Issue 11
Spring 2018
Welcome to the Froebel Network Newsletter 2018
Last
year was a busy year for the Network – the new Facebook Group was
launched and by the end of the year membership had passed the 200 mark.
The new website has had lots of ‘hits’ and we have been keeping the
events and news items up to date, although the Facebook Group is probably
the more interactive way of keeping up to date. The year also saw the
first ‘Networks Gathering’, held in Richmond, an opportunity for all
those involved in the various Froebelian Networks to get together. It was
a great success with over 50 members attending. The second Gathering is
planned for April – see details below.
On
the wider Froebelian front – 2017 saw the launch of the Froebel Trust
short courses, managed for the Trust by Early Education (BAECE). These
courses are run by a team of accredited
Froebel Trainers who undertook the pilot with Yellow Dot group of
nurseries.
There
was disappointment at the end of the year throughout the early years
sector with the publication of Bold
Beginnings by Ofsted in November and the controversy that followed.
This continues to rage both on social media and in the national press.
See Opinion below. In contrast,
November also saw the publication of several White Papers by the Lego
Foundation, reviewing current research into play and providing a positive
reaffirmation of the intrinsic value of core Froebelian principles in
early years today.
NEW short courses from the Froebel Trust
The new Froebel
Travelling Tutor short courses are now available. The programme of
courses are designed to be flexible and can be organised in different
ways, for example at the request of a nursery group or chain, who may
want to introduce their practitioners to a Froebelian approach, local
authorities who may want to offer CPD training for practitioners and
childminders in their authority, or individual nurseries or childminder
groups who may want to run the courses and sell-on spaces to other local
nurseries, practitioners, parents or grandparents.
Early Education (British Association of Early
Childhood Education) has been commissioned to manage the delivery of the
courses on behalf of the Froebel Trust which were designed in response to
requests from practitioners in early childhood education for short,
practically focused local courses supporting them in understanding,
studying and implementing a Froebelian approach to their work in group
settings (schools, daycare, playgroups, children centres etc) and home
settings (childminders, parents, grandparents etc).
The courses were piloted with Yellow Dot
Nurseries. During the pilot it was found that practitioners valued taking
away ideas and practical tasks from day one and trying them out, and
returning to revisit them on day two, which helped to review the practice
reflectively. This has therefore been built into courses.
external link
to Early Education Froebel Short Courses
A Pedagogy of Play
“We
want to build a future in which learning through play empowers children
to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners. This ambition is more
critical than ever. Children grow up facing rapid change, global
challenges and a highly interconnected world, all of which affect their
future prospects.”
These
words come from the aims of The Lego Foundation which it states are to
re-define play and re-imagine learning.
The Foundation’s website is a gold mine of useful research papers, articles and resources.
In November 2017 the Lego Foundation
published three White Papers which reviewed evidence on different aspects
of Learning Through Play. Co-author of the reports is David Whitebread, Acting
Director of Play in Education, Development and
Learning (PEDAL) Research Centre at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge University. PEDAL was
launched in 2015 with funding from the Lego Foundation.
A read of these resonates with
Froebelian practice so deeply that I strongly recommend that all
Froebelians take a look.
WHITE PAPER: Learning through Play: a review of the evidence
This
white paper looks at the most recent research on the role and importance
of play for children’s life and learning concluding that the evidence on
learning through play is mounting; engaging with the world in playful
ways is essential for laying a foundation for learning early in life and
learning through play is also proving to be an effective pedagogical
technique beyond infancy and toddlerhood.
WHITE PAPER: Neuroscience and learning
through play: a review of the evidence
Neuroscience
helps explain how playful experiences can support learning. We find that
each characteristic – joy, meaning, active engagement, iteration, and
social interaction – is associated with neural networks involved in brain
processes.
WHITE PAPER: The role of play in
children's development: a review of the evidence
Current
evidence base suggests that different types of play have a role in
supporting the development of communication skills, of abstract thought,
self-regulation, and more adaptive, flexible, creative thinking.
The
website for the Lego Foundation is www.legofoundation.com
from where you can download the research papers and find out more about
their work on promoting play from early years, through primary up to age
12.
