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Here at Early Excellence, we specialize 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 111 of the Early Excellence podcast. In this week's episode, we're joined by my colleague at Early Excellence, Claire King, who is one of our curriculum consultants. And we talk about all sorts of interesting things. We talk about the importance of following and building on children's interests. So we talk about the impact of that and the quality of that as part of practice. And Claire also talks about a project that she was involved in.
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herself as part of her own practice, where her and her children really got into and started to explore bees and it sort of took off as a bees project. So really interesting stuff. We talk about the impact of that work, we talk about the project and what it involved. So there's a lot here for you to really get to grips with, I think. So I hope you find it interesting. So here you go. Here's my early excellence podcast chat with Claire King.
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Okay, so I am delighted to say that I'm joined today for the podcast. I'm joined by Claire King, who is one of our curriculum consultants at Early Excellence. And it's not even your first time on the podcast, Claire. So welcome back. How are you doing? Oh, it's nice to be back, Andy. Thank you for inviting me. No, that's all right. It's a pleasure. It's an absolute pleasure. And we're going to be talking all about building on children's interests, aren't we? And really relating it to practice, specifically your practice.
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So we're going to be thinking about the importance of building on children's interests and kind of where that can go and the sorts of directions that might go in. And I suppose overall this is a celebration of not planning everything to the letter in detail and having it completely fixed because what we need to do of course is we need to allow space and we need to allow flexibility. And so what I wanted to do was to talk you through.
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talk through with you really the project, your projects that you've done with young children. And to kind of, in order, what I want to do is to kind of get that idea that actually we are, we're talking about flexibility, aren't we? We're talking about building on children's interests. We're talking about the importance of valuing what the children in your class are fascinated by and interested by at the moment. Okay, so.
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First things first, before we get onto the specifics of following children's interests and the projects itself that you've been involved in, why would we say it's important to build on children's interests? Would you be able to talk us through that? Why is it important? Yeah, absolutely. I think it really is important that we do, as you've said, have that flexibility and that flexible approach.
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in our planning, our curriculum, because we are working with the youngest children who come in being really curious and fascinated about things they discover and the world around them. So tapping into their interests is really going to be one that real intrinsic motivator for children. Those moments where they bring us things in the morning perhaps to our session or they're fascinated with something they found on their way to school.
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All of those are really high intrinsic motivators for children and they want to find out more. So it's about us really using that as a stimulus to really support them. We know that by tapping into their interests and really exploring their interests is going to help them keep learning going, that more sustained learning over time because they are fascinated to find out more about it. And we know it's really valuing the child of themselves then, really valuing all that uniqueness that each child brings.
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in terms of their interests and their prior knowledge and experiences. And we also know that it's going to be a great conversation stimulus. Children are really going to want to engage in those conversations when they are fascinated and interested in them and it's centered around themselves. We know children really are motivated around themselves and you know what they like and what they're interested in.
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And it's really going to help us really broaden some of their experiences and connect some of that prior knowledge and experiences too. So, yeah, I really advocate, you know, taking the time to tune into children's interests because it really does open that further curriculum development and learning for them. Yes. And as I say, I think it requires a degree of flexibility. There's nothing wrong, of course, with having a topic that's planned and that you know kind of where you're going with it. But I do think that it's it's
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it's not great really to have something that's so planned in advance without taking into account the needs and the fascinations and the interests that children bring to the setting. And so yeah, that's what this is all about, isn't it? We're going to be talking about a specific project, a project that you were involved in. And it was a project all about bees, wasn't it? It was, yes. Yeah.
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bees, which is a really interesting thing to get into because there's such a lot there isn't there. So tell us about, in terms of the bee project, how did that start? Yes, well this was a project that started directly from the children, so it was in a setting that I was based in in Kent and I was just sort of taking that moment to step back and observe the children really tuning in to some of the conversations they were having.
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I noticed two little boys were having a conversation about a bee that had landed in our garden area so we had some planters in a sensory area. They were really fascinated looking at the bee on the plant and one of the little boys had said that it was a honeybee. The other little boy said, no it's a bumblebee. They were having this back and forth exchange around, well I know it's a honeybee because it makes honey. The other little boy saying, no bumblebees make honey too.
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So it became quite a bit of a negotiation and conversation between the boys about who was right and what was the right bee. So it was there as me as that practitioner or an adult, really thinking how I could facilitate that learning and interest further. So I suggested that we went and got some books and within that book, we discovered there was many, many different species of bees and the boys were absolutely amazed to find out how many different species of bees there were.
