Today began with the 62 of us modelling Year 1 pupils by jumping up and down doing action songs and telling our talk partners about the bears we had brought in. (I don't have a bear, so I took Joukahainen, my toy tiger, instead). We were then visited by an actual bear (she was real, she must have been, she talked to us! Although she did look uncannily like our course director dressed up in a furry suit...) before being divided into groups to begin preparing our own bear-themed presentations. This included the discussion of such weighty matters as whether it would be more effective to collect real leaves from outside or make our own out of paper; and the extent to which we needed to bowdlerise our invented world ("But if the Fox eats the Rabbits that will upset the children!")
Later we visited an actual Early Years setting, which was fun. It was after school so there were no children there, which was kind of nice, because we got the chance to play with all the equipment ourselves. And they gave us cake!
I'm really liking the idea of Early Years (as opposed to Key Stage 1). The Early Years Foundation Stage (the equivalent of a curriculum for 0-5 year olds) is great, as evidenced by the presence of a row of small wellies, ready for when the children want to go outside in the rain; videos and photos of children getting totally covered in mud and clay; and planning that involves listening to the children, seeing what they're interested in, and taking the learning from there. I could write so much more about play... but something tells me it's likely to come up again another day :)
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