The best place to be a child!

I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to work in our partner kindergarten in Norway over the Easter break, it was the perfect chance to spend time in the kindergarten without having to get cover for my own class while I was away. 4 of us in total took part in this job shadowing experience, 2 of us from N. Ireland and 2 from Croatia and as we all lived together for the 2 weeks it allowed for lots of discussions each afternoon and evening. 

I first visited Eikefjord Barnehage in 2006, then spent a week working there in 2008 and this transformed my practice. I revisit in January this year with my colleague and it was wonderful for her to see where I had got lots of my ideas from and why I had wanted to overhaul our class after spending time in this particular kindergarten.You can read about this previous visit in an earlier post on here. 

This time the plan was to spend time observing the outdoor class (5-6 year olds) and the 3-4 year olds, with each team spending at least 2 days with each group. The staff were just so welcoming and patient with our endless questions and the children just accepted these new grown ups who couldn't even speak Norwegian and made us part of their classes. 

The children all arrive into the kindergarten and go inside to their 'classroom', some arrive very early in the morning but the majority are all there by 9.15. Each class had approximately 14-15 children and 3 adults, 2 teachers and an assistant. At 9.15 both classes got dressed up for going outdoors, as I had previously discovered each class spends a lot of time outside not just the outdoor class. The kindergarten has a huge outdoor area, divided into different zones; a typical playground area with a slide, swings and sandpit, a steep bank and gravel area and a kitchen garden area. They also have use of lots of forest areas beside the kindergarten and above it. Some of the days the children got ready to go to a particular destination like the forest or woods, or out on the kindergarten boat (yes they have a boat!) whilst on other days they stayed in the playground but used the different areas throughout the day. They might have started out in the kitchen garden or swings etc. The outdoor class ate their lunch outside as much as possible and as they are the oldest children they didn't go inside for a rest time like the younger children did after lunch. 

In 2008 the thing that struck me the most was how calm the children were and they didn't have a lot of stuff to play with but I never heard any complaining of not knowing what to do etc. It was exactly the same 15 years later, these children are so well used to the space that they know exactly how to entertain themselves. Children are taught to make sure they can see an adult rather than the other way round and this gives them a lot more freedom to explore but equally puts the onus on them rather than on the adult. It was common to see groups of children heading off up the steep slope on their own and the adults were very relaxed and did not interfere with the play unless they felt they were needed to develop it or to help it progress. We tend to over teach in preschools and feel that unless we are in the middle of the play or leading an activity no learning is taking place. 

There were days that the staff had a particular aim and had groups of children with them to help e.g building planters, weeding or repairing structures but otherwise the children are left to play alone and develop their play as they want to without adult interference. By having 2 teachers in each class it also meant that 1 teacher could take a small group in to do more specific tasks e.g. precoding, whist the others were safely outdoors with the other teacher and assistant.

The atmosphere in the kindergarten is so relaxed and at least to all of us seemed very stress free. The children are definitely much more self sufficient than most of ours as they know each other so well having been together since they were very young (under 1 for most of them) and they know the environment too. The didn't keep coming up to an adult for reassurance like many of our children do, instead they wanted their peers approval. Staff are so skilled at observing that they don't need to be on top of the children either and what I noticed most of all was that no adult ever shouted for a child, they went to the child (unless the child was very far away from them). All staff are on the same page at all times and this consistency really helps the calm atmosphere too. If a child did hit another child or take something off them, the adult made a fuss of the 'wronged child' rather than admonishing the child who had been hitting or grabbing. When the upset child was soothed then they went to the other child to talk about what had happened, I really liked this approach and have been trying it in my class since I came back. (I say trying, as it does take a lot of patience!) 

Children are truly respected in this kindergarten and acknowledged as learners that will make mistakes, e.g they might not listen when asked to stay in one place, or to sit down when on the boat but they are allowed to be children and blind obedience is not expected nor are they punished for not doing as they were asked the first time. Our system too often will give a child one chance and if they don't comply they aren't given another chance but I liked how it was expected that a child would push boundaries as they are only children. 

I have come back from my latest visit to Eikefjord with lots of ideas of how I can be a better teacher and provide the best environment for my class. Being more patient is the biggest one for me! It also makes me very sad that our children only get 1 year of a play based preschool experience when I could see how much our 4-6 year olds could benefit from a more play based system. The emphasis in this kindergarten is on gross motor skills, independence and social & emotional skills, the academic skills will come later when they start school. 

Every staff member could say why they had this approach - they knew children need to have hands on learning experiences before you put pencils into their hands and ask them to sit at desks - they all knew of and referred to Froebel's Principles. 

