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www.pengreen.org
Working with children 0-3: Building a creative workforce
Early Years Scotland’s National Conference
Saturday 3 October 2015
Dr Margy Whalley
Director
Pen Green Centre for Children and Families
www.pengreen.org
Integrated centres for
children and families
Integrated centres for children and families working
collaboratively with parents and the wider community
have the capacity to transform children’s life chances.
“if there is no explicit emancipatory or
empowering vision guiding the project
from the onset, it will prove difficult to
realise any emancipatory effects”
BMW Boog 2003
www.pengreen.org
Pen Green Centre for Children
and their Families
“ In every small community there should be a service for children and their families. This service should honour the needs of young children and celebrate their existence. It should also support families, however, they are constituted within the community”
Pen Green 1983
www.pengreen.org
Pen Green Centre for Children and Families
A place for learning through dialogue with others
• Early years education 0-5yrs
• Extended hours, extended year provision to support families
• Inclusive, flexible, education with care for children with
additional needs and children with special rights (SEND)
• Adult Community Education
• Family Support Services and Integrated Health Services
• Focus for voluntary work and community regeneration
• Training and support for early years practitioners
• Research and Development
• Leadership Professional Development
• Early Years Teaching Centre/Teaching School
www.pengreen.org
A Centre with Comprehensive Provision for Young
Children and their Families 1. Pen Green Nursery School Provision for children 2-5yrs
2. Pen Green Baby Nest Baby and Toddler Provision 1-3yrs
3. Nurture Group For vulnerable children from 1-3yrs
4. Creche Provision For 100+ children a week 0-5yrs
5. Childminder Network for children from 0 – 5 years
6. After School services and holiday play schemes for all local children from 4 - 11
7. Parent and Infant Support Groups including Growing Together groups, Infant and Toddler massage sessions, Groups
for parents with mental health issues and for parents with drug or alcohol issues, extensive drop-in community groups,
weekend groups for fathers, adult learning groups, groups for parents and children with disabilities, survivors groups
www.pengreen.org
Baby and
Toddler Provision
The Nest and
Couthie
www.pengreen.org
Baby Nest
www.pengreen.org
www.pengreen.org
Couthie
www.pengreen.org
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At Pen Green ‘How’ is more
significant than ‘What’ by encouraging families to participate in the re-shaping
of the shared context in which they live out their
individual lives
by supporting parents and children to become effective
public service users
by building the capacity of children, families and
communities to secure outcomes for themselves
by harnessing the community’s energy for change and
parent’s deep commitment to ensuring that their children
have a better deal
www.pengreen.org
Pen Green is all about Co-Production Encouraging parents and children to be effective public
service users: creating social and cultural capital
• Parents have the right to expect high quality, flexible services that
respond to the changing needs of their families. Services need to be
flexible and responsive to 21st century challenges to family life
• Staff need to believe in parent’s deep commitment to supporting their
children’s learning. They need to encourage parents to increase their
competence
• Parents and staff both need to have high expectations of the children.
They need to work together to help children be all that they can be
• Parents have a commitment to being involved in designing, developing,
delivering and evaluating local services. We have to release the great
untapped energy within the community
www.pengreen.org
The Rich Child
“…our image of the child is rich in potential, strong, powerful, competent and, most of all, connected to adults and other children.”
Loris Malaguzzi
Values and Beliefs
Who are the children we work with?
www.pengreen.org
Korczak (in Bettleheim 1990) The power relations between adults and children
are all wrong….they must be changed so adults
would no longer be convinced of their right….to
arrange the life and world of the child as they
think best, without considering the child’s feelings
about it.