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And that's really where that just being in that moment and that flexibility and that flexible approach you've just described was really important that I could say, well, let's follow that interest and go with it. And actually what that turned into was a huge project learning around bees that went on for several weeks that kept the interest of the children going because they were fascinated about finding out more about bees. So yeah, it's a great starting point. I love that and that it started very much from a conversation from the children.
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And because that's really powerful, isn't it? That, you know, weeks later, as you're really getting into it in real depth, that kind of, that moment of those children sparking a conversation and for them to know that this was the start of it, I think is really powerful. Just on a sort of a side thing, just to note, I think it's quite interesting to consider that there are times when we can have certain projects or topics ready to go.
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we prompt certain conversations so that it feels like it's come from the children. Do you know what I mean? I know one of our colleagues in Keast, when she worked with Key Stage 1 classes or class teachers, one of the things that she does is she she talks about that using your enabling environment, using the environment and what materials and what resources you have there and prompts for conversations in terms of inquiry.
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And then when those questions come from the children that predictably you know will come from the children, you're then ready with a project to follow it up. So it feels like it's come from the children. And in fact, it has, but actually you've planned the environment to prompt the questions from the children. And in a sense, you've done that as well in that you've created a rich environment outdoors. You know, your raised beds area, your sensory area.
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is going to prompt those sorts of conversations, isn't it? It's quite an interesting one. Absolutely, it is about ensuring that the environment is, you know, set up to enable that learning opportunities and those many possibilities of learning. So having books like the Bee Book, well, it was a book about many insects, having that available in the provision area enabled that opportunity to happen, including things like magnifying glasses out there. So...
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It gave opportunities for children to use those resources in many different ways, but they were there for the adults as well to prompt the children to be able to use them. But in that very flexible approach. Yeah, definitely. And it also, I think, it makes me consider, too, that what we call child initiated learning, which, you know, which this definitely is, you know, this would come under that banner, wouldn't it? Child initiated learning is about something coming from the child or from the children.
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But actually, it's not just that. It's actually the questions and the conversations that will happen within the environment are actually planned for. You know, you're planning for it in the time you give the children, the time you give them to have the conversations and to be interested in things, but also the environment you provide will prompt the conversations and the questions and the wondering.
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that lead into projects like this. So it's not just child initiators. It's about planning for the child initiated learning to be effective, isn't it? Yeah, and planning that environment is going to be crucial to that. Yeah, definitely. Okay, so it started with the conversation between children, a little argument. I love this image of them kind of arguing over what sort of being it is. So you start with that kind of the discussion, the heated debate as to what kind of
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be it is, you then are, you jump in with your non-fiction text and you're starting to look at what different sort of be it might be, et cetera. What happens next then? Because it could go no further, couldn't it? It could literally be a conversation and stop right there and in fact the adults could easily just sort of almost shut it down quite quickly. But you didn't. So what happened next?
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Yeah, it's interesting you say that about the adults shutting it down because at that point I had very little knowledge about bees, I'll be totally honest. Since then it's been a huge learning curve, but yes, I had very little knowledge myself. So actually I was demonstrating to the children how to be a learner too and how to find out more. So how it carried on was as we were looking through the book, there was a page that said, save the bees. And one of the little boys who was, you know, quiet.
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quite a good reader could pick up that it was the word the and bees and wanted to know what the first word said. So as I helped him to read that he wanted to know more about what it meant, about why we had to save bees and why would we have that in the book. So that's where then again just supporting the children to have that understanding and I started to read some of the information from the text.
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they become really fascinated about wanting to save the bees themselves and realizing that, you know, bees were in decline and that there was an option and a possibility of them supporting that. So the boys really were keen to go and gather up a range of friends, which they did, and told them that we're going to go and save bees.
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So hence where the project sort of evolved. So for myself, I needed to then gather more information and that's where I met a lovely lady called Vic and she has bees herself, so she's a beekeeper, but she's also really good at supporting the community to understand the importance of planting wild flowers and leaving areas within our environment unmanaged. So she gave me a range of leaflets.
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she gave me a bee suit, she gave me some honey to try and honey that has been produced in every season, which if you've never tried honey that's been produced in different seasons, please do, because the taste is so different, which again I've learnt along the way. So I took this all back to the children and it sort of evolved into lots of mini projects. So one was around
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tasting honey and learning how honey is produced. One was around learning how we then can become a beekeeper, using the protective clothing, for example, managing a hive. And the bigger project then came from creating our own save the bees garden. So the children wanted to use what was an old sand pit in our outside environment, and they wanted to plant some wild seeds. So...
