Emma Hudson, Early Years Lead at Willerby Carr Lane Primary School, discusses the impact of the redesigned EYFS environment on children and staff. She highlights the importance of stripping back and refining provision to focus on core continuous provision and interactions. Emma also shares the school's approach to peer coaching and the ongoing process of skill progression within each area of provision.

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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.

Hello everybody, Andy Burt here. Welcome along to episode 100 of the Early Excellence podcast. Yes, that's right, you heard it right, episode 100. We made it to 100 episodes. That's pretty good going on, I think. So yeah, thank you so much for joining us for our 100th episode. This week, we are joined by Emma Hudson on the podcast. Now, Emma is...

Emma is an early years leader. She's the EYFS leader at Willoughby Car Lane Primary School. It's her second time on the podcast. In our first interview, which went out a little while ago now, she talked about the room planning process and how they'd had a room plan, an early excellence room plan at the time, and the kind of the initial things that they noticed, that the impact on their practice following on from that room plan being in place.

What we do this time is we build on those conversations and discussions. So we're now into the second school year of having this new environment. And so we talk about all sorts of interesting things. So we talk about how Emma and the team introduced the environment to this new cohort of children in September. And what that process is like for introducing those materials and those resources in order to get the most out of it.

We talked about Emma's real focus on adult interactions within this classroom, within the learning environment. We talked about children's progress and development. And also we talked about how Emma and the team have worked on continuous provision planning for each area of provision and the detail there in terms of knowing the materials, knowing the resources, but also being really clear about the adult role as well.

So we cover loads. I think you'll find it really interesting. So listen along. Here's my early excellence podcast chat with Emma Hudson.

Emma, hello and welcome to the podcast. Hi, Andy. Hi, lovely to see you. Lovely to see you. Now, I've worked with you a few times, haven't I? So we first met as part of the room planning process. You got in touch with us because the school itself was having quite a big refurbishment really, in fact, more than refurbishment, a kind of a real building, you know, quite a lot of building work done specifically around the EYFS.

Do you want to just explain a little bit about what was done in terms of the building work, first of all? Would that be okay? Yeah, absolutely. So like I say, we currently are a two -form intake with 60 children. But prior to this, quite a few years ago, we were actually three -form intake where we had 90 children. So the EYFS space, we're very lucky, is very big because it's big enough to accommodate 90 children.

coupled with the revised EYFS framework that became statutory. Obviously, we were just post -COVID then as well, so lots of things had changed. And we kind of started evaluating our practice and our provision and our building and realized actually was no longer fit for purpose for us to deliver the outstanding EYFS provision that we wanted to. So we started looking at what we could do.

really and that's how it all started. Yes, that's right. That's right. And it was kind of the beginning of quite an exciting journey. You got in touch with us at Early Excellence and I was given your contact details to get in touch with you in terms of room planning and we started that process off and we worked first of all in an online way, didn't we? So we worked, you shared.

the architects drawings with me and then we put together a plan in terms of furniture and resources and what would go where and all of those sorts of things. And within the first podcast discussion that we had that I mentioned just before, we talked about within that particular episode, within that particular interview, we talked a lot about kind of the impact there and then, didn't we? You know, that kind of.

you know, what you what you noticed what Sean the headteacher at the time noticed in terms of the impact on the children. And also the other difference in terms of that environment, you know, the real sort of the impact on the children, the impact on the staff, and also your reflections kind of moving on from that as well. And I wanted to kind of come back to you a little bit later, you know, with a little bit of time has passed now. Because of course, now you've got a new cohort of children.

You've got new children in place and you've had time for the environment itself to really kind of be embedded, I think. And so I wanted to come back to you really and to kind of just ask you about kind of how it's now working in practice. So not that sort of first kind of exciting time where you've got the new environment and you're finding your feet with it, but actually in practice, now that that practice is embedded, what's that like? And I thought we'd start with this particular school year.

So, you know, if you think back to September, okay, you've had kind of one school year with the children with that new environment, and now we've got this new school year starting in September. If we think back to September, what was it like bringing your new children into this space? And would you be able to describe, you know, how you went about that introducing the space to your new children?