www.pengreen.org
I’m strong;
I’m able to challenge;
I’m able to question
I’m able to choose;
I feel good about being me
Children 'Learning to be Strong’
1984 ‘Learning to be
strong’ A curriculum
document for parents
and children
Children should feel strong
Children should feel in control
Children should feel able to question
Children should feel able to choose
…….and staff and parents
www.pengreen.org
Our conceptualisation of Children - Feisty
Children: Children with a sense of
‘chuffedness’
•The ability to understand and control their own
emotions, self discipline
•The ability to get their emotional needs met
•The ability to adapt to new situations
•The ability to take critical a stand
•The ability to make choices
•The ability to integrate different experiences into
a common understanding - mental flexibility
•The ability to articulate their own position and
take on board the perspectives of others and
communicate effectively
•The ability to take initiative and to be self
assertive
www.pengreen.org
• Adults who can contain their emotional needs
• Adults who are able to raise self-esteem
• Adults who can help them to gain more control over their lives
• Adults who encourage them to be self-directing
• Adults who encourage them to push boundaries
• Adults who encourage them to feel they have the power to
change things
• Adults who promote learning as a lifelong experience
• Adults who are actively engaged in their own learning and
development
• Adults who know how to get their own emotional needs met
• Adults who are not afraid of bodily warmth, cuddling and of
making those relationships with children
• Adults who want to work in an equal and active partnership
with parents
Our beliefs about what children need from
their key workers and parents and carers
www.pengreen.org
We know that young children achieve more and are
happier when early years educators work together with
parents and share ideas about how to support and
extend children’s learning
(Athey, 1990; Meade 1995)
The importance of working with parents as
co-educators
www.pengreen.org
Parents as Advocates
“Nothing gets under a parents skin more quickly and
more permanently than the illumination of his or her
own children’s behaviour. The effects of participation
can be profound.”
(Athey, 1990, p66)
www.pengreen.org
Sharing Knowledge With Parents:
Staff as cultural brokers/mediators
“The roles of professional experience and parents’ everyday
experience are seen as complementary but equally
important. The former constitutes a ‘public’ (and generalised)
form of ‘theory’ about child development, whilst the latter
represents a ‘personal theory’ about the development of a
particular child. An interaction between the two theories or
ways of explaining a child’s actions may produce an
enriched understanding as a basis for both to act in relation
to the child. Only through the combination of both types of
information could a broad and accurate picture be built up
of a child’s developmental progress.”
(Easen et al, 1992)
www.pengreen.org
Co-education
Parents are involved in supporting their own child’s learning and
development 24/7 - this needs to be recognised and home learning
and nursery learning needs to be shared
Parents engage in adult
community education Parents get involved in devising or
delivering services for other parents
www.pengreen.org
Integrated settings and services engage
effectively with parents:
• When staff are well qualified, opportunities for reflection
and dialogue have a strong theoretical base
• When staff are well supported, in provision that is well
resourced and securely funded
• When staff adopt an ‘equal and active’ approach
• When staff have cultural humility
• When staff are capable or cultural brokerage and
mediation
•When staff think systemically 64% of Pen Green staff
started their learning
journey as parents –
gained qualifications
and began paid work
www.pengreen.org
All early years educators and many parents
become Practitioner Researchers Practitioner Research at Pen Green:
• Where the ethics of the encounter with co workers, parents and children
are paramount
• Where all ECE workers are encouraged to see themselves as researchers of
their own practice
• Where there is a commitment to developing new research methodologies
that support “Research from the Underside”,
‘The values I hold are such that I long for the end of poverty and the
