Keynote by Julian Grenier - early years teaching, communication, reading, phonics, assessment and curriculum design

1. Dr Julian Grenier
grenier@outlook.com
@juliangrenier
The early years
curriculum
meeting children’s
today, and preparing
them for tomorrow

2. Today’s
keynote
Conversation: why it’s vital to children’s
early learning and development
Phonics and early reading
Getting assessment right whilst reducing
workload
Learning from new evidence: self-
regulation and working with parents
Planning and sequencing the curriculum:
what does ‘doing more and remembering
more’ mean in the early years?

3. Today’s
keynote
Conversation: why it’s vital to children’s
early learning and development
Phonics and early reading
Getting assessment right whilst reducing
workload
Learning from new evidence: self-
regulation and working with parents
Planning and sequencing the curriculum:
what does ‘doing more and remembering
more’ mean in the early years?

4. It’s not just words
EXPERIENCES CONVERSATIONS

5. [video from Siren Films not available in
online version]

6. It’s not
just
words
• The number of ‘conversational turns’
parents have with children aged 18-24
months is a stronger predictor of
verbal comprehension and vocabulary
10 years later than the total number of
words spoken, even after controlling
for socioeconomic status.
• http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/c
ontent/142/4/e20174276

7. Today’s
keynote
Conversation: why it’s vital to children’s
early learning and development
Phonics and early reading
Getting assessment right whilst reducing
workload
Learning from new evidence: self-
regulation and working with parents
Planning and sequencing the curriculum:
what does ‘doing more and remembering
more’ mean in the early years?

8. https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/2019/11/04/early-reading-and-the-
education-inspection-framework/

9. Some of the key points

10. The challenge
• ‘about 15% of the adult population in OECD
countries have not mastered the basics, being
unable, for example, to fully understand
instructions on a bottle of aspirin. These
literacy problems are especially serious in
England where younger adults perform no
better than older ones (Kuczera et al., 2016).’
• http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1425.
pdf

11. Research
and
evidence:
best bets
• The best evidence points to a well-
implemented synthetic phonics
programme having the best outcomes
for children who might otherwise
struggle to learn to read (Machin et al,
2016)
• But we shouldn’t equate phonics with
reading

12. https://www.tes.com/news/what-teachers-need-know-about-shared-reading

13. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/preparing-for-
literacy/

14. Today’s
keynote
Conversation: why it’s vital to children’s
early learning and development
Phonics and early reading
Getting assessment right whilst reducing
workload
Learning from new evidence: self-
regulation and working with parents
Planning and sequencing the curriculum:
what does ‘doing more and remembering
more’ mean in the early years?

15. Available for play and conversation?

16. Tracking
• The main use of assessment is to help us plan the resources,
routines and teaching so that children make progress.
• Confidence, fluency and secure understanding matter
• Much of our current assessment practice in the early years is
ineffective and incredibly time-consuming

17. Today’s
keynote
Conversation: why it’s vital to children’s
early learning and development
Phonics and early reading
Getting assessment right whilst reducing
workload
Learning from new evidence: self-
regulation and working with parents
Planning and sequencing the curriculum:
what does ‘doing more and remembering
more’ mean in the early years?

18. Play is
important
“There is good evidence
that being involved in
imaginative play either
with an adult, or with
other children, is
advantageous in terms
of young children’s
language development.”
Professor David
Whitebread, University
of Cambridge

19. Pretend play
• Pretend play helps children to develop their understanding of
their own thinking, the understanding of others, and to co-
operate (and control their impulses)
• David Whitebread: self-regulation, in some ways, is the
strongest predictor of success. If you can regulate your
attention at four, you are more likely to do well in school and
go onto university.

20. ‘Interventions that include an explicit focus on
executive function skills do not need to be
implemented separately from those focused on
instruction in early literacy and math abilities…

21. … Indeed, the complex interactions that occur among
executive functioning, social competence, and
academic skills in preschool classrooms underscore the
likely value of blending interventions designed to
strengthen working memory, inhibition, and attention
control with curricula focused on early literacy and
math skills’.
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/guide/a-guide-to-
executive-function/

22. Working with
parents
• Girls get more support for
learning at home than boys
• Typically, but not always, children
from more affluent homes have a
better HLE
• Most schools say that they do not
have an explicit plan for how they
work with parents
• Fewer than 10% of teachers have
undertaken CPD on parental
engagement.
https://educationendowmentfoundat
ion.org.uk/tools/guidance-
reports/working-with-parents-to-
support-childrens-learning/

23. Today’s
keynote
Conversation: why it’s vital to children’s
early learning and development
Phonics and early reading
Getting assessment right whilst reducing
workload
Learning from new evidence: self-
regulation and working with parents
Planning and sequencing the curriculum:
what does ‘doing more and remembering
more’ mean in the early years?

24. Knowing more and
remembering more
• Being able to take part in longer
conversations
• Using new vocabulary e.g. the
names of birds, flowers or
minibeasts seen and talked about
during a Forest School session

25. Knowing
more and
remembering
more
• Knowing the language to use when talking about shapes and
their properties e.g. corner or triangle
• Knowing the words and actions of a finger rhyme; knowing
the words of a song; knowing when a piece of music will get
louder, or quieter and responding to that when playing along
with it; knowing the steps of a dance routine (pop music) or a
traditional dance (e.g. country dancing)

26. Knowledge is ‘sticky’
Once you know some things, it’s easier to know more

27. Ordering and
sequencing
• Strong foundations: does it stand together?
• Why this? Why now?

28. • How high-quality interactions extend children’s development
• The relevance of self-regulation to children’s educational success
• The links between early language development and later literacy
• Mathematical and scientific concept development in the early years
• Ways to use observation, assessment of practice and planning to improve quality
• The importance of early home learning and connections across ECEC settings and the home
learning environment
• The relevance of leadership for learning for children’s development and ways to improve it
• https://www.earlychildhoodworkforce.org/sites/default/files/resources/Fostering%20Effectiv
e%20Early%20Learning%20%28FEEL%29%20Study.pdf

29. ‘Best bets’ are not ‘final words’
Link to PowerPoint by Dylan William

30. ‘The child must have the opportunity to be as well as become.’
Philip Gammage (2003)

31. Find out more
What happened to curriculum in the
early years?
Development Matters: A good start?
Newham’s Early Years Conference
with Gill Jones HMI, Wendy Ratcliff HMI
and Jan Dubiel: tickets available on 9th
and 10th January 2020 in Stratford East
London
Film clip from Siren Films: video-based
training