I’ve always been interested in Early Years teaching, right from the beginning. As soon as I’d made the decision to change career, I started volunteering in the reception class of my daughter’s school and my experience there made my mind up.
Early Years is a unique period in a child’s life; they are changing every day, learning new skills, developing their personalities, discovering the world – basically becoming the person they will be in the future. It’s fascinating to watch and a real privilege to be part of. And, because learning through play is still a big part of the Early Years curriculum, it’s lots of fun too.
One of the benefits of following an Early Years teaching path is that you don’t just learn to teach Foundation Stage, you also get experience of Key Stage 1 and 2 classes as well, which is excellent preparation for teaching children from birth right up to age 11. Having that broad knowledge of Primary teaching is a real advantage – I found the experience of teaching Key Stage 1 and 2 was vital for putting the Early Years into context, while the in-depth understanding of Early Years informed my teaching of older children.
As part of the PGCE students are encouraged to undertake a placement in a non-traditional teaching setting. Throughout his studies, Andy had become increasingly interested in the use of the outdoors in young children’s learning and development.
Although there was a lot of literature espousing the benefits of outdoor learning, I saw very little of it in practice beyond regular playtimes and the occasional outdoor lesson in good weather, and I wanted to see how it worked in other countries.
A chance Twitter conversation resulted in a weeklong placement at Birkebeiner outdoor nursery in Lillehammer, Norway, where children spend almost all their time outside regardless of the weather.
It was quite a culture shock at first. It was so unlike anything I’d seen in the UK. The children played, ate and even had their naps outside. They all wore thick, warm clothes and I was assured that if the temperature dropped below -15°C they would sleep inside!
Although they had adequate supervision, the children were encouraged to play and explore independently and also to take age appropriate risks, which is very different to the UK. I did have to fight the urge to intervene when I thought the children were faced with too great a challenge, but they were very resilient and worked together brilliantly.
The children spent their time sawing, axing, climbing, den building, role playing, swinging or just sitting in the snow, chatting. The whole atmosphere of the nursery was very relaxed, happy and unhurried.
Norway is the perfect environment for outdoor learning. Many schools in the UK don’t have a lot of outdoor space, but I think you can still apply some of the same principles, even in an inner city school. For me, it’s all about using the environment to stimulate learning, whether that’s a wood, a school field or a yard.
With the growth of the Forest School movement in the UK, and increasing awareness of the benefits of outdoor learning among mainstream schools, there may well be more opportunities for teachers like Andy to incorporate the Scandinavian approach into their lesson plans.
I completely fell in love with the philosophy and way of life in Lillehammer. The cost of a pint of beer may be off the scale but they certainly know how to provide children with the opportunity to develop as young people before burdening them with concepts that are beyond their understanding. They let their children be children and allow them to develop physically, socially and emotionally in beautiful, natural surroundings.
I would be happy if I could bring even a tiny bit of that to my first teaching role.
Read more about Early Years teaching courses at Edge Hill University.