promotion of equality. My interest in research is thus just this, how can
research help the poor?’ (Holman, 1987, p.669)
• Where people’s answers are believed and acted upon
• Where research both informs and leads to improvements in practice
• Where participation in the research process can be emancipatory for
participants
• Where the critical questions are generated by users and providers of the
service
www.pengreen.org
Reflexive Professionalism
• Exploring dissensus
• Valuing the ‘other’
• Co-constructing knowledge with children,
parents and colleagues
• Always acting with a focus on change
Jan Peeters 2008
Micheal Vandenbroek 2009
www.pengreen.org
Pen Green Research, Training & Development
Base and Leadership Centre
Pen Green Teaching School Alliance/
Pen Green Early Years Teaching Centre: Developing the
Workforce
Pen Green Integrated Centre for Children and
Families
Pen Green maintained Nursery School and
Children’s Centre
Pen Green Teaching School Alliance
EYITT Training University of Bedfordshire
Initial Teacher Training University of
Hertfordshire (2015)
PhD Early Years Leadership Leicester University
MA In Integrated Provision for Children and Families Leicester University/University of Hertfordshire Early Development and Learning Research Methods Practitioner Research Working With Parents and their Infants and Young Children Working With Families and Complexity Leadership Learning within Teams
University of Hertfordshire (2015)
Advanced Module in Groupwork
Homestart Training
Group Work Training (introductory)
Emotional Roots of learning – Northern School of Psychotherapy
‘University of the Workplace’
PEN GREEN AS A LEARNING ORGANISATION - developing the children’s centre workforce
An Early Years Teaching School
Teaching School Alliance
BA (Hons) Top-up In Integrated Working with Children and their Families in the Early Years University of Hertfordshire
Foundation Degree in
Integrated Working with Children and their Families in the Early Years Hertfordshire University On site and on location in Devon, Kegworth and Bradford
Adult Community Education Courses Functional Skills Get Creative Transactional Analysis
Counselling Skills Mood Mapping
Family Learning Programmes Maths English ESOL
Parents Involved in their Children’s Learning groups Parents’ Support Groups / Discussion
Groups
Aim Awards credit for
courses at levels 1 & 2 e.g.,
Crèche Work Training,
Confident Parents/Confident
Children
Parents as Researchers New Start Volunteer course
CACHE Level 3 Diploma for the
Early Years Workforce (EYE)
Level 3 Award in Preparing to
Work in Home-Based Childcare
The Climbing
Frame of
Opportunity
System Leadership
Training for children’s centre leaders
NPQICL*
www.pengreen.org
The Tickell Review (2011) challenge
“I recommend that the Government
consider how the best-performing settings
could help to support introduction of the
known model of Teaching Schools to the
early years. For example, this could include
outstanding children’s centres, outstanding
private settings, maintained nursery schools,
quality assured childminding networks and
other leading groups of practitioners and
providers.”
www.pengreen.org
Corby PVIs
Corby Primary Schools
Corby Secondary Schools
Brooke Western
Alliance (Secondary
School)
Pen Green Alliance (Nursery School)
Maplefields
Alliance (5-19 Special
School)
Population 62,400
5
22
19
Pen Green
“University of the
Workplace”
Kingswood Nursery Primary School Section 5 2011 Special Measures
Ch
rist
ine
Mo
rga
n
FD 1
C
hild
ren
Ce
ntr
e
Bra
nk
ica
Ev
an
s FD
3
Prim
ary
Sc
ho
ol
Sh
elle
y G
inn
s FD
4
Ch
ildre
n
Ce
ntr
e
Weldon Primary School Section 5 Good 2009
Weldon Pre School Section 49/50 Good 2011
Woodnewton Nursery / Learning Community Section 5 Good 2011 G
em
ma
De
nn
iso
n
FD 1
Sh
elle
y-A
nn
La
ing
FD
1
Anna Clancy FD 3
Sandra Summerfield FD 3
Pen Green Nursery Section 5 Outstanding 2009
Su
san
Fle
min
g
FD 1
C
rèc
he
Lesl
ey
Hill
FD 1
C
om
mu
nity
Ed
uc
atio
n
Terr
i La
mb
ert
FD
1
PG
Sn
ug
Michele McCabe FD 1 Baby Nest
Sarah Alders FD 2 Baby Nest
Tracy Coull FD 2 PG Crèche
Katherine Clarke FD 3 PG Nurture Group
Charraine Stapleton FD 3 PG Crèche
Sally Smart FD 3 PG Nursery
Rebecca Elliott FD 4 Research Base
Louise King FD 4 PG Nursery
Kerry McNulty FD 4 Baby Nest
Donna Walker FD 3
Corby Old Village Primary School Section 5 Good 2007