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Again, I was sort of following the children's interest along that, you know, rushing off to the supermarket the next day, trying to get packs of wild seeds so I could go along and support that. What I then discovered, that one of the children had a grandparent who used to be a beekeeper, so it was really good to then have a visitor in and to be able to talk about that real life experience. And when you're connecting that with a family member, you know, that's really, really useful as well for the children because they're fascinated to find out about family members.
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So we had lots of opportunities there for the visitor to come in and talk. And then the children started to plant their bee garden, learning how to maintain it, watering, understanding the importance of it. And at this point, what I didn't realise is how fascinated the children were that they were going home and talking about that experience with the parents. And then I had parents arrive on the door to say, how can we save the bees and what could we do?
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So we're actually involved into a project that ended up going into the home as well, with lots of parents doing planting areas within their garden. And the impact that's had has been amazing. It's so powerful. It really is. And it strikes me as well that there are certain things that I think always fascinate children, always interest children. I think part of it is like having a cause, you know, like you say, save the beers.
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Save the Bees is a cause, isn't it? It's something that we can all get behind kind of thing. And there's the sort of concern for something that children have. You know, it like that. They like to have a cause to get behind. But also, I think they are particularly curious about things that could hurt them in some way, that there is a risk to it. And so, you know, like I can remember, I think I've probably mentioned this on the podcast before, but
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I can remember when my children were much younger, our middle son, he was probably only about three or four. And we used to have on the shelf in our front room, we used to have like a family first aid book, I think it was called or something like that. And it just sort of fairly thin book and it had sort of pictures of kind of how to administer bizarrely, how to administer first aid in the home and things like that. And...
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It had a picture on stings, or a page or two on bee and wasp stings and things like that. And I remember Harri being absolutely fascinated by it. He used to keep going back to the book on the shelf and going and getting it off the shelf and opening up this page. And I think there is that sort of fascination with kind of.
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something that might kind of sting you or hurt you a little bit or, you know, that you've got to be wary of, but at the same time, you want to know more about it. And I think so I think from both, yeah, it's from both perspectives of having a cause but also being an element of sort of risk. I think you've got a sort of almost optimum project there that is going to draw children in. Well, yeah, brilliant, brilliant stuff. And so you see, so this presumably
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what you're talking about in terms of the planting, the growing, the visitors coming in, they're looking at things like the bee suit and how to look after the bees and how to care for them and to create an environment in which they thrive. And presumably looking at bee hives. Did you have a look at bee hives as well? Yeah, is that something that's part of it? Yeah, and Vic lent me a...
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hive that's a mock-up hive. So as you pull the frames out and dismantle the hive, it has photographs of the bees. So we were then able to share different information about then how bees are produced, which actually is quite complex knowledge for the children, but they thrived from knowing facts. Particularly in the beekeeping world, there are lots of really interesting and quite some gruesome facts about bees, but the children were hooked into finding out more about those facts.
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So really interesting. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think that's an that is a good point to make, isn't it? That you're you're talking about complex information here and and. You're you what you what you're doing there is, is kind of not having a glass ceiling in terms of the learning that we're going to do within reception. So you're not going to say, right, well, that's as far as we go. We're in reception. There's the ceiling there. I can't I can't go any further with you. I'm afraid children, that's.
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that for that you'll have to wait till year three or year four kind of thing. You know, what you're saying is that actually let's see how far we can go with this. Let's really see. And you're, you're treating your children as learners and without a kind of a, as I say, without a kind of a ceiling on that learning, which I think is really empowering for you as an adult or, you know, for your team of adults within the setting.
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that you can say, right, let's see how far we go with it. And it's exciting for you as adults because you don't quite know what's going on around the corner. Yeah, and I think you're right there. It was a learning curve for me too. And it's really about fine tuning into the children because you know that point when they're taking the information on or if it's just going a little bit beyond. But what you're also looking at is that they're still retaining that interest.
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And when they've got that interest, they still want to learn and retain those facts and information. So yeah, definitely a learning curve for both me and the children. But I put myself definitely in that learning zone. Yes, yeah, yeah. But I think children appreciate it when you're learning too. You know, that it's a genuine thing that you're interested as well, and that you don't know the answers. You're on the same playing field, the same level playing field that they're on, in a way.
