(A series of 6 short posts, where I think out loud about where I’ve been, where I am, and where I want to be.)
I’m currently unemployed and, when I’m not trawling through job pages or writing applications, I’ve been able to read widely and let my thoughts run free. A question in a recent post from Professor Alison Clarke on her ‘Slow Knowledge’ blog prompted me to reflect more deeply on my EYFS practice last year, ‘In what ways does the future overshadow the present in young children’s lives in ECEC (Early Childhood Education Centres)?‘.
For children in my reception class, I believe my interventions (which were designed to meet a future goal) risked casting a shadow over their EYFS experience. If I’d recorded how many times each child’s play was interrupted over the course of the year, I have no doubt I’d have been shocked by how frequently the ‘not-on-track’ child was interrupted, compared with their ‘on-track’ peer.
Tidying up last week, I found notes I had taken from an Early Excellence podcast in October 2021. They drove home to me just how much these interruptions matter:
‘ Allow for long periods where children can create and explore their own ideas and learning. When children are interrupted regularly, they get used to not being engaged and not seeing an activity through to completion.’
My notes from: New to Teaching in the EYFS Part 2, an Early Excellence Podcast
I’d like to think that, if I had been more alert and aware of the risk of interruptions to play, I would have been more proactive in timing necessary interventions and, wherever possible, more skillful at incorporating interventions into the child’s ongoing, uninterrupted play.
I qualified as a teacher in 1992. I’ve carried out countless interventions since then. In hindsight, how many were interruptions?
I had good intentions for my interventions. I know that.
Read with Julia 
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