Education Central Future Focus Issue 2 2019

An NZME custom publication

Issue 2 | Thursday, 30 May 2019

Education Future Central Focus

The early years

ensuring the best start possible The importance of play

Developing selfcontrol in kids

Informs. Inspires. Educates. | educationcentral.co.nz/category/futurefocus

2 | Thursday, 30 May 2019

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Contents

Getting it right Starting school can be a fairly daunting process for both children and their parents.

Research shows that it’s important to get the transitions right as children progress through their education – and particularly the transition from early childhood education to school.

A great example of ‘getting it right’ can be found in the transition from Oranga Kindergarten to Te Papapa School in Auckland. Transition isn’t considered a single event, rather a process that involves the kindergarten and primary school teachers, the family, and of course the child.

With children leading their own learning and transition journeys, supported by their teachers and families as they gradually grow confident in their new surroundings, they generally can’t wait to start school.

In this special supplement, with its focus on the early years, we look at the importance of partnerships between home, school, early childhood education and the wider community. Check out the story on page 10 of a fledgling surf competition that demonstrates this collaboration beautifully.

Jude Barback, Editor

The next issue of EducationCentral FutureFocus will be published on 8 August 2019.

3: When is your child ready to start learning?

4: Smooth sailing from kindergarten to school

6: The crucial ‘soft skills’: the role of the early childhood sector

8: Building a strong bridge between home and school

9: How to choose a quality early learning centre for your child

10: Surf’s up: community support comes in waves

11: In defence of play: why imagination is key in early learning

12: Lifting the lid on lunchboxes

13: Why self-control is so important and how to develop it in kids

14: In defence of play: why imagination is key in early learning

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When is your child

ready to start learning?

Jaylan Boyle speaks to a Kiwi academic in Germany who says we need to recognise the importance of interaction and experience as the foundation of language and learning.

W

hen is your child ready to make the transition from play-based learning to school?

Parents of new-entrant-age children born in June or July are faced with choices: do you pack your child off to that first day of primary school when they’re four-and-a-half so that they’ll arrive with their preschool friends?

Or do you hold off until they turn five, risking some dissociation from their peer group and dropping them into school halfway through a year in which those peers have a head-start?

Or do you wait until the beginning of the next school year, possibly further exacerbating that dislocation, but also possibly allowing the child more time to mature into a formal learning setting?

The options open to parents are fraught with wider concerns that have been debated for years. How do we weigh the advantages to kids of things like a stable and familiar peer group, against more development time?

Australian study A recent Australian study from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) reveals some interesting trends that are broadly applicable in New Zealand.

Using data for more than 100,000 children, the study shows that in New South Wales the parents of more than one in four new-entrant-aged children choose to delay entry until the year their child turns six. Affluent parents are more likely to delay entry, illustrating the fact that the debate goes way beyond pure pedagogy and enters into a broader conversation on social equity – there may be a financial cost to holding off on school entry that limits the decision-making of the less well-off.

The study, led by Dr Kathleen Falster, also found that there is a strong connection between the age that children start school and their measured developmental skills in that first year of school.

“When we compared their developmental data, there was a clear trend”, says Falster. “Outcomes improved with each additional month of age.

“Month-on-month these differences are quite small; however, accumulated over a full year, they add up, and unsurprisingly there is a large developmental gap

between four-and-a -half-year-olds and six-year-olds.”

‘Development’ in the context of the study has been quantified using the Australian Early Development Census, which comprises more than 100 data points across five domains: physical health and wellbeing; social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive skills; and communication skills and general knowledge. Teachers in New South Wales complete this assessment in the second term of a child’s first full year at school.

Like the vast majority of other similar studies, the UNSW researchers caution against taking the data presented as any kind of policy advocacy, and emphasise that more study needs to be undertaken.

Big questions Kiwi academic Dr Sebastian Suggate of Germany’s University of Regensburg has devoted a large part of his research career to examining the impacts of formal literacy learning at different ages. His doctoral research, published in 2009 while he was working at the University of Otago, made it onto the university’s list of distinguished theses at the time.

The question Suggate sought to answer was: is there any appreciable long-term academic advantage to be seen in children who are exposed to formal literacy learning at an earlier age? The research, which included both domestic and international studies, compared two groups of children: one group from a Rudolph Steiner background – who usually begin learning literacy from age seven – and another from a mainstream state school background.

And the result? By age 11, there was no difference in reading ability between the group that had begun formal learning at age five and those who didn’t start reading until age seven.

Suggate has since conducted other studies in New Zealand and abroad into the same questions and come up with the same result, as have other researchers in the field.

For policy makers, education theorists, teachers and parents, these results raise some interesting questions. Is there something other than formal learning that kids should be doing when they’re

five that could help them make the most of their potential? And should they be doing whatever that might be at school or at home?

Suggate is quick to point out that the nature of his academic discipline makes designing robust studies difficult, and resistant to absolute conclusions.

Firstly, he says, we need to be careful about separating conversations around methods that are used to teach, and children’s readiness to accept them.