Yeah sure, it was a very interesting start to this year as well because the cohort that we have this year is, as most years I imagine, is very very different to the cohort we had last year and because everything was new to us as a staff team last year as well, we very much felt that the children from last year's cohort were very much part of our development last year as well.

So this year it was actually equally exciting to introduce what we'd really refined last year to a new cohort. What we weren't prepared for and we suddenly realised was we hadn't realised how much we'd enhanced last year and those enhancements had actually become part of our continuous provision over the year. So we noticed very early on in September that actually we had too much.

provision out. We had too many choices. We needed to refine and strip back almost to the kind of that core continuous provision that we planned for, that we'd spent the year planning for. So very quickly in September, we all said we need to strip this back and we need to go back to the planning and work out exactly when we're going to put these enhancements back in place and then they will become part of our continuous provision again.

because we did have a very messy and a very disorganized first start to the first few weeks of the term. But then once the children had become familiar with the environment, familiar with the room, because like I said, we do have a very, very big space really, and the children had got used to where things were. We have our little mantra, which I know lots of people do, which is choose it, use it, put it away, and the children tell each other.

Once the children had become a lot more familiar with that, then we started to add in more enhancements based twofold really, some on the children's interests and some on the progression that we wanted to bring to the environment as well. So they are still very much a different cohort. We do still have to keep mentioning that.

The torches don't work if you put them in the water tray, investigating why that's not happening and why that's not working anymore. So they are a different cohort. And I do wonder how over this year, whether we will introduce as much enhancement because this cohort seemed to require a lot more adult interaction in order to know how to use the resources and to understand and learn and investigate.

how the different resources can be used. So it'll be interesting to see how the year pans out and how our enhancements will differ from what we were able to offer last year. Yes, yeah. Now, I think that's really interesting. I think that's quite a common thing that often, I think anyway, we always forget kind of what that starting point was like. You know,

I think it's always a bit of a shock anyway. You know, get to the end of a school year with a group of children who have really moved forward dramatically, you know, within that time that you've had them. And then we finish that school year and you're all set, ready to start for September. And it's always a shock. You forget actually just how tiny the children coming in are and how actually they haven't had as many experiences and they haven't had that time of development.

in the same way that the children who left you had. So it's always a bit of a shock anyway, but yeah, you're right. I think from one cohort to another, actually, you know, our experiences and their experiences vary dramatically and you see different behaviors quite often. And I think you're right. I think it's always really important to go back to, if you like, the basic core provision, although it's not that basic in a way, but you know what I mean? That kind of...

actually what you're always going to have available and how will the children use it is really the priority for the first, however long really, however long it takes. If it takes a whole term all the way through to Christmas, then fair enough that actually if it's about just getting the room working really well before you add anything in, then actually that's worthwhile. Because I think you're right. Yeah, so I think because otherwise I think...

If you try to, you can't rush that stage. You know, if you try and rush past this, which I think is a common thing, I think people feel pressure to kind of rush past that sort of introducing everything well. If you do rush past it, I think it kind of comes back later on, kind of to bite you almost. So that kind of...

you'll be working, trying to do other things and have lots of interruptions because the children are just not using the materials or the resources well. So I think it's always, I think a very important thing to do and to prioritise early on in the school year really. So I think you're absolutely doing the right thing. And I think it's been really interesting as well because...

once we realised that it opened our eyes to how much we had developed the provision last year because you do forget what you've added and when you added it and why you added it. And also it made us go back very early on as well to focusing heavily on our interactions with the children. So September again like you were saying we didn't want to rush past.

those interactions. We wanted to really focus on them and that was a key way that we introduced the provision to the children was through them using the provision and our interactions with the children because in previous times the children would have been demonstrated to how they should use each resource but obviously I don't know, the funnel to me...