Details
of current research at the Play in Education,
Development and Learning (PEDAL) research centre at the Faculty of
Education, University of Cambridge can be found here.
Froebel Networks - the second gathering
It
looks like the Networks Gatherings are set to become an annual event with
the announcement of a date for the second gathering in 2018. Last year’s
gathering was held as part of a celebration of the 200th
anniversary of Froebel opening his first school in Keilhau and was held
in Richmond-upon-Thames.
Read a report on the 2017 gathering
here
This
year the gathering will be held on Froebel’s birthday – 21st
April 2018. Tina Bruce will again be chairing the event and after an
introduction by Mark Hunter, it is hoped that there will be presentations on transition from nursery to primary school, sharing observations as a team and teacher narratives in their Froebel training at Roehampton. There will be
reports from the various Networks – in particular the Edinburgh Network reporting
on the storytelling project by the Masterclass group from Edinburgh as
well as the expansion of Froebel training courses in Scotland -
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Midlothian and Falkirk. The international networks
will report on their projects in India and South Africa and we are
pleased that we will be joined by Benedykt Biegun who will be
reporting on the growth of Froebelian education in Poland. The travelling
tutors network will update us on the first phase of the roll-out of the
Froebel Trust endorsed short courses in partnership with Early Education.
The gathering
will be held in Richmond-upon-Thames and is open to members of all the Froebel
Networks as well as practitioners who have completed some elements of
Froebel training and other guests by invitation. The event will be linked
with an ‘Open Day’ at Annan The Froebel School, in East Sussex, the
preceding day, for those who wish to make it a two-day event.
Further
information on the Froebel Networks Gathering Froebel Gifts
Don’t
forget that the full range of Froebel Gifts made by SINA (Germany) are
now available in the UK through the Froebel Network. New additions to the
range include a wooden bead
pattern set based on Gift 10 and My First
Froebel – the Little Frobel Toy set designed by Heinrike
Schauwecker-Zimmer, well known for her workshops at International Froebel
Society conferences.
See
the full range of Froebel Gifts, wooden boards and books on the Froebel Network website.
Where do I Begin?
A personal opinion on Bold Beginnings
It
would be difficult NOT to have an opinion on Bold
Beginnings, the report published by
Ofsted on 30th November 2017. Indeed, as if things weren’t bad
enough, Gill Jones, Ofsted
deputy director, early education, writing a response to criticism
of the Ofsted report compounded rather than diffused the controversial
‘research based’ report. In her Nursery World article in December she
raises the question …. ‘Is the Reception year a time to learn or play?’
She goes on to add, however, that ‘Ofsted isn’t against play in the
reception class’ but ‘schools should also make sure that children sit at
tables and hold a pencil correctly when they learn to write’. Let’s
remember Reception is still a key part of the Early Years Foundation
Stage, 4 and 5 year olds. It is not as Justine Greening, former Secretary
of State for Education, indicated ‘a bridge between early years and key
stage one’.
Gill
Jones comments follow on from Amanda Spielman, Chief Inspector of Ofsted
who continues to be surprised at the reaction to the Bold Beginnings
report, perhaps, she suggested, it had been misinterpreted. It is
difficult to misinterpret ‘evidence’ from the report. In ‘good and outstanding’ schools,
for example, the report states that EYFS ‘reception teachers use direct,
interactive whole class instruction, particularly for reading, writing
and mathematics. Leaders and staff ignored the perceived tensions between
the principles of the EYFS and teaching a whole class directly. They
recognised that teaching the whole class was at times the most efficient
way of imparting knowledge.’
In
other ‘good’ schools, ‘some headteachers did not believe in the notion of
‘free play’. They viewed playing without boundaries as too rosy and
unrealistic a view of childhood…. some did not endorse providing
free-flow provision’.
The
report concludes that ‘all primary schools should make sure that the
teaching of reading, including systematic synthetic phonics, is the core
purpose of the Reception Year’.