It is one of the best places to be a child and they are truly living their best lives. 

Huge thanks to all the staff and pupils at Eikefjord Barnehage especially Dag & Katrine for letting us tag along in their classes and June Anne for sorting out the best accommodation ever!

Eikefjord revisited - Erasmus Plus.

The original wooden building has had a beautiful new build added to it. 

 *In December 2020 the U.K government withdrew from the EU funded Erasmus programme, despite assurances during and after the whole Brexit campaign and vote that this would not affect the U.K's participation. (After all many non EU countries already participate) It came as a complete shock to all involved and it proved to be yet another time when the Conservatives said one thing and then did another. The loss of this programme will have huge implications for staff, students and schools in the U.K and particularly those working with the youngest pupils as the new U.K Turing scheme does not allow for younger pupils to be involved as they would have to go abroad to visit schools and there are no staff development opportunities.*

The Full Steam Ahead team. 

Our school was very fortunate to be involved with Comenius and then Erasmus since 2004 and we had 3 projects running when Covid hit and were therefore able to add a further 12 months onto existing projects that should have finished in 2021 and 2022. It is through one of these KA2 projects 'Full Steam Ahead" that I was able to revisit Eikefjord Barnehage in January 2023. This project is all about outdoor learning and involves kindergartens and schools with kindergarten classes in Iceland, Belgium, Norway, Croatia and England. Each visit to a partner school allows the partners to bring an activity to do with some of the children in the host school and at the end of the project we will have a bank of ideas for fun outdoor STEAM activities. I was lucky to visit Iceland in December 2021 and Belgium in June 2022 and we hosted everyone in November 2022 at our school Our pupils in nursery and Foundation Stage (3-6 year olds) had a wonderful few days doing lots of fun activities with our different partner schools & they still talk about those few days months later. 

Inger & I first met in 2006.

Dag & I who first met in 2004. 

In January 2023 myself and Beverley who I work with every day in the nursery got to travel to Bergen and then onto Floro (the most western town in Norway) where we were based to spend 5 days with all our partners visiting Eikefjord Kindergarten or as it is known in Norwegian, a Barnehage.

This kindergarten was in a partnership with our school from 2004-2008 in our very first foray into European partnerships. During that project with preschools from Poland, Italy and Norway I learned so much and as it was very early in my teaching career it definitely shaped my practise. I first visited Norway in 2006 and then went back to spend a week doing a job shadow in the outdoor class at the kindergarten in 2008. You can read about that in this post:

http://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2011/01/stumbling-into-embracing-outdoor-play.html

This time I was excited for Beverley to see the kindergarten as, without her blind faith in me we couldn't have overhauled our setting after my visits there, I was really hoping when she was there herself she would see why I had wanted to start doing certain things back in our setting. It couldn't have been better as it had just snowed and we got to the see the kindergarten in a magical snowy state. 

Since my visit in 2008 the kindergarten has had a beautiful new building added on to the original old wooden building and it has been done so sympathetically & I was glad to see they didn't knock down the original building. The kindergarten now uses much more of the space around it and has incorporated a kitchen garden area - with a planting boxes, an outdoor kitchen, green houses etc. The whole outdoor area has a feeling of different destinations for children to interact within the wider outdoor space. As is typical in most settings I have visited across Scandinavia, they have a lovely peaceful staff room designated just for relaxation and separate work room so that there is no cross over while people eat their lunch or enjoy a cup of coffee. 

The relaxing staff room. 

Outdoor kitchen area. 

The work room. 

It was just a joy to be back in Eikefjord and I truly felt at home despite the language barrier. In my opinion it is one of the best places to work in and to be a young child attending. The whole place is so relaxed and chilled, nothing is hurried or rushed - in my opinion, it reflects all that I feel Froebel would have strived for in his original kindergarten. 

The activity day with the children - the best part of the project. 

What was also so special was that so many of the staff I met through the first project were still working there and it was wonderful to reconnect with them over the few days. The children were a delight to be around, confident and competent in their environment, climbing trees, sliding down steep banks, playing in shallow water in the forest and just very content and happy. In 2008 it was one of the things I noticed the most - how happy the children were playing outdoors with very little resources and not a lot of adults interference. Froebel saw autonomy as a key part of a young child and their experience in kindergarten and that is what I observed the most in 2008 and again in 2023 - children were confident to try things for themselves but the adults are skilled enough to know when to step in to assist or extend learning opportunities. 

At one point Beverley turned to me with the biggest smile on her face and said "I get it now" and I knew that she had seen exactly why I wanted to change so much when I came back in 2008 and I am so grateful that she trusted me enough to go along with it all. 