is a party hat to a four -year -old who's just started school. So it's that kind of like, we wanted to be there whilst they were exploring these new things and help them develop their thinking and their friendships and their ideas around how the resources could be used and also help us to audit if we had actually put the right things through where these real open -ended resources that could be used in a variety of different ways. So,

it did make us stop and think and you hit the nail on the head when you said not rush through that stage because that's been really fundamental this year. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The other thing that I wondered about as well is that, of course, that then makes us think about the role of the adult. You know, that actually, you know, for the adults, the adults have got to appreciate that that's an important stage. And so the adults really...

need to know when they go into each space, what the resources are called, what the possibilities of those resources are, you know, all of that planning stage in terms of continuous provision. All of that is also about not just about what's available, but actually what will the adults do when they're in this space? Does that make sense? Did you find that at that point you had to have conversations in terms of the adult team about actually, you know, your team there, you know, what you...

you're going to do when you go into these spaces, when you're there alongside children, what sorts of things you can do? Are your adults there with that already maybe? I think there's always space for having those discussions again for all of us as professionals because like you say, as the year goes on, you forget how small these children are and how did you get those children from that point to this point. We focused very, very heavily last year and

continued this year on developing staff skills, especially around interactions, because that's something that just wasn't happening before for a variety of reasons, for resources, for the room layout, for staff time and workload. So last year, we focused really, really heavily on the purpose of interactions, what we could get from interactions, and also,

showing the wider school staff as well that it may look like you come in and we're playing but it is that that has actually been really carefully thought out what we are doing. And one of the key things we did last year that has developed further this year is we did a lot of coaching last year as well so I joined a lot of this staff within the areas, within the provision.

And we kind of just talked through different interactions and kind of watched one another and just kind of worked together to really develop the role of the adult and what we should be doing if we're not leading something directly. And this year, because staff feel quite up skilled in that area, we're now doing peer coaching. So each member of staff has now linked up with another member of staff.

and we try and release one another so we can work together and we can look at what's going on in each area and develop it further that way as well. So that's been a really fundamental thing for us is the coaching. That's been really, really helpful. I think that's really interesting. It sounds like a really sort of a positive culture.

of kind of moving forward together and appreciating that we've perhaps each got skills, each got particular skills or strengths, but also each of us probably could learn and develop more. And that kind of openness really, I think is interesting in terms of moving that practice forward. Definitely, because I mean, it's been a huge shift, not only kind of in the building, but also in what we expect staff to be doing. And,

why and how we can make that effective and allowing staff the almost the time and that I do expect to see you playing in the water because you know don't feel that you're not doing anything I know that you are and to kind of bring that on as well we have a weekly team meeting and as part of that we all discuss one interaction very very brief section of our meeting.

but we all come and we all discuss one key interaction from that from the week, whether that's a positive interaction, an interaction that's not gone how we wanted it to go, one that we'd like to follow up or one that we'd like to just share and pass on. So we try and keep interactions at the heart of everything that we do. And that's been really useful as well. Yes, yeah. Now, I think that sounds great. Again, I think a really positive culture that appreciating that actually we don't always get it right.

Because as adults working in the early years, even very, very skilled adults who know exactly what they're doing, they don't get it right every time. There are some times where actually you go and engage with the children and that child just isn't in that moment ready to have that conversation and they move away. But then at other times actually you have that conversation and it works and it works really well and you move that learning forward.

It's not always something we always get right, but we learn from it, don't we? We kind of keep moving forward with it. Yeah. Yeah, very, very interesting. Can we go back to the children, if that's all right? I want to ask you about this particular group of children. So you mentioned that actually, you know, you'd really needed to strip back the provision. You'd really needed to kind of...

focus back on actually what did you start with in terms of continuous provision. So to take away the enhancements and to start with actually what's in a blocks area and the small world area, what's in the water area, why is it there, you know, all of those sorts of different sets of resources that will be there as part of your continuous provision. And so you've gone through that process during the autumn term of really going back to introducing those materials and getting staff and children using those materials.

We're recording this, of course, just right at the end of the autumn term. So what have you started to see emerging from that? You know, having introduced resources, having introduced materials, having hopefully seen the children starting to engage with those resources within those areas of provision. What sorts of things have you started to emerge perhaps out of that? Well, we've definitely started to see a lot more cooperative play between the children.

