Win win with nature.

We can all rearrange nature without feeling silly!

Many children simply don't have the confidence, time or ability to paint at an easel. 

Laying out some baskets with natural objects in will entice children to come and have a go.  Before you know it, patterns are being created, works of art are being attempted, confidence is growing and the child is feeling a measure of success and accomplishment.  Lots of boxes ticked!

Playing under the sky is completely underrated and is in danger of becoming a thing of the past.

Kudos for Forest schools is rightly growing as we realise we have become too safe, too 'indoorsy' and too worried about playing outdoors. The reasons I belive for this sad regressive development I will look  into in a later blog, for now let's focus on the benefits of outdoors

What we expect outdoors...

discovery

imaginary play

exploration

natural hapenings
wildlife sightings

science

big spaces
big skies

climbing
walking

crouching
rolling

stretching

building

breathing fresh air
smelling
listening
heightened senses
confidence boosting
FREEDOM

Outdoors affords time, removes barriers and allows the lungs to fill completely. I don't know about you but my best childhood memories were of being outdoors.

Mess or Masterpiece?

"They're not messing up my classroom." 

I think we have all had that groaning on the inside when your tidied, ordered, well thought out room becomes like a Pandora’s box of paint, glue, feathers, and disgruntled children!

Just go outside - simples.

Getting the painting kit outside takes down barriers, especially those brought about by ‘not wanting to make a mess’.  It gives little people freedom to express their creativity in a BIG way as well as giving them plenty of space.

Children make messes, that's their job but in real terms they are actually making masterpieces.  This is how real high order learning happens.  What do you learn from staying in the lines or painting by numbers? Fine motor control is essential of course but keep that for another lesson, let's do messy masterpieces.

When little folk are painting or sculpting with chalk, mud, paint or water etc. their senses and creativity are heightened, watch their faces as their tongue sticks out the side of their mouths demonstrating absolute concentration! You've all seen it.

Just get a load of paint brushes, combs, sticks, feathers or straw and keep those little fingers moving and those creative juices flowing.  Whatever the end result, it will be their own creation, something they can be proud of and  the bonus to you is that your class will not look like the paint goblin had an all-night party in it!

You know it makes sense, oh and if it's raining try some puddle painting with chalks or powder paint!

Not all children can paint, but they are still artists

Every child an Artist.

Not all children can draw or paint but none should be denied the opportunity to shine as an artist.

Attention spans may be short so have lots of stuff to hand.

Simply gather some natural materials and let the children have a burst of creativity - who knows what they will make...

Don't forget to take a photo for a keep sake.

Sir Ken Robinson, so far off the mark Tom 

Food for thought...

In 1963  Lady Bridget Plowden was given the task of  preparing a report for the Secretary of State for Education and Science, with a lean towards  'considering primary education in all its aspects and the transition to secondary education.'

The team undertook their studies in areas where 'best practice was taking place'. 

Key educational contexts of the time included:

• Selection for secondary education (the 'eleven-plus') was being abolished, freeing primary schools from the constraints imposed by the need to 'get good results'.
• Streaming (sorting children into classes on the basis of ability or overall intelligence) was being abandoned.
• Teacher-led curriculum innovation was being actively encouraged.
• Sybil Marshall was writing about the creativity of primary pupils in 'An Experiment in Education'
• Comprehensive schools and middle schools were being established

Findings

• On curriculum delivery: 

The essence of the whole report was clear: 'At the heart of the educational process lies the child.'  The report emphasises the need to see 'children as individuals'.

• On testing:  

'Testing should not be treated as infallible predictors. Judgements which determine careers should be deferred as long as possible.'

• On teaching and curriculum:  

'Applauded the curriculum freedom which teachers had had in increasing measure since the ending of the payment by results system in 1898 and the Elementary Code in 1926.'

• On success for children: 

'One of the main educational tasks of the primary school is to build on and strengthen children's intrinsic interest in learning and lead them to learn for themselves rather than from fear of disapproval or desire for praise.'

Conclusion of findings: 

The report's recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of play in children's learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.' (familiar)

Hurray for Lady Plowden. 

However the cornered dark forces and the nay sayers reared up...

'Notions of core, common and national curriculum all seemed to have at their root the idea that children were to be fitted for the service of the state or at least to fill their allotted roles in society. ' 

Very ashamedly for all to with education, Plowden's view that 'At the heart of the educational process lies the child' was abandoned in favour of 'The school curriculum is at the heart of education' (DES 1981)

And so her findings were super-seeded but not forgotten.  In 1985 The Swan report brought us new hope as it echoed Lady Plowden's findings.