Beverley and I - without her trust in me I could never have overhauled our setting. 

I am returning over Easter with another colleague from home and 2 Croatian colleagues to work again in the kindergarten with the outdoor class and the 3-4 year olds and I can't wait to spend more time in this amazing kindergarten. My colleague is at the start of her teaching career and as I near the end of mine I can't wait to see what she brings back from our experience but I am also so angry that the U.K government has robbed younger staff and pupils of these wonderful experiences to grow and evolve practice through European partnerships. 

Can we 'fix' this - yes we can!

Early Years people are great at finding solutions, we generally don't wait around for others to tell us what to do, we go off and find ways to make things happen for ourselves. This became very apparent to me recently during the months before we returned to school after lockdown. I attended lots of on line seminars and workshops and realised that I enjoyed the ones attended by fellow early years people the best. I always came away with lots of ideas and felt very positive after listening to the solutions people around the globe were coming up with to help get back into school and to help the children settle in as easily as possible. 

I stored away many of the ideas as I listened or read about them - like the idea of having a bubble machine to help distract children as they had to leave their parents after a longer than usual time at home. 

When we were told that in the new norm of school reopening parents couldn't be in the building, we had already decided to have settling in time outside so parents could stay initially long before this advice was given by our Education restart committee. 

This pandemic has thrown us all into disarray and caused lots of things that we normally do to be taken away or changed. At another webinar run by Playboard NI the speaker talked about how we, the adults would struggle with how the new school day looked but that the children would accept whatever we presented as normal. This is especially true for me as a nursery teacher, the children have never been to my class before (bar one) so whatever I present as a normal day, is what they accept. 

When we went getting ready to start back, it became clear that our hallway wasn't going to be used like it always had - the children used it to hang up their coats, store spare clothing and each child had a drawer for paintings, drawings, notes home etc. in a unit. Parents would come right into the hallway and spend time chatting to each other. We also used it as space for small group activities like Play to Learn More sessions. But now it was going to be a huge cloakroom that was a totally underused space. The 2 of us who work together looked at it with fresh eyes and wondered if we could use it as space for eating snack? Previously our snack was outside and the children could come and go freely but now we were going to have to sit with them to hand out food, so we decided to put a table out into the hallway and use it for snack. At settling in time the children were in smaller groups of 15 & 12 and just stayed for 2 hours, so we took them inside for snack in groups of 5 or 6. It was a lovely time to chat to the children and help them learn the names etc. Once we had used the space for snack we began to think if we could use it for dinner too, obviously we couldn't get all 27 eating at the same time but we thought we might get 13-14 at a time if we could get suitable seating. I began to look at new tables and benches that would allow us to have a dedicated dining space and luckily thought a combination of funding we were able to buy 2 large tables and a smaller one from the outdoor range at Hope Education. 

In previous years we had made coloured glass lanterns with the children to put candles into and had some left over that I used in the story room to create a more relaxed atmosphere. We brought them out into the hallway and got fairy lights and LED tea lights instead of candles to soften the light so we don't need the overhead fluorescent lights on. 

This immediately seemed to make the atmosphere much calmer and the children were definitely quieter than when the 'big lights' were on. We also have a TV screen that we use to show photos taken that month and the children enjoy looking at these too whilst eating. 

Today we had our first dinners in the new space and it was just wonderful, with only half of the class at a time, it was very quiet and the adult has time to talk to the children. They sat chatting to each other across the tables more easily than before and with benches they were less inclined to be pushing chairs in and out. 

I have been fortunate to visit settings around the globe and was always very envious of their dining spaces, where the adults and children sat together chatting in a very relaxed manner. This was exactly what I wanted to recreate and today as I sat watching the children eating their dinner was the first time I felt we had managed to recreate a little of the lovely relaxed atmosphere I have seen in many Scandinavian settings. 

So, although the world seems like a crazy and quite scary place right now, we have managed to find something good to come out of all this and hopefully the children will enjoy this lovely calm space for many years to come. 

A first visit to Bear Woods for the Class of 2020

The 27 children have all settled into nursery over the past few weeks. This week has been their first in the big class after spending almost 4 weeks in smaller groups of 15 and 12 for just 2 hours a day. This week and next they will be staying for 3 hours before starting full time from the 12th October (all going well!)

We are normally outside every morning for at least an hour and have 2 outdoor days when we stay out all day, just coming in for story and dinner. This year, due to Covid-19 we are staying outside 3 days and only coming in for snack and for an hour 2 days. 