There was very much a culture of mine, mine, in the first half of the autumn term. So children were finding it very difficult to share. Definitely, there were very much a lot of the children were playing side by side rather than playing with one another and being very protective over what they felt they were playing with.

And we've seen a real shift in that probably only over the last couple of weeks. We're at that point where you think, is this ever going to change? Are we doing everything we can possibly be doing? And over the last few weeks, it really has started to change. And we're starting to see children collaborating, building models rather than fighting over the same brick because they want it in their model.

We've started to be able to introduce some very simple turn -taking games for them to play independently as well, because they're starting to develop their own. For example, with dice, they're really, really enjoying investigating dice, and they would literally just roll the dice and build a tower of that amount. So we've been able to build on that and start introducing simple track games and things like that so they can use the dice.

And we've started to see a lot more talk in between the children as well. For example, in the water tray, in the sand and at the play dough. Again, they were very much just focused on their own agenda and what they wanted to do. But now they're starting to, instead of making individual cakes out of play dough, they're putting it all together and making a joint cake. So that's a real big...

great thing that we've seen as the terms progressed. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And have you seen particular interests coming through as well? Definitely, I think, block, play and construction. We've had to enlarge our small construction area this year, whereas last year the cohort were very into the workshop area. So we had to really think about how we were going to manage

the workshop area and how we were going to keep that moving, keeping moving it on and making sure that it was fully resourced all the time. But this year, the children are very, very focused on building out of small construction and out of blocks and also taking those ideas outside as well and building on a bigger scale outside. So there's a lot of construction interest this year.

And that is different. I remember when I came to you before, sort of in the spring of last school year, I think it was, when you were talking about last year's cohort and how very interested in the workshop area, the paint and workshop area there were, and how that was so busy that actually you were kind of having to have a bit of a sort of a think about how you manage that. And I remember you showing me that actually you'd worked out a system where the children have a tray.

or a, you know, was that right? Or it was either a tray or a board to work on, you know, which kind of fits with the idea of being an artist, doesn't it? They're having, you know, a space that you work at and that they'd worked on their wooden board, you know, to build their construction or whatever it was that they were building, you know, out of the junk modeling and so on. And then they could then pick it up and they can move with it and they could place it and display it.

which seemed to me like just a very, such a really sensible and simple way of managing that idea that actually we need children to be able to move their things onto another space if somebody else can come and use that space. Absolutely. We found like, yeah, you're right. We introduced them the boards last year because the workshop was so busy and the children were so interested in it, but they didn't seem to feel.

the same amount of ownership around what they were doing as they did in other spaces. So they would just leave things all over and they then would make something that they'd be really proud of, but then they just seemed to leave it. And it was never, I didn't feel like they was kind of seeing the whole process through. So we did watch them for about week. We were like, let's just watch and see exactly what's going on. And we came to the conclusion that actually,

they just don't feel the ownership because there's just wool and lolly sticks and glue and scissors and glitter all just flying around. And it almost felt frantic as well, like they were trying to grab at the resources that they needed. So we came up with the idea and we have carried it on this year of using the work boards where the children take a board and they collect all of the things that they think they might need to get them started. And then they...

they construct on that board, they move the board if they want to paint it or they want to take it somewhere else. And then they clear it all the way at the end, go and put their model on the display and then they put their board away. And it just gives them that lot more ownership of what they've been doing. Yeah, yeah. And what I like as well is that you're constantly reflecting, you know, whether it be in last school year or this school year, you're reflecting and kind of sort of...

really thinking carefully about actually this particular group of children and how they are using that space and what it is that you might need to tweak to make it that bit more effective. You know, whether you need that bit more space within small construction or whether actually, you know, that or whether you, you know, you're adding in those boards for them to work on within the paint and the workshop or whatever it might be that actually, you know, you're just thinking about each, you know, in an ongoing way and probably as a staff team.