Pen Green Historic
Reach Area
Little Learners Nursery 49/50 Outstanding 2011
Kerry-Ann Walker FD 4 PG Crèche
Charlotte Beeston FD 4
Teresa Maples FD 4
Chirpy Chicks Pre School Section 5 Outstanding 2009
Linda Downing FD 2
Heather McIntyre FD 1
Exeter Little Rainbows Section 49/50 Good 2009
Emma Mares FD 1
Exeter Primary School & Nursery Section 5 2009 Satisfactory
St Brendan’s Parish Playgroup Section 49/50 Good 2011
Debbie Kelleher FD 4
Amy Devine FD 3
1st Class Nursery Section 5 Outstanding 2009
St Brendan's Catholic Primary School Section 5 Good 2011
Beanfield Primary School Section5 Satisfactory 2010
St Patrick’s Catholic Primary Section5 Good 2008
Squirrels Day Nursery Section 49/50 Satisfactory 2011
Hazel Leys Nursery / Primary School Section 5 Satisfactory 2010
Rhymetime Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2011
ABC Day Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2011
Oakley Vale Primary School Section 5 Good 2010
Brats Day Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2010
Q Day Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2010
Danesholme Nursery / Infant School Section 5 2007 Outstanding
Corby Town
Our Lady of Walsingham Primary School Section 5 Satisfactory 2011
Gretton Primary School Section 5 Satisfactory 2009
Studfall Nursery & Infant School Section 5 Good 2008
Rockingham Primary School Section 5 Good 2008
Pen Green designated reach area
889 children, our primary focus
Foundation Degree
Kingswood Nursery Primary School Section 5 2011 Special Measures
Weldon Primary School Section 5 Good 2009
Weldon Pre School Section 49/50 Good 2011
Woodnewton Nursery / Learning Community Section 5 Good 2011
Pen Green Nursery Section 5 Outstanding 2009
Corby Old Village Primary School Section 5 Good 2007
Pen Green Historic
Reach Area
Little Learners Nursery 49/50
Outstanding 2011
Chirpy Chicks Pre School Section 5 Outstanding 2009
Exeter Little Rainbows Section 49/50 Good 2009
Exeter Primary School & Nursery Section 5 2009 Satisfactory
St Brendan’s Parish Playgroup Section 49/50 Good 2011
1st Class Nursery Section 5 Outstanding 2009
St Brendan's Catholic Primary School Section 5 Good 2011
Beanfield Primary School Section5 Satisfactory 2010
St Patrick’s Catholic Primary Section5 Good 2008
Squirrels Day Nursery Section 49/50 Satisfactory 2011
Hazel Leys Nursery / Primary School Section 5 Satisfactory 2010
Rhymetime Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2011
ABC Day Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2011
Oakley Vale Primary School Section 5 Good 2010
Brats Day Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2010
Q Day Nursery Section 49/50 Good 2010
Danesholme Nursery / Infant School Section 5 2007 Outstanding
Our Lady of Walsingham Primary School Section 5 Satisfactory 2011
Gretton Primary School Section 5 Satisfactory 2009
Studfall Nursery & Infant School Section 5 Good 2008
Rockingham Primary School Section 5 Good 2008
Pen Green designated reach area
889 children, our primary focus
Sarah Dempster MA 8
Maggie McKay MA 8 Home Start
Jo Benford MA 7 Crèche
Sheena Griffiths-Baker MA 7
Ellen Wallace MA 7
Flavia Ribeiro MA 7
Ju
lie
Me
dh
urs
t
MA
7
Sandra Mole MA 7
Lorna Macleod MA 7
Ro
b
Ha
rdc
ast
le
MA
7
Students undertaking / undertaken the MA in
Integrated Provision for Children and Families
Joanne Symm MA 7
Felicity Norton MA 6
Carla Hendry MA 6
Corby Town
Annette Cummings MA 3
Tracy Gallagher MA 3
Angela Prodger MA 4
www.pengreen.org
38 Corby Practitioners have attended under and post graduate courses
facilitated by Pen Green
The Local Picture - Corby
www.pengreen.org
The County picture
91 Practitioners within
Northamptonshire have
attended under
graduate and post
graduate degree
programmes at Pen
Green
www.pengreen.org
• 53 Settings have been
involved in the DfE funded
Being two project
• 48 Settings have been part
of the DfE funded Early
Years Teaching Centre's
Project
• 42 Settings have attended
Making Children’s Learning
Visible
• 499 Practitioners have
attended Parent’s Involved
in their Children’s Learning
A National Map illustrating the number of Early Years
Practitioners who have been involved in Pen Green CPD and
Project Work
www.pengreen.org
To date 542 practitioners have completed
post graduate and under graduate degree
programmes with Pen Green. A further 183
are currently studying on these programmes.
