Let Me Be Five

Implementing a Play-Based Curriculum in Year 1 and Beyond

Sue Quirk, Victoria Pettett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000326468
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Elementary Education

This book offers a step-by-step guide to implementing a play-based curriculum in Year 1 while fully achieving the National Curriculum objectives. The authors explore the key barriers and common pitfalls that often arise around this crucial transition, and show teachers how to successfully lead children from the Reception stage through Year 1 and to the subject-based teaching beyond. Providing practical advice and guidance for busy teachers, the authors clearly and concisely illustrate their methods with theory, personal stories and colourful photographs from transitional stories they have been a part of. Let Me Be Five shows teachers how to plan the curriculum in a way that builds on children's experiences in the Early Years Foundation Stage and gives them meaningful contexts for learning. Including real-life case studies and views from parents and teachers, this book will give you the knowledge and confidence to plan a play-based curriculum, based on children's interests and developmental needs that will enable every learner to thrive.

1	How it all began

The Swale Academies Trust, based in Kent, came into being in September 2010 as one of the first Academy Converter Schools centred around Westlands Secondary School in Sittingbourne. Westlands Primary School, one of the main feeder primary schools for Westlands Secondary School, was the first primary school to join the Trust, followed soon after by Regis Manor Primary School in Milton Regis, just outside Sittingbourne.

For a number of years, Westlands Primary School had struggled with low academic standards and high staff turnover. On more than one occasion, the school had failed to meet the government floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress by the end of Key Stage 2 and soon after joining the Trust, the school was judged by Ofsted to have Serious Weaknesses.

Fortunately, by this time the Trust had put into place a number of measures to tackle the legacy of underachievement, including the appointment of a primary lead who became executive headteacher and who had a wealth of experience in working with schools in difficulties. He had an excellent track record of working with existing teams of teachers and support staff, recognising individual strengths and building strong teams who understood how young children learn. Crucially, he was adamant that conditions for learning needed to be right for the very youngest children.

In an interview, he commented:

Many failing schools are those in challenging circumstances with a high proportion of disadvantaged children. With the youngest children we have one opportunity to get it right in developing positive attitudes to future learning – it’s much harder to turn it round later.

A play-based curriculum based on children’s interests will appeal to a diverse set of needs. It has to start with planning experiences that will promote curiosity, active learning, co-operation and engagement and so foster a love of learning – if these are not in place by the time a child has finished the Early Years Foundation Stage, there will be huge gaps which are difficult to fill later. Good Early Years provision gives a level playing field where all children can access learning experiences which appeal to them.

However, high-quality Early Years provision needs investment – not just of excellent resources, indoors and outside, but also people. Poor subject knowledge at any stage is a barrier to children thriving. It’s important to put strong teachers and teaching assistants in Reception and to continue to provide high-quality continuing professional development for all adults, so all early years practitioners have a deep understanding of pedagogy and how children grow and develop.

(Mike Wilson, interview, 2020)

Getting it right for the youngest children

As the Trust grew and took on more schools, almost all facing significant challenges and difficulties (there are currently ten primary schools in the Trust, in Kent, south-east London and East Sussex) a key priority was to invest time, staff professional development and resources into the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Over the next two or three years, capacity at senior leadership level within the Trust was enhanced. A Primary Improvement team was formed consisting of the primary lead (by now the Director of Primaries) and two advisory headteachers, one of whom is one of the authors of this book. They were responsible for ensuring that all the primary schools in the Trust were successful, effective schools with high standards of achievement where all children would benefit from a high-quality education where they would be seen as special, unique and exceptionally well cared for.

This book is by no means a plug for academies. We recognise many local authorities have the highest standards in holding schools to account and supporting and challenging them. One of the authors has recently worked as a school improvement adviser in a high-performing inner London local authority, where the vast majority of primary schools have opted to remain within local authority control. However, regardless of the type of school, it is self-evident that effective leadership which promotes capacity building, collaboration and continuing professional development (CPD) is the key to ensuring children thrive and make the progress of which they are capable. The Swale Academies Trust’s approach to working with their schools is set out on its website:

Where we differ from many Trusts is that we seek to help support individual schools to grow and develop their own good practice. A key feature of our work is the mentoring and development of leadership teams to enable them to focus and act upon things effectively and at the right time. We develop existing teams of teachers and support staff through high-quality professional development. It is noticeable that in all of the schools we have developed, the majority of the staff who were present when the school fell into crisis are still there at the point when the school emerges from its difficulties. This only occurs when the organisation values the individual and recognises that competence is often relative to the level of high-quality professional development received and acted upon.

(Swale Academies Trust website, 2019)

The Early Years lead at Westlands Primary School at the time (now Head of School, Early Years Lead across the Trust and the other co-author of this book) recognised that the school’s approach to the learning and development of children in the EYFS was not meeting the needs of the children in her care. She knew that the formal subject-based methodology, which historically had been the school’s preferred approach, was inappropriate. She already had a clear understanding of effective Early Years’ pedagogy – her degree was in early childhood studies – but the school, in line with many others at that time, implemented a more formal approach to the EYFS curriculum.

The Director of Primaries for the Trust arranged for her to spend two days at a school in another local authority where he had previously been the headteacher, which had an outstanding EYFS ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsement Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: How it all began
• Chapter 2: Rationale for change
• Chapter 3: Enabling environments
• Chapter 4: Putting ideas into practice
• Chapter 5: Barriers to implementation
• Chapter 6: Transitions
• Chapter 7: Moving forward – Year 1 and beyond
• Afterword
• Index