Outstanding adult interactions

Effective Pedagogy in How can we make adultthe Early Years interactions with children an outstanding feature of NetleySustained shared thinking: an episodein which two or more individuals EYFS?“work together” in an intellectual wayto solve a problem, clarify a concept Members in group: Rugina Kapadi, Sampreet Bagri,evaluate activities, extend narrative Zeinab Debassay, Janine Davenall, Nicky Ayton andect. Both parties must contribute tothe thinking and it must develop and Burbuqe Arifi.extend. The EYFS team spent quite a long time decidingSiraj-Blachford et al (2002) Researching on our research question. It sprang fromEffective Pedagogy in the Early Years Netley’s recent Ofsted report and Mrs(REPEY), DfES Nanthabalan’s comment at the beginning of the academic year: “… next stop ‘outstanding!’”. We looked at different characteristics of outstanding early years practice. Interactions between adults and children clearly were an area for us to develop. Key research that informed our study was the longitudinal Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) 1997-2003 (first phase) and related studies: Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years, 2002; Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education, 2014.

REPEY found that SST is rarely observed in settings and that the majority of questions (90%) from practitioners are closed.The creation of a culture where children have been encouraged to voice their reflections,where listening skills were explicitly taught, has meant that practitioners have been ableto extend children’s language and thinking.The pace of all early year’s settings and changes in personnel are recognised challengeswhen supporting the development of thinking. A successful strategy that we used to helpmaintain our standards was to display open-ended questions around different areas withinthe setting.Some useful questions were:  I wonder…  I really want to know more about this…  Can you explain some more?  You might like to do it this way  So you think that…  What happens next?  What would happen if…  How did you…  What did you think about…The other important influence in the development of SST environment was that adultsconstantly modelled thinking for themselves and ‘thought out loud’ as problems wereovercome. “A successful strategy used during our in-class research work was to present scenarios in a provocative way. A group of children worked with an adult to solve problems. One of our favourite examples was repairing a broken phone where the children took responsibility to find the resources to fix it. Their collaboration and enthusiasm supported even non-verbal children to participate for an extended period of time.”

SST in Group InteractionsIn order to broaden the children’s thinking so that they could listen and learn fromtheir peers, it was essential to firstly take a step back and simply observe. Thisallowed me to find potential moments for hooking other children onto theconversation and play by asking whether they agreed or disagreed with the children’scurrent approach. For example, during a morning of block play there were twochildren dominating the construction of a tower for compare bears, with peers simplyjoining in by following their dominant peer’s instructions. However, by asking thechildren a series of “possibility” questions (“What if..?” “How about…?”), it led them tostop and consider their plans, whilst at the same time creating space for otherchildren to pitch in. The most important question asked to other peers may have been“Do you agree?” “Can we listen to this friend’s idea- he has a new way of doing this.”By asking such questions meant that not only were a wider group of children includedand therefore contributing, but they were also feeling valued by an adult.Organisation of ThoughtsFollowing the joint professional development, there was noticeable change in thechildren’s contributions during carpet times. The children showed an increase inconfidence to share their ideas. I feel this is due to the increase of SST moments thatthe children experience in the setting.SST has changed the culture of talk in the setting as children have been supported toorganise their thoughts into spoken language. This has especially been effectiveduring mental maths sessions where children were able to organise their thoughtprocesses into steps to explain how they knew an answer.There was also a noticeable increase in the children’s reasoning in different areas oflearning. The lack of pressure and the culture of sharing thoughts and workingcollectively to come to an outcome, produced an ethos of collating thoughts, sharingideas and having explaining why and how.

I believe that each practitioner should understand the process ofSustained Shared Thinking which helps adults to be aware ofchildren’s interests and understanding. Together, the adult andchild can develop an idea or skill.By contributing and intervening at the right time with theappropriate questions I managed to encourage and extend thechildren’s language, imagination, writing skills, socialinteraction, self-esteem, confidence and creative thinking. Thisengagement of children often developed through self-chosenplay activities.Additional articles that we found useful were: Supporting Young Children’s Sustained Shared \"What I have found is that when Thinking by Marion Dowling children are engaging in freely chosen activities this provides the An exploration of practitioners’ perspectives of best opportunities for extending promoting sustained shared thinking in an early their thinking as they are more childhood setting……a case study by Anne Purdon. motivated and absorbed in their play. I also found that by sharing eppe.ioe.ac.uk/eppe/effefindings.htm. ideas and personal experiences it ACECQA Guide to the National Quality Standard, encouraged children to extend their thinking. By taking the role Sydney, 2011 of a pro-active listener I was able NQS PLP e-Newsletter No. 43 2012. to extend learning by offering Blooms Taxonomy – generating questions questions and my own knowledge at relevant times.”