'The school curriculum must allow for differences ... it must contribute to children's present well-being whatever the age and stage of growth and development they have reached ... The development and use of local opportunities, the special skills of teachers and the enthusiasm of children should be used to enhance the quality of work beyond what might come from a simple uniformity of practice. (DES 1980b) 

'Plowden is a voice from the past but one which urgently needs hearing again today. When politicians realise that what is measurable is not all that is valuable, when teachers begin to notice that children learn nothing by being tested, when parents are sick of their young children suffering from exam-induced stress, when the public begins to realise that the results of national tests can always be manipulated to achieve politicians' targets, and when decent people decide to stand up against the name-and-shame culture of failure, then someone, somewhere, is going to remember that 'at the heart of the educational process lies the child.'

In my humble opinion, Sir Ken Robinson simply echoes or resonates  that which lies at the heart of The Plowden Report.  Had the Plowden Report been fully embraced and implicated we could have prevented education from becoming little more than a political football match.  Our children deserve better.

Quotes taken from: http://www.infed.org/schooling/plowden_report.htm

Teachers Leave our Kids Alone

'Hey teacher leave those kids alone' - just a rebellious song from my youth or a metaphor?

'All in all we're just another brick in the wall'.  Who on Earth wants to be a brick,  who wants to be a part of a wall?

Are children in today’s schools simply becoming the bricks and mortar of a crumbling outdated defocused over bombarded system? Are children being processed through a mincer which grinds the creativity and imagination out of their awesome brains?  Have we forgotten what teaching is about, as in the child?

I believe we can do better than grinding and mincing...

We need to rescue our educationalists out of their governmental straight jackets and begin to create and pursue a Plan B.

I know my previous ramblings are filled with open disdain and angry mutterings and I want this one to be more positive and even solution focused. 

So what is Plan B? 

Plan B education systems are being spoken about all over the globe and we need the powers that be to listen to the experts and climb onboard.  There are willing trail blazers out there like Sir Ken Robinson whose voice resonates through education corridors and organisations with haunting truths, yet still the suits refuse to hear us.

We cry out to those suits i.e. the DfE and HMI from our heads, hearts and deep recesses of what we call qualifications and expertise.  Our cries seek to be fully involved in redeveloping an education system which provokes curiosity and creativity and doesn't just teach to a test.

I believe teachers join the profession and work really hard at it, understanding they will be entrusted to engage and educate our children by using their own and the children's individuality and imagination. It's not happening though, too may tick boxes and highlighter pens and too much emphasis on targets and data.  Our children deserve more than this?

Many of our children are being penalised for having an imagination or even just for being individual, they are being labeled with all sorts of ambiguous conditions which mostly stem from misunderstanding the uniqueness of each child and the various developmental stages of childhood.  Too many classrooms have become places where historical ideologies and information processes are fed to our children then simply regurgitated without any real life context or application.

We can do better than this and we should...

Bring forward the schools where children run through the gates to see where the wonder of the day will take them.  Bring forward the schools brave enough and free enough to let teacher and learner grow together.  Bring forward schools that are not deemed failing because they didn’t hit a draconian benchmark.  Bring forward the educators whose own creativity has long been subdued.  Bring back the ‘magic’ to education.

That’s my Plan B

There is hope!

As the believer said, "My eyes have seen."

In the past weeks and months I have have been searching to see if there are ways to break uniformity, break away from the fear based regimes our governments are forcing into schools and I am delighted to say, 'I have seen'.

I have recently had the pleasure of being present during an Ofsted visit to a place where the children really do come first.  A child centred place which goes beyond ticking boxes. A place where the children are not being forced to sit down with a pen in their hand, instead they are outdoors using sticks to draw in the sand.  They are learning through nature and not through lesson plans and worksheets. They are interacting with real life contexts thus developing life skills as well as academia. 

The staff at this place know the children so well they don't need coloured highlighters to move the children on. 
They don't need lesson plans with 12 different differentiation levels, they just know their stuff and know the children.

The inspector grading the place as outstanding (that magic word!) in all areas commented that this way of learning has left them with questions.

My question is this; when will our elected government convey respect, support and autonomy to our teaching profession?

My eyes have seen that with a combination of insightful leadership, team spirit, honesty and an ethos embedded in securing the best possible outcomes for all children, it can be done.