The first thing we did this year, on 2 January in fact, was to kick off a long-overdue conversation about curriculum, and what it means to us at N Family Club. We had spent 2019 refining our pedagogical approach, and after discussions about how to support our children’s learning and development, we realised that we needed to delve deeper into the curriculum.
The new Ofsted Education Inspection Framework felt like a little taste of freedom. We could finally devote the time spent on meticulously evidencing our impact on children’s learning to rethinking the ‘what’. What did we want our children to learn?
AIMS
At the time, we were using assessments of children’s individual attainment and progress against the Development Matters guidance, alongside their interests, to inform our curriculum planning.
We realised in some cases we were focusing on aspects of development which, we felt sure, many of our children would reach with or without our intervention.
We also felt that the focus on the areas of learning and development was in some instances more narrow than we wanted it to be. There was also the question of what the DfE might change and a desire too to really support newly qualified team members to understand what a curriculum was. We quickly came to the realisation that we wanted to create a curriculum that:
- had the EYFS as its basis but was not our ‘everything’
- put us in charge, was true to our own mission and was not defined by the DfE or Ofsted
- was ambitious for every child and ensured that every child reached their full potential
- was more fluid and responsive to children’s varying needs and interests
- had our thinking woven into it
- acknowledged the importance of our professional judgement
- better prepared the child for life in the ever-changing world in which they are growing up.
We also decided to provide more support to our less experienced team members in order to develop their understanding of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment and to give more opportunities and recognition to experienced team members.
CONTENT AND STRUCTURE
Clear about our overall aims, we then set about gathering ideas, researching and talking about the content of the curriculum and how to create a structure to contain those ideas. We ensured we captured everything from the EYFS and then built on anything that we felt was missing.
One of our room managers outlined how she envisaged the ‘environmentalism curriculum’ coming to life. Hot on her heels, one of our deputy managers with a particular interest in emotional literacy and mindfulness contributed her ideas, then in came the views of one of our educators on her specialism, atelier art.
We looked at our children and the world they are growing up in and thought about the kinds of skills, knowledge and understanding that they are going to need to thrive. It would be hard for anyone to look at children now and not think they are going to need a curriculum that centres on emotional literacy and learning how to self-regulate.
We couldn’t imagine ignoring the climate crisis or the crisis in equality across the globe. In a world where ‘fake news’ abounds, we felt compelled to teach our children to interrogate the concept of knowledge and to support them to see themselves as active researchers.
We also explored the sequencing of the curriculum. We wanted each element of the curriculum to build on what had gone before.
Four pillars of learning
The result is a curriculum that is underpinned by all areas of learning within the EYFS and based on four pillars:
- Holistic Health, which develops mind, body and a rich understanding of self and others
- Self-expression, which promotes the freedom and confidence to be creative through words, movement, art, music and books
- Global Responsibility, which builds a deep connection to the surrounding world and an appreciation for culture, community, diversity and sustainability
- Inventive Ideas, which delights in the mathematical and scientific structures that support everyday life, and the mysteries yet to be solved (see box).
Key questions
Within each pillar is a series of questions that provides a framework for the learning. These we seek to answer in an age-appropriate way with the children right from their earliest days with us as a baby through to when they leave for school. Examples of the questions are:
- ‘How can I help?’, which is to sequence a child’s developing understanding of how they can contribute to society.
- ‘Who else lives in the world?’, which supports children to build an understanding of other people in the nursery, local, national and global community.
- ‘What can our bodies do?’, which is to sequence children’s developing physical skills.
- ‘What happens when?’, which builds on children’s natural curiosities and develops scientific skills such as prediction.
As we revisit the questions, we are able to extend children’s previous knowledge and revisit concepts with increasing depth and challenge through an ever-increasing range of experiential play-based learning experiences.
Finally, we unpicked how our curriculum would slot into our observation, assessment and planning system and reached a point where the intent was defined. We now knew exactly what we wanted our children to learn during their time at N Family Club.
Children’s interests
Reading this, you might conclude that: first, our children wouldn’t have the opportunity to explore their own unique fascinations, and secondly, that we had just catapulted ourselves back to the 1990s and were arming our teams with a list of topics to be covered in certain months – harking back to the times of ‘people who help us month’. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Giving children the freedom to explore their own interests and shaping the day around what the children need, love and want were already at the heart of our pedagogy, and the new curriculum still enables this.
IMPLEMENTATION
Next came implementation. Talking to our teams and parents about our curriculum was the most important part of the plan. Many things in early years will exist only on paper if your team doesn’t understand them and can’t ‘live’ them.
In the early stages of the curriculum roll-out, talking to our teams was easy as it was all pre-lockdown, and the first team training session could be hands-on.
To illustrate the holistic nature of the curriculum, we tied ourselves to create a giant spider web! Each team member represented a part of the curriculum and tied themselves to anyone who represented a strong curriculum link. As the team member representing maths found himself penned in on all sides by his team, we knew the point was being communicated loud and clear.
As the year progressed, training became more challenging as the pandemic changed our ways of working. Currently, our new team members are introduced to the curriculum through on-the-job coaching and Zoom training.
Zoom wasn’t part of the original plan, but it has had some benefits. Virtual delivery requires you to be even more clear with your message and training style.
Team members who might not be the first to ask a question in a group session are sometimes happier to pop their question down in the chat function, and bitesize training sessions, rather than whole-day training, appeal to many of our team for a whole variety of reasons.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Developing our own curriculum has also provided our team with a unique range of opportunities, from being involved in ongoing curriculum development to furthering their own knowledge, developing particular specialisms.
As the debate now swirls about the revised EYFS and Development Matters, we feel that whatever change comes our way, we will consider it in the context of our own curriculum.
REFLECTION POINTS
Top questions to ask yourself when considering your curriculum
- How does your curriculum link in with your overarching vision, purpose, goals and pedagogy?
- How does the pattern of the day work in your setting? How might the pattern of the day in your setting bring to life different elements of your curriculum?
- How do you ensure a balance of child-initiated and educator-guided learning?
- How do you involve parents in your curriculum?
- How will you support your team’s understanding of curriculum?
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
Holistic Health
- Physical activity
- Physical health
- Emotional literacy
- Mindfulness
- Yoga
Underpinned by Physical, and Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Global Responsibility
- Cultural diversity
- Research and library
- Community trips
- Environmentalism
- Global citizenship
Underpinned by Understanding the World
Self-expression
- Atelier art
- Languages
- Expressive arts
- Signing
- Phonics
Underpinned by Communication and Language, Literacy andExpressive Arts and Design
Inventive Ideas
- Cookery
- Science
- Engineering
- Maths
- Technology
Underpinned by Maths
Sarah Mackenzie is chief academic officer at N Family Club, a growing nursery group with six settings in London
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