Today all the children got on their rain gear and went for a visit to Bear Woods. We have now been using this wooded space within school grounds since 2014 and one of our current P7 children gave it the name Bear Woods. It is now truly a proper woods and the children have the opportunity to hide among the trees and climb on a big log we have up there and climb up the slope using a rope and roll down the hill. They enjoy looking at their older brothers and sisters over the fence in the main school playground. We have a shed up there where we can keep chalk and tarps etc. so the children had a lot of fun drawing on the shed. There are also mirrored numbers hidden amongst the trees. 

There are yellow lines at the bottom and top of the hill and these show the children where to stop and wait for an adult. The children were brilliant at listening to all the new instructions and stopping before walking up the hill to find the gate into Bear Woods. We had snack up there and the the children were free to explore the area. 

After an hour we all walked back down to the yellow line and stopped before walking back into nursery. 

You can read some more about Bear Woods in this post.

https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2014/09/preparing-for-visit-to-bear-woods.html

Iceland: Leikur ad læra - Play To Learn More

I love how small the world has become since social media came along, it is now so much easier to connect with people around the world and find like-minded individuals to connect with to share ideas etc. I have 'met' so many preschool teachers around the world on Facebook and Twitter and have enjoying learning from them as we discuss our practice and curriculums. 

However, nothing beats meeting up in person with someone and finding a true connection in real life. In 2013 I got the opportunity through Fafu (an Icelandic company) to go to Iceland as part of #PlayIceland with 33 other educators from around the UK and US. You can read about this visit in these two posts: https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/10/settings-day-1-playiceland.html

https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2013/10/settings-day-2-playiceland.html

During this visit on Day 2 we visited an incredible newly built school and one of their staff, Kristín, took the time to show us around the school, give us a taster session of a new way she was trying out teaching in the school. Then at the sharing event where we gave presentations about our settings, we heard from Kristín about her new venture Leikur að læra  she was just about to launch to have young children learning core skills through movement. We became friends on Facebook and stayed in touch. 

My colleagues & me in Iceland in February 2019

Roll on 2018 and our school secured funding through Erasmus Plus KA1 for staff to attend training and courses around Europe and Kristín's course were the first I thought of. In 2019 8 of our staff both teaching and non teaching travelled to Spain and Iceland to attend one of her week long courses Smart Teachers Play More. These courses are facilitated by Kristín and Sarah (who has a business called Smart English in Spain)

This has been one of the best courses I have ever attended and I recommend this to any one working in a school. You can read about the course in this post: https://nosuchthingasbadweather.blogspot.com/2019/07/erasmusplus-key-action-1.html

Through this course another colleague, Jill, also did the course and began to offer Play to Learn More sessions locally and our school signed up all the classes for 4 weeks of activities with Jill. as both of us in the nursery are now trained we then ran sessions with our class over 6 weeks from Easter until June. 

These sessions were the most fun I think we have all had whilst learning and let's face it as a nursery teacher every day is filed with fun! But more importantly the P1 teacher has noticed that the children are much more secure in their core skills this year after lots of practice during our PTLM sessions. 

Some of our PTLM activities. 

Whilst in Iceland in February for the course, Kristín mentioned that she was running a conference in October on Outdoor Learning and wondered if I would like to come along to do a workshop. I jumped at the chance, of course. 

In May Kristín came to Belfast to run a taster session for PTLM for local teachers and stayed with me and visited my class for a morning. 

Myself, Kristín & Jill in May 2019

So fast forward to October 2019 and I found myself on a flight to Iceland via Finland (where I had just been on an Erasmus Plus mobility) and attending a conference for over 450 teachers from Iceland who spent the whole day doing workshops to help them develop outdoor play and core learning skills for young children. The conference was held in an agricultural college and many of the events like lunch, coffee took place in an old green house with fish pond and exotic plants. The workshops were mostly outdoors but also some were inside. 

My workshop was titled 'Outdoor Learning - it doesn't have to cost a lot' and I had to run it 4 times over the day with between 20 and 40 participants at a time. It took place outside in the most amazing grounds of the college and thankfully it was dry but very windy. The teachers were so receptive and engaged and willing share ideas from their practice too. It was wonderful to have this opportunity to talk with international colleagues and compare similar issues and discuss what was different about our settings and practice. 

This is my 4th visit to Iceland and each time I visit I fall in love with it and it's people a little more. They are some of the warmest people I have every met and even more hospitable than the Irish. They have a true connection to nature and a respect for their environment that is lacking in a lot of other places. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with friends old and new and learn from each other. It also helped me firm up ideas for further workshops and  most importantly I learned that I had to change my pronunciation of the words eight and shape to be understood!

A huge thanks to Unnur & Kristín (and her whole family) for picking me up, putting me up and drinking coffee with me over the few days I got to stay in Iceland.