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You're not coming to them knowing something already and then pretending not to know it and kind of trying to impart it. You're genuinely not knowing it. And I think there's a different dynamic there to just what we would normally do, which is to know something and then deliver it to them. It's a different dynamic and it leads to a different relationship with the children. They appreciate that actually you're on the same page as them. So, yeah. And I tell you what, the other thing I'm interested in,
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is I would imagine that there'll be people who listen to this who will be intrigued to know about how that they'll appreciate that there's learning there but they'll they'll be intrigued to know how they might go about recording that because one of the things that I know from from working with schools and settings is that the sometimes the recording process if we're not careful can get in the way you know I've worked with schools fairly recently where
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people have said, well, I need to have, we've got a book for this for all of the children. We've got a book for that for all of the children. And, you know, we kind of have to do it so that it goes in a book. But of course that's then restricting. So I'm intrigued to know, how did you go about recording the learning or did you record the learning? What, you know, how did you go about doing that? Yes, so it's an important, it's actually a really interesting topic, isn't it, thinking about recording because...
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Now, I was fortunate enough to be leading a setting where we really valued being in the moment with children and we didn't have the pressure of those expectations around recording in certain ways, perhaps from senior leaders. So we had quite a lot of freedom around deciding how and when we record things and that varied depending on the children, perhaps their interests.
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But for this project, we started just with a large piece of paper and the children started to mark, make, draw, add photographs. And we started just to collect things like some wild flowers the children have found and they stuck them on the piece of paper. The recording wasn't necessarily for myself. It was for them. And they were really interesting, gathering that and bringing it together. So.
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the process of recording was more about them collating all of their ideas together. And then as that evolved throughout the project, we turned that into more of like a large sort of floor book really, where children were constantly having access to it, to bring in photographs, they were bringing photographs from home, they were scribing and mark making all of the time within the book. So...
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Although we were recording, it wasn't formal recording, it was really the children recording as and when they wanted to. And then as the project moved on, we started to record some of the outcomes from the parents. The ultimate sort of ending of the project was the children, bearing in mind their reception and some nursery children, created a presentation to parents around everything they had learned around the bees.
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produced posters for the parents to take home and put around. And that was all really stemmed from that, that's still children's interest really. So they used all of the information they had collated in the floor book to be able to tell parents. So it helped us that almost that memory jog for them to be able to use the book. So it was really part of the learning process rather than it being about recording evidence. Yeah, that's a great way of looking at it is that the children are recording the learning.
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and that they're part of it and they're valuing it. Yeah, no, I think that's great. And it's a way of recording, of course, that fits with the project, that it's not slowing the project down, it's not getting in the way of the project, it's not leading you into having to do things in a particular way because of the recording. You're making the recording process fit with what you want to do. So it's kind of, it's that sort of...
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being able to do what you want to do in terms of the learning and that's the priority and the recording is the next thing it kind of follows on rather than rather than recording leading the process. Now that's important I think isn't it? I think if I had taken it to that approach I feel like I would have lost the interest of the child. One that would have created more work for myself to be able to you know recording for my purpose sake but actually as I'm learning alongside the children.
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I was gathering all that information in my head. I didn't need any of that formally recorded. And I didn't want to stop that interest and flow going, which it might have done if I was then starting to say, well, let's record this or let's do it that way. And if I started to steer it too much, I feel like I would have lost that genuine interest that the children had because I would have been steering it to my agenda rather than the child's agenda. Yeah, no, interesting. It strikes me as well that the project is built on conversation and questioning.
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which of course is really rich, isn't it? You know, that partly that's important because they are transferable skills, but also because of course we know about the importance of speech, language and communication skills. And it's that that you're putting to the forefront of the project, not the recording of what's gone on there, which is key, isn't it? I was gonna ask you about, this leads us into quite nicely about the impact of the project.
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So we've talked about kind of what the children were doing and what they were interested in and what that led to in terms of looking at the hive and having different visitors and so on. I suppose the next thing to consider is the impact isn't it that I think everybody listening to this would say well I'd love to do that, I'd love to be able to follow an interest, a fascination in that way, do something in that depth.
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But of course we have to justify everything and we justify it through the impact. So what's the impact of a project like that? Well, the ultimate impact was I no longer live near the village where I taught, but my parents do, so I regularly revisit. For a minute I thought you were going to say the impact is that I've had to move away. No, not quite. No, I regularly revisit to see my parents.
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visit the village and I was in the shop, in the local shop and I recognised a face coming towards me and it was one of the children who were involved in the Bee Project and bearing in mind they are in secondary school now.