“If you look at [that first year of schooling] in New Zealand it’s a far more constructivist approach – lots more small group work for example. Whereas if you look at the first year here in Germany, they’re a year and a half older, but they’re learning in what we might call a more formalised way. It really depends on what you do with the children.

“A focus on rich, interesting language learning benefits all children. Not necessarily through reading, because the foundation of reading is language, and the foundation of language is real and genuine experiences with the world.

“Internalised sensory experiences – with objects, with nature, being outdoors – become the foundation of thought, and of language. If you’ve got that great foundation, you’ve then got the foundation for literacy.”

How’s New Zealand doing?

So how does Suggate rate New Zealand’s success in giving our kids this most important of foundations?

“It depends. If the goal is reaching certain literacy goals at certain levels of childhood ... then by and large they do meet these standards, with the exception of a small but significant percentage.

“But if you want to look at what is of long-term benefit to children, that’s a far harder question to answer. I personally think there could be fewer standards to meet earlier on, and more of a focus on interaction with the world.”

“No study has proven that children who are exposed to abstract reading instruction methods at five or even six years old have an advantage over children who start a bit later… so if you think about the time that goes into that, the question that has to be asked I think is, is that a waste of those precious formative years?”

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“Transition isn’t one moment in time; it’s a timeline of processes about communication.”

Smooth sailing

from kindergarten to school Emerging research led by Auckland Kindergarten Association teachers confirms just how important it is to get the transition to school right – and what an effective transition process looks like.

T

wins Nathaniel and Aurora haven’t been at school long, but they love it. Thanks to a smooth transition from kindergarten, the fiveyear-olds have settled in well to school life at Te Papapa School in Auckland.

Like many parents, their mum Sibylle Heta was a little nervous about her children starting school.

The twins were so happy and settled at Oranga Kindergarten that she wasn’t sure how the transition to school would go, especially for Nathaniel.

“I was a little bit worried about my son because he is very clingy – a real mummy’s boy. He’s not very social and I thought ‘he’s going to have problems’, but to my surprise he actually loved it,” says Heta.

Heta puts the twins’ successful move to school down to the kindergarten’s excellent approach to transition.

“Oranga Kindergarten did a great job with the transition to school, with school visits, getting to know the teachers, special learning sessions in little groups, and supporting and encouraging my kids in any way they could, which made their school start so easy.”

Head teacher at Oranga Kindergarten Kylie Bernie says involving the whole family is key to a successful transition from kindergarten to school. She also stresses that transition is not a single event but a process.

“Transition isn’t one moment in time; it’s a timeline of processes about communication,” says Bernie.

“It’s about getting everyone’s voices in it and taking it slow and looking and reflecting back on what things worked and what things didn’t. That takes time but it’s worth pursuing and following up so that we can make improvements constantly.”

Bernie and other Auckland Kindergarten Association teachers are pleased to see that their holistic and inclusive approach to transition is now supported by the latest research.

In conjunction with the University of Auckland’s Woolf Fisher Research Centre, teachers from Oranga Kindergarten and Greenhithe Kindergarten have

carried out a two-year research project funded by the Teacher-led Innovation Fund through the Ministry of Education. The research aimed to understand the challenges and benefits of transition to school programmes from all perspectives, including the kindergarten teachers, the primary teachers, the parents, and of course, the child.

Bernie says the most important thing she has gleaned from the research is the importance of fostering positive and proactive relationships between parents and primary school teachers and the children.

“The findings confirm that we need to keep having our robust conversations over an extended timeline,” says Bernie. “So not just before a child goes to school – it is the six months before a child goes to school as well as the six months after. Once a child leaves us, that shouldn’t be the end of it; we should still be communicating with the teacher: how did the transition go? How’s that child progressing? Then we can take that information and look at how we can further develop our processes with our existing kindergarten children.”

An important part of these processes involves the children’s input into their own learning and transition journey.

“So they’re really having an active role in their own learning leading up to school because it’s not about what we teach children, it’s how they’re empowered to learn themselves,” says Bernie.

She emphasises that the focus is on building social and emotional skills at this stage.

“It’s more about encouraging the children’s social competencies so that they can listen, take turns, hear another person’s viewpoint – all those things are so much more important than ‘sit down and write your name’,” she says.

“Before they go to school we have a little meeting with the child and they tell us what they would like the teacher and the school to know about them. The parents also get a chance to share that with teachers as well.”

Bernie says involving the parents right from the outset is important. This is echoed by Auckland Kindergarten Association, which puts whānau at the heart of everything it does, encouraging families to be active participants and contributors in their children’s learning journeys.

And thanks to the strong relationships built with local primary schools, this inclusive and holistic approach continues as the children progress to school.

Te Papapa School is a great example of this with its Little Learners programme, which is designed to help children transition from early childhood education to school by involving the whole family over six to eight weeks. The first few weeks are more about play with time in the classroom introduced very gradually.

“Oranga Kindergarten was the first kindy I worked with on the Little Learners idea,” says Te Papapa’s associate principal and head of transition, Jan Scoulding. “They were super keen and happy to trial the idea with me.”