The National Picture
www.pengreen.org
Training and development work as a Teaching
School Alliance 2014 and in the future
• Complements LA training
• Supporting schools and ECEC settings, particularly
those in challenging circumstances
• Encourages collaboration and the development of
learning communities
• Developing outcomes focussed practice using
validated measures to demonstrate shift and
improvement in practice
www.pengreen.org
At a national level Pen Green has;
• Established a national network of Early Years
Teaching Centres run by outstanding children's
centres and nursery schools across the country: a
lasting legacy of sustainable EYTCs
• Developed and promoted different ways in which
outstanding centres can train and support staff in
other local early years settings: 200+ settings, 4000
ECEC staff individually trained
www.pengreen.org
Resulting in
• Improved outcomes for settings in reach area
• Improvements in parental engagement within
settings in reach
• Self sustaining CPD/training programmes
established in all Teaching Centres
• Leadership development across the reach area
• Business Plans for future developments beyond the
project
www.pengreen.org
What do Early Years Educators need to
sustain them in their challenging role?
A dedicated learning community in
which Early Years Educators can be
given the intellectual challenge and
emotional containment they need,
where best practice can be
sustained and disseminated.
www.pengreen.org
Individual
Staff
www.pengreen.org
Staff
Teams
www.pengreen.org
Parents
and
Carers
www.pengreen.org
The
children
www.pengreen.org
Tracer Study: The voices of their childhoods
www.pengreen.org
Dr Margy Whalley
Director of Pen Green Research Base
Telephone 01536 443435
Fax 01536 463960
Email [email protected]
Website www.pengreen.org
www.pengreen.org
Research evidence on: Keyworkers and
transitions
www.pengreen.org
TED HUGHES
A little at a time, of
each new thing is
best, too much too
sudden is too
frightening.
www.pengreen.org
• When transitions are handled effectively then there is
attunement (Stern 1985) to the child’s needs. Some of the following will be present:
• Synchrony (temporal attunement)
• Symmetry (matching of actions)
• Contingency (mutual cueing)
• Entrainment (the capturing of each others responses into a
sequence of mutual activity (Brazelton et al 1991)
Comment
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• Need for objects of transition
• Need for transitional objects
• Need to connect with one particular adult
• Need to connect with one particular child
• Need to focus on one particular activity
• Need for extended time/space
Children’s Issues
(from our observations)
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• Need for food/object to chew on or suck on
• Need for particular clothes
• Need to be in control
• Need to take on a ‘role’
• Need for a challenging learning experience
www.pengreen.org
Research evidence on the
adults pedagogical role
www.pengreen.org
Pedagogic Strategies
• Subtle intervention
• Knowledge of child’s embedded context and ability to recall child’s previous experience
• Affirmation of child through facial expression and physical closeness
• Encouraging child to make choice and decisions
• Adult supporting child to take appropriate risks
• Encouraging child to go beyond adult’s own knowledge base and accompany them into new experiences
• Adult has an awareness of the impact of their own attitudes and beliefs and how these might affect the child’s learning
• Adult demonstrates learning as a partnership. Adult is committed to their own learning and generates a spirit of enquiry
(Whalley & Arnold, 1997)
www.pengreen.org
A Differentiated Pedagogical Approach
to Support Children’s Well Being and
Sense of Agency
•The family worker offers support to
both parent and child at the time
of transfer:
•She/he makes sure that the child’s
‘voice’ is heard at these times
www.pengreen.org
The family worker needs to develop a range
of different ways of ‘containing’ and
‘holding’ the child emotionally: some
children may want to be physically held,
some children may want to become
immersed in a challenging and carefully
chosen learning experience, other children
may need the rocking horse, a story or to
play with another child, some children may
need the family worker just to stay close by.
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The family worker is as clear as possible about
boundaries and tries to help the child to
understand that the important adults in their
lives sometimes have different boundaries.