reflecting on actually, well, what have we noticed and what's working, but maybe what might need to be tweaked that little bit more? Absolutely. And the small construction is an area of FERC as far as at the minute as well. Because we do, we'd had again,

pull that back and the children are really, really loving dupler and we're trying to get them to move on to using something. So in the spring term, we'd be focusing on trying to encourage the children within small construction to using something like merbler where the pieces don't just fix together, they have to have a fixing piece. So we're just starting to look at that now and thinking, how are we going to move that on?

and maybe give them another choice as well as the merbeloe as well where they have to fix pieces together and because that's where their interests are lying and we want to move that forward along so we know that's what they need next but we want to use their interests to inform that as well. Yes, yeah, that's great and I think that's interesting that idea of that fits very well with the conversation that people often have with Ofsted inspectors as part of an inspection, that idea of

of the progression, you know, the progression across a year. You know, what are you expecting the children who go into that area to be doing? How are you going to move their skills forward? What are you going to show them to develop that skill? You know, all of those kinds of things. I was in Cumbria yesterday as part of our road show. We've been out on the road delivering a road show.

out and about. And as part of it yesterday, we took our interactive environment out with us, so a classroom on the road kind of thing. And I was showing people the blocks within the blocks area. And I was saying to people that, you one of the things that's in there is such a simple resource is the flat pieces. So the flat, you know, basically very, you know, just flat pieces of wood of different sizes.

So generally, generally sort of rectangular pieces, but some of them are kind of a long rectangle and some of them are a broader rectangle. And that of course, what you're aiming for is for the children to be able to build into their models different floors, you know, so to build using maybe four cylinders and then to place a flat piece on the top of those four cylinders and then to build another floor on top of that and then put another flat piece on there.

So that actually, you know, you've got all of these different sections almost like within a doll's house. Whereas actually the children might not know what they are for. They might not know that that's what you can do with them. And so you might need an adult in there to be able to say, well, did you know that you can put four of these together and then put a flat piece on the top and then carry on building and keep going? And once the children have got that idea, they...

you know, potentially they're absolutely away on, you know, there's such a lot you can do with that, you know, whether it be building bridges with towers at each side, or, you know, whether it be about building really complex structures, but you're showing them something that actually will really lead to more complexity within their play. And you're right, you know, it's about, you know, like you were saying with the construction, the small construction, it's about knowing which skills it is you want them to be developing.

And being able to then, you know, adults all knowing that, and then adults being able to focus on that skill and showing the children, well, if you're going to build with Mobileo, you need a connecting piece in between, and you need to press the pieces together. Because sometimes it's that knowledge that's stopping the children do far more elaborate things. It's that one step. And if you can identify that one step, actually, you can go much further with it. The children can go much further with it. So yeah, no interesting stuff.

We've actually written, well we're in the process of writing, will they ever be done? I'm not sure, but we have done very basic plans along those lines of how we expect the progression of skills within each area to develop. It's based on, obviously we've got an end point that we'd like the children to get to, but it's also...

based upon what typically children will do. We've all put our heads together as a team and said, right, we know these children, we know what four and five year olds are typically likely to do. So let's plan out what we will focus on as adults, for example, the mobile in the spring term, so that we've got an idea, like you said, the adults know.

what the next step within that area is going to be. So we started off with very, very broad skills and we've started to kind of trying to fine tune it as we go along. So they are, these plans are obviously still in draft form, but they are very much a working document and then what we're all working from at the moment. Interesting, very interesting. Yeah, it sounds great. Yeah, and I think completing something like that.

I always think that it's the process of doing it that is more valuable than the end product to a certain extent. If somebody just gave you that, you'd probably laminate it and have it on the wall, then that's it. But actually, the process of talking with the team about actually what do you think that's, what skills are we looking for, and what would be the next skill after that, and how are we going to get to that point?

and what resources we might need or what sorts of things we might need to show the children to get to that point, how we might model it and scaffold it. It's the process there that's the valuable thing because actually that's, it's very valuable, staff CPD, I think, to do that as a team. And we've purposely not laminated them as well so that we can edit them. So that's been quite good as well because I would have loved, well, in some ways.

