Big bang! Small hands… Big ideas! Creative woodwork in early childhood.

Alistair Bryce-CleggUncategorized1 Comment

Big bang! Small hands… Big ideas!Creative woodwork in early childhood This week I have the great pleasure of welcoming Pete Moorhouse back to my blog for a guest post. Pete is an early years creative consultant and artist educator. Pete is the UK’s leading authority on woodwork in Early Years education and has written several books and journal articles, including ‘Learning Through Woodwork’ (Routledge). He is currently working his latest book – ‘Creativity in Practice: Nurturing creative and critical thinking in early childhood education’. Pete won the national award (2019) from the Creative Learning Guild for his work promoting creativity in education.  These are exciting times. In recent years there has been a surge of interest in woodworking in early … Read More

Planning for Continuous Provision

Alistair Bryce-CleggContinuous Provision, Uncategorized18 Comments

Whether you are referring to ‘Continuous Provision’ as an environment, a group of resources or a period of time. The ethos and the aspiration are exactly the same. Well planned Continuous Provision can be an absolute gift when it comes to raising the attainment of children through active learning and high level engagement. Badly planned Continuous Provision can also be a curse that promotes low level engagement and low level attainment – so what is the secret of good CP? Continuous Provision is NOT just the resources that you have out all of the time. It needs to support adults in their teaching and interactions with children, allow children to consolidate and rehearse what they know, but it s also … Read More

Books to Encourage Conversation in the Early Years

Alistair Bryce-CleggChild Initiated Learning, Diversity, Gender, Race, Reading, Talk4 Comments

This week on my Facebook Page I posted some books that I’ve found useful when talking to younger children about identity. In my view children are never too young to have these (age appropriate) conversations. As Early Years educators we are in the privileged position of working with children right at the beginning of their journey through education. We can encourage an open mindset, foster a culture of acceptance and show children how to celebrate difference. We can have a HUGE impact. It’s vitally important that children see themselves and their familiar culture reflected in books but equally important that they read (and listen to) stories that broaden their knowledge of identity, providing them with an informed, rich view of … Read More

What Now?

Alistair Bryce-CleggUncategorized16 Comments

Regardless of our individual views on whether schools and settings should be returning in June or not I think it’s safe to say that no one working in Education expected the return to start with Early Years! That said – it looks like we are going to be living with this virus for some time to come so at some point we have to think about how we can best do this. Everyone’s situation is going to be different, both in terms of what your setting looks like and how it is staffed but also the expectations of Leadership teams and possibly parents. It’s definitely going to be tricky and no doubt challenging, in ways we might not even know … Read More