Young children, and all those who work with young children are under tremendous pressure in today’s climate to hurry up. This drive to be hurried pushes educators to add more and more to their to-do list in the pursuit of getting children to be ‘school ready’ and ‘catch-up’.

Yet these pressures may drive attention away from the core values of early years education, which is not just about learning basic skills. It is so much more than that, for children are learning crucial personal, social and emotional skills and behaviours for learning which when done successfully, lay the groundwork for the rest of a child’s life.

At the very centre of this, is the relationship between child and educator. When adults prioritise slowing down to ‘be with’ children, to listen to them and follow their lead in the moment, they are far more likely to thrive than when adults are always busy and rushing onto the next thing with an agenda of what they must cover. It is about valuing depth of learning over and above shallow, repetitive learning activities. Children who are supported to dive deep will take their learning into many unexpected directions and the rewards that come from this are truly remarkable for us all. Once I made this mindset shift, my classroom became far happier and far less stressful as I dropped the endless to-do lists and discovered the many benefits that come from supporting children to learn by doing and thinking for themselves.

This can involve rethinking timetables to support longer uninterrupted time for play, reviewing the curriculum offer to maximise first-hand real experiences, planning for more open-ended learning activities and supporting educators to feel comfortable with the uncertainty that arises when we encourage children to take the lead.

For ideas and advice on how to ensure children and adults in your setting are diving deep into learning please get in touch.

Further reading on this can be found in Developing Learning in Early Childhood by Tina Bruce.