I would have loved a nice little laminated sheet for each area while I said, there you go, it's done. But the nature of the job is it's never done, the children are never done and no two children are ever the same. So they are very much like I say, working documents that we are all just writing on as we go along. Yeah, no, I think that's great. That is fab. The other thing I was going to ask you about was when I came to visit,

As I say, last spring, I think it was, one of the things that you mentioned to me was that you'd had a bit of a rethink. You were having a bit of a rethink about displays. And I think previously, if I remember rightly, it's going back a little while, so forgive me if it's not quite right, but I think previously you'd had quite a few display boards within the classroom spaces. So before the work had been done, whether...

the walls had been taken out and sort of completely reconfigured. You'd had quite a lot of display boards and then those display boards hadn't been put back. And initially, I think you were expecting that they would be put back and then you got used to the idea that they weren't in there and you thought, well, actually, we're now questioning whether we need them or not.

Could you explain a little bit more about that? Because I found that really interesting, that journey of thinking it through and the purpose of displays, I think is quite interesting. Yeah, absolutely. So we are still display boardless, if you'd say, so we haven't put any of the display boards back up. And originally, like you say, it was we were going to wait and see how we wanted, how we were using the space and put the display boards up for a purpose.

So that was the original plan. But what we found was that actually we didn't miss the boards. In many ways it actually had a positive impact, especially on staff, because there is almost the unseen to -do list in your head where you're seeing a board and thinking, I'll need to change that soon, or I must add something more onto that board.

And actually, if that's only for us adults, is that an effective use of our time? So we did kind of look at it from a children's point of view as well and thinking, are we not giving the children something that they need?

And it probably looked very comical if anyone saw us doing it, but we do go into each area periodically and we go down to the level that the children are and we look around and see what we can see as if we were a four or a five year old. And actually the display boards, they weren't very rarely in our eyesight when we were within each area. So we thought they're not necessarily needed for that purpose.

We do have a phonics freeze up as I'm sure most schools do, but we've just blue tacked that onto the walls in the most appropriate places. And we do have a maths working wall within our classroom, but the way we've made that work is we've just put a border around a piece of wall and just called that the maths working wall so it can be moved and things blue tacked. And then the final thing we were considering.

was well what about the children celebrating their work, we want to give them an opportunity to celebrate their work. So what we do have on the back of a lot of our furniture, I think you helped advise on this, is that we have a lot of magnetic boards on our open shelving on the back.

So we just introduce lots of magnets and again, showing the children through our interactions, oh, I'm really proud of this. I'm going to stick it up on the wall. So we have lots of what I'd consider child -friendly ways of the children displaying work that they're proud of. So either putting them on the magnetic board or we have lots of them little clips, little photo frame clips that they can display their work on in different areas.

and we have work in progress shelves as well that the children can put their models and things like that. And what we found last year was the children then started developing their own little display boards. I think I showed you this when you came and outside in the writing area, the children had just made one of the shed doors, used masking tape and just put up lists and things they wanted to put up. So,

Again, when we looked at it again this year, we said, was there anything missing last year? And we really didn't feel there was. And I guess we're lucky that we've got a brand new environment with very nicely painted walls. So we're not trying to, you know, make do with anything like that too. So we've decided that we were not going to put display boards up. So that was our reason. I think you're right. I think.

It sounds like to me that you've kind of found a good middle ground where you're displaying what you feel that you need to display rather than being kind of held to having to display certain things. Because certainly sometimes it does lead the practice. You know, you're there with a great big blank display board and you think, you know, you kind of almost end up with having to do a piece of artwork in order to fill that. Whereas actually, you know, are we doing the artwork for the learning process or are we doing it?

just to fill the display board. It's quite an interesting kind of conversation to have. Is it just about getting the display done sometimes? And I think that was what the feeling was before when we had a lot of display boards. It was like, right, we'll need to plan something in so that everybody makes the same thing to go on that board. And of course, there are times, we're coming up to the end of term, it's Christmas now. There are times where we are doing things like that.

