a school. What we have is a, let's pause and reflect on how people are feeling and what we can do to help. And that's to us.

56:59

is it's a lifelong skill. You know, it's not just in school, and that's what's important, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Alex, it's been absolutely wonderful to talk to you. Really, really wonderful. And it's so interesting to kind of talk specifically about the children and their needs and kind of what you've got in place in terms of the environment and the adults. And yeah, I love that kind of your approach.

57:27

I think is really inspiring. It really is. I'm sure lots of people will be listening and think, well, crikey, it's not easy because it isn't easy. But actually, you're turning it, it feels to me like you're turning it on its head and you're saying, right, let's really go for the positives here. And yeah, I love that. I think the thing is that it is challenging. We are in a challenging situation in education at the moment.

57:51

We're in a challenging situation as teachers and professionals working with children. You know, we don't have external support. It just doesn't exist anymore. And I think it's about saying, do you know what? Let's let's do the best we can. We're all human and kind of really stopping and thinking about, you know, giving giving that time to our young people to support their development now, which will pay off in the future. And that I feel quite, quite strongly and quite passionately about.

58:21

Yeah, absolutely. And that definitely comes across. Oh, thank you. That definitely comes across. Thank you so much for joining us, Alex. It has been brilliant to talk to you. Thank you very much for being me. Bye. Bye.

58:39

So there you have it. Thank you very much to Alex for joining us for this week's episode of the podcast. It's always really interesting to hear about different people's journeys, how they've developed their practice, how they've developed their environments and thought carefully and move forward as a team. Now, if you like Alex and the team are reflecting on your learning environments, then that's definitely something that we, at Early Excellence, can support you with. We've got lots of...

59:05

materials, lots of support materials and other services as well that will help you to develop your learning environment and really create those inspirational learning environments that Alex talked about in the podcast episode. So we have our free room planning service, so we'll come to your school and support you in terms of developing your learning environment. We also have consultancy services as well, so it's supporting you and your team moving things forward.

59:34

In terms of on the website, we have a free room planning training video where we talk through all of the key principles of developing an effective learning environment. We've got continuous provision guides, we've got all sorts of different things that actually will support you in moving your practice forward. Okay, so again, as we always do, we'll put the links into the podcast information so that you can access each of the things that I've just mentioned. But yeah, definitely worth thinking about.

Okay, that's about it for this week from us. Thank you very much for joining for joining us this week and have a good week everybody and we'll see you next time.