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And the boy said to me, I remember everything you've taught about bees. He said, we call you the bee lady. So that's nice, the bee lady. And he said, every time I pick up a jar of honey now, he said, I sit there and think, I wonder what pollen this was. I wonder what season this was created. I mean, and to think that children of four and five, and there was some children in there in our nursery three years of age have retained all of that information. So when we think about
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giving children skills and knowledge for lifelong learning, you know, there was the direct impact then. Those children had retained that information. In the local village as well, we have a farm and one of the children in the project, their parents now have a hive on the farm and are selling honey from that hive. And again, that's because that parent has gained that interest alongside the child.
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And so, again, you can see that long-term impact of learning that has continued to fascinate them and they've continued to want to learn more and take it on. And when we're thinking about the early years and all of those curriculum areas, this project was tapping into all of those different areas of development and learning and the children were gaining lots of different skills in all of those areas.
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and you can see how they've then gone on to use those skills and that knowledge in different subject areas and in different interests. So, yeah, you could really see the long term impacts, but ultimately it's about thinking about the child, isn't it? And the impact that has directly had on them. And if they can recall all of that information and see how they're using that information in their life now, then to me, that's the greatest impact I could have ever asked for.
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Yeah, absolutely. It's really powerful, isn't it? It really is incredibly powerful. And as you say, I think, you know, the it's not just about learning about bees, is it? You know, the bees, the learning about the bees is if you like the vehicle for learning, isn't it? It's the something, it's the one thing that they were interested in that drew them in. And then it takes the right adult or group of adults to say, right, there are possibilities here.
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We can use this, we can use this for teaching and learning. They're fascinated by this and it happens to be bees. So let's see how far we can go with it. And so we're talking about adults who have that, that understanding of the possibilities of learning from almost from anything and how far you can go with it when you go into depth. But also you're talking about the sorts of skills that adults...
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Adults need to have to be able to extend children's thinking and learning in that moment or as part of that project, but also knowing the skills that are going to be developed and having the confidence to develop those skills through a project like that. Presumably you followed that with other projects, but we're not going to go into it into great depth, but presumably having done this as a model, you thought, well, actually, this works.
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this kind of using the spark like that works and we keep going. Can you give us a quick kind of an idea of the sorts of other things that you did? Yes, and you're right. It is about creating those opportunities for those transferable skills. So, all that language and communication, the understanding conversations and those back and forth exchanges.
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All of those are teaching the children around the communication and language development and we're giving them skills such as how to find out information, how to explain information, problem solving and investigation skills which then are all transferable into other projects. Through other projects that appeared around construction, the children were really fascinated around creating structures. We started to look at
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structures in our local environment, such as the church that was next door to our school. And then that led on to another child who had seen the angel of the north, so we were recreating that in the block area. And again, little information that I had. So again, I was modelling to the children that learning process with them. So there was lots of different projects that have appeared and it wasn't a project that become over-themed. And I think that's the really important thing.
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These were projects with the groups of children who were really interested in that. And I had as an adult really tuned in to what aspect of that interest, you know, that they were really wanting to explore. Because actually what I would have done is watered down the learning, or I would have lost learners along the way if I suddenly then over themed the whole of in my environment, or, you know, created a larger topic that was perhaps for the term that wouldn't have kept.
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the same amount of interest for all of those children. So at times there were lots of mini projects happening for different groups of children, but the practitioners and myself were really highly attuned to finding out what those interests of those individual groups of children were. But yeah, we've had some really amazing projects that have stretched really my knowledge. I've really had to learn alongside them and find out lots more information and they've really...
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It really astonished me how much they really want to learn and find out and about really complex, you know, knowledge and skills really for such young children. Yeah, no, absolutely. Really powerful stuff. Really powerful stuff. And Claire, we'd better stop there. I'm aware that you're a busy person and you're heading off soon. So we'd better stop there. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It's been fascinating to talk to you about about the project and about and about just that.
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The powerful thing of following children's interests and seeing how far you go with it and extending children's learning in that way, really, really interesting. So yeah, thank you so much. You're more than welcome. And I would just say to anyone, take that time to create that flexibility within your curriculum because it really does open your eyes to the possibilities of learning. So yeah, be brave and let go of some things and really follow the children's interests because it's very powerful.
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There you have it. Thank you very much to Claire for joining us for this week's episode of the podcast. And of course, also to you people for listening along as well. That's about it for this week, everybody. Have a good week and we will see you next time.