The family worker makes sure that the child’s
right to bring a transitional object into nursery
is supported and respected.
www.pengreen.org
The family worker helps the parent(s) to establish
an appropriate ‘goodbye’ and ‘letting go’ ritual.
www.pengreen.org
University College London: Dr Natasha Charlwood
Prof. Howard Steele
Pen Green: Dr Margy Whalley
Colette Tait
Research on applying the Adult Attachment
Interview to work with parents at the Pen
Green Centre
www.pengreen.org
Aims of the project
• Understand the link between parents own childhood experiences and their current parenting styles
• Use AAI in a non-clinical setting, within a very socially deprived community
• Deepen our understanding of resilience and emotional well being in pre-school children
www.pengreen.org
Changes in service delivery for
children and families
• Focused training in theoretical concepts for all early years staff
• Analytical Psychotherapist introduced into parent/baby/toddler Growing Together groups
• New group for anti natal and post-natal support and parent education - Developing Relationships.
• Focused training for parents on key concepts
• New parents groups on emotional literacy – Expressions
• Development of the Baby Nest provision
www.pengreen.org
Research on Parents as Language
Tutors
0-3 years
www.pengreen.org
60
Research to support Pen Green in Co-
constructing a Baby and Toddler Nest
www.pengreen.org
Baby and Toddler Drop-In
(opening October 2012)
Baby and Toddler
Drop in
Opened October
2012
www.pengreen.org
TheCouthie(openingOctober2012)
The Couthie Opened October
2012
www.pengreen.org
63
•To what degree does the Baby Nest support parents returning to
work? •To what degree does the Baby Nest ‘turn the curve’ on poverty?
•To what degree does the Baby Nest support parents to return to
training / work?
•To what degree does the Baby Nest support family life in the 21st Century?
•To what degree does the Baby Nest sustain and improve children’s
life chances?
•To what extent does Baby Nest support the youngest children when families are in crisis?
Policy Questions
www.pengreen.org
•What is appropriate in terms of a pedagogic space for infants?
•What kinds of provision best support infants’ and toddlers’ emotional
and cognitive development?*
•How can we best support infants’ transition into the Baby Nest?*
•How can we deepen our dialogue in order to plan more effectively?
•How can we best support and supervise staff? What is the degree to
which workers need differentiated models of supervision and support?
•What is the most effective training for staff working with infants?
•When there are difficulties how can we develop an approach where
staff can be both critical friend and supportive ally of parents?
•Without pathologising families how can we engage with families where
there are serious issues around parent / infant relationships in a
community based setting?
•How do we develop a service that supports women with Post Natal
Depression?
Practice Questions
www.pengreen.org
•How can we ensure that the Baby Nest is a sustaining environment and not a
stressful environment?
•What kind of curriculum provision encourages infants to be all that they can
be, and not underestimate them?*
•To what extent is it possible and appropriate for 0 – 2 year olds to be fully
integrated with the nursery children?
•To what extent is the Baby Nest linking with outside agencies in an informal
and supportive way? (eg, paediatrics, health visiting, speech therapy etc)
•How can we use theory to best inform our practice?
•To what extent should the Baby Nest provision replicate best practice in the
home?
•To what extent is the key worker role similar / different to the parenting role?
•How can we deepen our understanding of peer / peer relationships?
•How effectively are the children in the Baby Nest supported cognitively and
emotionally?
•To what degree is the Practitioner Researcher also a researcher intervention?
Tait 2005
Child Focussed Questions
www.pengreen.org
Research as a Catalyst for Change
Pen Green Centre History Existing Philosophy
Baby & Toddler Nest
Environment
Leaders
Children
Staff
Parents Researcher
Relationships
Actions – filming/observing
Processes – dialogue/attentiveness
Meaning Making
Using Frameworks for Analysis
Meaning Making
Using Frameworks for Analysis
Development/Improvement
Changes in thinking and practice in relation to specific incidents/ specific children
Changes in practice in general
www.pengreen.org
I would only work in the Baby and Toddler Nest if:
•Children, parents and staff are encouraged to be all that
they can be.
•I am part of a team who are dedicated and passionate about being with young children.
•We create an atmosphere where relaxation and fun are seen
as positive.
•We are reflective practitioners and we have time out for planning, support, training and development.
•We involve parents and truly listen to what they say their child
needs; engage in home visits and be available for daily chats.
•All the children are emotionally and socially supported and cognitively challenged.
Worker Values