Keynote to Havering Early Years Conference 2019 about some of the ways to support children considered to be disadvantaged in the early years

1. Dr Julian Grenier
grenier@outlook.com
@juliangrenier
Helping children to
succeed against the
odds

2. What I’ll
be
speaking
about
Some of the challenges
Listening to children and having
conversations with them
Early reading and phonics
Thinking about self-regulation,
resilience and working with parents

3. What I’ll
be
speaking
about
Some of the
challenges

5. • Despite some positive progress in
closing attainment gaps, we know that
they start early, and they grow wider
• ‘At current trends, we estimate that it
would take around 50 years for the
disadvantage gap to close completely
by the time pupils take their GCSEs’
• https://epi.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2017/08/Closing-the-
Gap_EPI-.pdf

6. Early Years
Foundation
Stage
Profile
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
Percentagegap
Year
Gap between children eligible for free school meals
and all others at the end of the EYFS

7. Reading difficulties
• ‘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).’
• Cited in Machin et al 2016,
http://personal.lse.ac.uk/machin/pdf/sm
%20sm%20mv%20april%202016.pdf

8. A narrow focus on
outcomes
• ‘International evidence indicates that a
focus on only a few measurable outcomes
has had some negative consequences for
curriculum design. As a result, pupils from
disadvantaged backgrounds may be
discouraged from taking academic
subjects.’

9. A narrow focus on outcomes
• ‘A report for the Sutton Trust, for example,
finds that pupil premium (PP) pupils are less
likely to take English Baccalaureate (EBacc)
subjects compared with non-PP pupils with
similar prior attainment (Allen & Thompson,
2016).’
• Ofsted, Education inspection framework:
overview of research (2019)

10. Ticking things off
• ‘Many of the teachers devised tasks
simply to tick off elements of the early
learning goals so that they could provide
evidence of children’s achievement. By
default, these tasks – and ticking them
off – became the Reception curriculum,
with a significant loss of focus on
learning, step by step.’
• Ofsted, Bold Beginnings, 2017

11. Breaking that down
• Tasks devised just to tick off the Early Learning
Goals and bands in Development Matters?
• A focus on collecting evidence?
• A loss of learning step by step?
• Do you recognise your school or setting here?
• If you don’t, what do you do that’s different?

12. Learning about
number
• Do we focus too much on ‘moving children on’
instead of helping children to become fluent?
• How might this affect children with less
experience/knowledge of early maths?
• ‘First, provide opportunities for children to
practice recognizing the total number of objects
in small collections (one to three items) and
labeling them with a number word without
needing to count them.’
• Teaching Math to Young Children

13. What I’ll
be
speaking
about
Listening to
children and
having
conversations
with them

14. It’s not just words
EXPERIENCES CONVERSATIONS

15. 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/cont
ent/142/4/e20174276

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

17. https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/06/01/615188051/lets-stop-talking-about-the-
30-million-word-gap?t=1575013595138

18. What I’ll
be
speaking
about
Early
reading and
phonics

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

20. Some of the key points

21. Research and
evidence
• The best evidence we
have 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)

22. What
Ofsted are
saying
• Note that Gill Jones says ‘we do not
expect to see phonics in ‘continuous
provision’ activities. This is a time to
develop children’s talk, play and wider
curriculum experiences. A ‘language-
rich’ environment is just about talking
with children’.
• Ofsted also say: ‘we do not expect to
see phonic lessons in pre-reception
settings’.

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

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

26. What I’ll
be
speaking
about
Thinking
about self-
regulation,
resilience
and working
with parents

27. 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

28. 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.

29. ‘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…

30. … 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’.

31. Settling in
and the
key
person
approach
Resilience
David et al. (2003, p.20) describe resilience as the
extent to which ‘some children are able to
overcome the effects of negative events or
experiences’. In their review of the literature
David et al. concluded that a key factor enabling
children to overcome adversity and challenging
life situations was the presence of at least one
‘very nurturing relationship’ (2003 p.23).
Security of attachment has been linked to the
child’s developing, and ultimate, sense of self
(worth) and in particular to the important
concept of resilience.

32. Resilience
• Talking about emotions can
help children learn to
manage their feelings and
develop their social
behaviour
• Approaches include:
• Using emotion icons to
help children to match how
they are feeling inside,
with a picture and then a
word (happy, sad, angry)
• Helping children to
elaborate: ‘are you feeling
sad because you wanted
that?’ – ‘do you feel angry
because she pushed you?’

33. Sensitive interaction between a child and their caregivers is particularly crucial for
children who are high in negative emotionality.
When practitioners respond in harsh on controlling ways, that doesn’t help
children to develop pro-social behaviour. It increases the risk of anti-social and
aggressive behaviour.
This risk is especially high for boys in disadvantaged circumstances.
We need to respond consistently and sympathetically to children high in negative
emotionality, so that they learn pro-social behaviour. We need to avoid using
harsh or over-directing strategies.

34. Balancing responsiveness
and routines
Emotional warmth is especially powerful when it is genuinely
responsive to the child’s own emotions.
Routine, familiarity and the presence of caring adults are
vital for children in nursery settings
Laible and Thompson (2007) - the importance of a warm and
mutually responsive relationship with adults and the
importance of structure for young children ‘who are seeking
predictability and control to everyday experience’ (p.194).

35. Managing this
difficult work
‘All the participants thought the WD groups had had benefits in their
work with children and families. Perceptions of kinds of benefits
varied but included practitioners being less judgemental, more
understanding, better able to empathise, better sharing of
information within the team, and thinking more deeply and more
objectively about the children.’
Elfer et al, 2018.

36. 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.

37. • 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

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

39. Find out more
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40. 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