But the majority of the time, you're exactly right, it's about the process. And that's something that we've spent a long time developing as a staff team, that it's about the process and that's really important. So then it kind of goes against that by saying, but we'd also like 60 perfect things produced to go on the board. Yeah, absolutely. 60 times a year.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And it's all part of what we've been talking about, which is that it's kind of reflecting on the practice. It feels a bit like when you, you know, when you went through that process of taking out the walls and reconfiguring the space and then having the room plan that actually it was both physically, it was about taking everything out and then putting things back in and letting them, making them earn their place. But it's also not just about the physical stuff. It was about all of the other bits of the practice that have had to earn their place as part of your practice as well.

And if it didn't earn its place, it's not coming back in kind of thing, which I think is very interesting. I also heard that you've been doing some training project recently, is that right? The reason I say it is I mentioned to Matthew, my colleague Matthew Sayer, who's one of our curriculum consultants at Early Excellence, I mentioned to him that I was going to be, he asked me what podcast we've got coming up and I said, oh yeah, I'm going to be...

talking to Emma Hudson at Willoughby Carr and he said, oh yes, I think that Emma is on the training that he'd been doing. So can you tell us a bit about that as well? Yeah, I mean it was perfectly timed for us last year just as we'd kind of opened our new provision. There was a joint project, like you say, between Early Excellence and our local authority.

called Foundations of Literacy and it was a year -long project. There was four days' worth of training with Matthew and then there were also two visits from the Early Years Improvement Officers from the local authority, two supportive visits obviously in order to develop those Foundations of Literacy. And it was perfectly timed for us given in where we were at with our journey and it just helped.

Again, a lot of what really helped from that training was the audit, auditing tools and the time to reflect and think. And a key thing that came out of that, I think from the very first training course for me, because we were trying to focus very heavily on interactions, but what we were struggling with was, oh, I don't get time to do my interactions because I'm too busy doing all my other jobs. And then we've got to stop to do this and stop to do this and stop to do this.

And Matthew talked us through kind of like thinking about longer periods of sustained time where we could interact. And so I came straight back to school and again, as a team, we looked at our timetable, moved things around quite significantly, which gave us a huge block of time in the afternoon that we now protect and said that is time for us to join the children. We are not going to leave the children in that time. They are going to lead us. And

It's one of those, a bit like when we show the children how to put the Möbler together with a joining piece, it's almost like a light bulb moment that then kind of snowballed into us thinking through our interactions and how actually they are the foundations of literacy. So we audited our talk opportunities and we audited lots of things around the provision and it was just a really, really useful.

and for us well -timed project. We're really excited to be a part of it. Yeah, no, it feels almost like we've come full circle because a lot of what you were talking about then also fits with what we were talking about right at the beginning, that idea of introducing the resources to the children and making sure that actually they know really in terms of just what's available within the continuous provision, how to get the most out of it and how to use it.

And that's about the adults being in there, showing the children, engaging with the children, valuing the resources and valuing the experiences. And also introducing them in order that you can go past the logistical stage. Because I think otherwise, unless you get past the logistics of actually, you know, where you put things, how you tidy up and all of those sorts of things, and what you do do and what you don't do, unless you get past the logistical stage, you're always going to be as adults dealing with the logistics.

And so and that's going to be quite a barrier to you having those effective interactions if you're always dealing with the logistics. Where and I'm sure every every earliest teacher who listens to the point of listens to this episode will be probably nodding along and think, well, yeah, that's that's very much us, you know, that actually, at the start of the year, you kind of have to go through that, that difficult stage of really introducing things and really overdoing it in terms of showing the children what we're doing, in order that actually you can then.

engage with the learning rather than do the logistics all of the time? Absolutely. We looked at a really interesting graph as part of the foundations of literacy of the way that talk changes over the year. And so hopefully right at the beginning, like you say, very much instructional talk from adults to begin with because it's constant and like you say, overdoing it, repeating it, saying it over and over and over again.