Already
social media is awash with reception teachers being asked by their Senior
Leadership Teams to have regard to the report, putting early years under
further pressure to become ever more formal. Indeed, the EYFS is the last
remaining outpost of child centred learning and all that is at the heart
of our Froebelian beliefs. The report will feed into next year’s EYFS and
Inspection Framework review, continuing the top-down move of the key
stage 1 curriculum into reception, rather than a child centred, play
based EYFS feeding upwards into Years 1 and 2. Less than 10 years ago
this seemed a real possibility, but the Bold Beginnings report shows that
the direction of thinking is moving, at an alarming rate, in the opposite
direction.
My
concern is that with reports such as Bold Beginnings dominating the
discourse, it will become harder and harder for early years practitioners
to hold on to long established, sound early years practice. When I
trained as a teacher, primary schools were still revelling in a post
Plowden ‘discovery learning’ endorsement. Over 30 years later it is
difficult to recognise primary school practice of the 1980s in the
present day primary classroom. I think it is probably impossible for a
Froebelian approach to ever be re-introduced into primary schools, the
direction has moved so far away from this approach. We cannot let this
happen in the early years.
Mark
Hunter
Read
more: A Collective
Open Letter in Response to Bold Beginnings Report coordinated by Keeping
Early Years Unique
Froebelian books and publications
Two more books
with a strong Froebelian influence appear in the Routledge International Handbooks series.
The Routledge International Handbook of Early Childhood Play
(Routledge International Handbooks of Education) edited by Tina Bruce, Pentti Hakkarainen and Milda
Bredikyte
Published 7th June 2017
More
information on this book - external Link to Routledge
The Routledge International Handbook of Froebel
and Early Childhood Practice: Re-articulating research and policy
(Routledge International Handbooks of Education)
edited by Tina Bruce, Peter Elfer, Sacha Powell
and Louie Werth
Due to be published in late Spring 2018. Details will be
circulated to Network members on publication.
Also just published by Routledge in January 2018 - a very
practical handbook and comprehensive guide to theory and practice from
Pete Moorhouse.
Learning Through Woodwork:
Creative woodwork in the Early Years
by
Pete Moorhouse with a forward by Tina Bruce
Published 6th January 2017
"Ever so often a book is written that
helps practitioners develop their practice in deep and far reaching ways.
This is that sort of book". Tina Bruce CBE
More information on
this book - external Link to Routledge
Peter
has also recently produced a paper entitled:
Froebel and Woodwork - The Froebelian Occupation of
Woodwork: A symbolic language of shape, form and space
To learn a thing in life and through doing is much more
developing, cultivating and strengthening than to learn it merely through the
verbal communication of ideas The
Education of Man (Froebel 1826)
Open
a copy of the PDF here
Conference
Round-up
Full
details of upcoming conferences and exhibitions which may be of interest
to Froebelian practitioners can be found on the Froebel Network website.
Here’s a summary…
Tuesday 20th
February 2018
BECERA 2018: Creativity and Critical Thinking in the Early Years
Venue: mac Birmingham
2nd-3rd March 2018
Childcare
Expo
Venue: Olympia London
Saturday 21st
April 2018
Froebel Networks Annual Gathering
Venue: Richmond upon Thames
Saturday 28 April 2018
Minding
the Gap Conference 2018: Ensuring the well-being of every child
Venue: University of Brighton
Saturday 12 May 2018
Early
Education Annual National Conference 2018: Partnership and interaction in language
development
Venue: University College Birmingham
11 & 12 May 2018
Nursery
World NORTH 2018
Venue: Exhibition Centre Liverpool
Friday 1 June
2018
Pre-school Learning Alliance Annual Conference 2018: Minds matter:
protecting the wellbeing of children and practitioners in the early years
Venue: London
Friday 22 June 2018
National
Day Nurseries Association Conference 2018: Celebrating 20 years of NDNA
Venue: Coventry
Thursday
6 Sept. - Saturday 8 Sept. 2018
8th International Froebel Society
Conference: Education for peace: Froebelian contributions at global and local
level
Venue: Hiroshima, Japan
Saturday 22 September 2018
Edinburgh Froebel Network Conference, Gifts for our Future
10
The conference will take place on Saturday 22nd September 2018 at the
Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. We are currently finalising the programme and more
details will be available soon. Venue: Edinburgh
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