But if we get this right, that will drop considerably throughout the year. And the actual deeper level talk that we can have and those interactions with the children will come up towards the end of the year because that talk has gone down. So we can really get into a deeper level with the children. Yeah. And interestingly, kind of a term in, it sounds like that's the position that you're now in.

But actually it sounds like you've kind of gone through that process of introducing the resources and now you're starting to see the benefit of that. Children starting to collaborate more, children starting to engage more with the resources, them starting to see the possibilities of those resources. So I think you're very much set up for quite an exciting time over the spring and the summer terms as they kind of grow in confidence and learn and develop in terms of using those materials and resources.

and also the adults engaging with them on that journey as well. Yeah, interesting stuff. Interesting stuff. What about, I suppose it's, I guess it's too early. I'm going to ask you about the impact of the training and all of those sorts of things, but actually maybe it's too soon to know that. Is that the case?

Well, I do think we saw some of the impact last year with some of the changes that we made straight away, like the changes to the timetable, because we knew we wanted to interact more, but we were struggling to find the time to do it. So the change to the timetable had a big impact because it meant we could do that. And also just small things that we introduced, looking at the different provision and really looking at...

is talk happening in all spaces between the children. So I guess, yeah, you're right, there's not that much impact we can see from it now. It's more impacted our practice going forward. But from last year's cohort, the year one teachers have started to change their practice slightly because we had such an emphasis on talk last year.

they have looked at changing their practice slightly and incorporating a lot more talk into their lessons so that they could carry on the work that was started within Foundation Stage last year. So it's having a wider impact rather than just staying within Foundation Stage. Yeah, no, absolutely. It sounds like you're kind of broadening that conversation, you know, as you and the team grow in confidence in terms of sharing your practice. But actually it sounds like you're starting to involve other people in it.

know, the key stage one staff perhaps or a subject leader, you know, and so on so that there's that wider conversation and wider knowledge and understanding about the practice. Yeah. And I think that's important when we've made we've made such a big, a big shift and a big change. Again, it's not just about the change on how the provision looks. It's a huge change and shift on how we work and how we are underlying pedagogy behind how we're teaching the children.

and how they're learning. So I think that I've shared that as much as I can with the wider staff because we can't just, we can't change what we've done and not expect the children to be slightly different as they kind of move through. So I guess that's starting with the current year one cohort. I've had a very different early years experience to the one before. So, and the year one staff are reporting that they can see a real difference in those children as well. That's really interesting. Very interesting.

It's a kind of like a watch this space moment, isn't it? To see how you come up about key stage one practice and whether that kind of how that develops and how they you know what practice emerges from that process. Interesting stuff. Interesting. Emma, we better let you go. I'm very aware that you it's an incredibly busy time of year and that you'll I'm sure you'll have all sorts of different things on. But thank you so much for joining us for the podcast this afternoon. It's been fantastic to talk to you again and to really explore in depth the

the impact of the training, the impact of the environment, how you're reflecting on it, how you're moving forward as a team. I think it's really interesting and I'm sure really valuable to people who are listening along. So yeah, thank you so much. Thank you, Andy. It's been great to speak to you again.

you have it. Thank you very much to Emma for joining us for this week's episode of the podcast. I really enjoyed our conversation. We covered such a lot of ground there, you know, talking about the role of the adult, talking about the learning environment and getting the most out of the learning environment, talking about the planning for that, all of that building on that room planning process, really interesting stuff. Now, as I mentioned just before, the

All of this started really with Emma getting in touch with us at Early Excellence about this room planning process. And so if you're listening to this and that's very much where you are at the moment, then please do get in touch. If you're looking into refurbishing your classroom space or if you're having some building work and you're looking at having a new environment, then get in touch. It's very much something that we do. So if you want to find out more about the room planning process,

go onto the Early Excellence website. It's just at earlyexcellence .com to find out more. Or if you want to drop me an email, my email address is just andy at earlyexcellence .com. And I'm more than happy to go through the information with you. All right, okay. Thank you again for listening everybody. All the very best and I will see you next week.