Scoulding is impressed with the kindergarten’s sustained commitment to the transition process, accompanying children to the Little Learners sessions, supporting whānau, and visiting the children once they’ve started school.

“I feel privileged to be able to work alongside the teachers at Oranga Kindergarten. They know what good transition looks like and are committed to that,” she says.

“Having a strong relationship with the setting that students are transitioning into school from is so important. It helps everyone involved to feel connected and provides a warm blanket of love and support as families move from the familiar to the unfamiliar.”

As a result, there are never any first-day tears from children starting school at Te Papapa.

“I can honestly say that we never have any tears from any children who start school in Little Learners,” says Jan. “We get tears from parents because it’s an emotional day but we never get any tears from the children. I think that tells us that it is successful.”

SPARK THEIR IMAGINATION With 107 kindergartens and 5 free playgroups Auckland wide, we offer: • • • •

20 hours FREE ECE care for all tamariki 2-5 years old Fully qualified teachers Wonderful spaces to play and explore Excellent transition to school

SPACES AVAILABLE NOW across our kindergartens, to enrol at your local: call 0800 4 KINDY or visit https://www.aka.org.nz/

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The crucial ‘soft skills’: the role of the early childhood sector

“

Share everything… Play fair… Don't hit people…

Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody…”

American author Robert Fulghum’s 1988 book All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten was a slim volume, but it resonated with people.

Fulghum’s list of 16 rules, which forms the bestseller book’s title essay, sets out everything supposedly needed for a peaceful world. It spawned a million bumper stickers and even earned the ultimate, if backhanded, accolade: its own parody on The Simpsons.

Three decades on, it can be argued that kindergarten and other early childhood education (ECE) centres have never been more important for building social connections and teaching the life skills needed for success in later education, careers and relationships with others in general.

21st century skills Tertiary education and business sectors have long talked about the importance of so-called ‘soft skills’, such as collaboration, communication and resilience in the workplace. Schools, too, now have a significant focus on these attributes, also known as ‘21st century skills’.

The aim is to create lifelong learners with strong personal attributes that give them social intelligence, and the ability to problem solve and interact effectively with others.

Extensive research has shown that it’s important to gain these skills even before school. But what’s not always recognised is that early childhood educators have actually been teaching them for a long time.

“ECE has a secret,” says ChildForum CEO and senior education researcher Dr Sarah Alexander. “It has always been well ahead on the schooling sector in giving children opportunities to develop and practise soft skills along with core competencies to thrive in today’s world.”

“While the schooling sector talks about preparing children for the 21st century and has lots of debates about the curriculum, the early childhood sector quite simply just does it.”

Nelson kindergarten head teacher Virginia Oakly, who is also the NZEI early childhood representative, agrees.

“Are ECEs teaching 21st century skills? I would say absolutely we are, but I would also say we were teaching them in the 20th century as well as the 21st.”

Kindergarten teachers often talk about these skills as base skills, or tool skills, she adds.

“We are building the skills that children need, so when they go into the schooling system they are able to learn.

“A huge part of what we are doing is around communication, collaboration, thinking and getting them to know that they can learn, developing empathy, learning how to play with other children, learning how to sit on the mat, how to work alongside with other children, to be able to listen, and to even know that they are capable of learning.

“That is our work, basically!”

Soft skills = learning dispositions Soft skills are called learning dispositions within the ECE sector, says Binky Laureta, programme leader for the Graduate Diploma in Teaching at ECE level, at the New Zealand Tertiary College (NZTC).

“If the connection is made that soft skills and learning dispositions are the same, then it will be given the attention it deserves in the sector.”

Soft skills are effectively “employability skills”, she adds. As a result, higher education, business and the government should also take notice, she says, “of what we have already achieved in the field for decades”.

The development of New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki in the early nineties, and its official publication in 1996, then formalised the approach.

This means soft skills are now embedded in the ECE curriculum, says Laureta.

ECE services are required to support children to develop the learning dispositions of courage and curiosity, trust and playfulness, perseverance, confidence and responsibility.

Since the curriculum was revised in 2017, four more dispositions have been added: reciprocity, creativity, imagination and resilience.

The curriculum also includes five primary goals: wellbeing, belonging, contribution, communication and exploration.

All of these skills are interlinked, says Oakly, and tamariki who don’t have those skills in place will struggle to learn at primary school.

“It’s really hard for them; they’re on the back foot before they even begin at school to learn reading and writing.

“We have to do what we can to get that right, at this age, so that they can go on to the next step of their learning journey and have success.”

These sorts of skills are “vital and critical” and can often determine success later in life, she says.

“More often than not, the adults who don’t have these skills in place are the ones who struggle to hold down a job; they’re more likely to take a wrong step.

“You can see the ability to self-regulate, to hold ourselves back, to think first and speak later, the ability to get on with your work colleagues – that sort of stuff is so, so important.”

‘Soft skills and early childhood education: Strange bedfellows or an ideal match?’ by Binky Laureta is available in the NZTC’s online journal He Kupu. www.hekupu.ac.nz/article/soft-skills-and-early-childhoodeducation-strange-bedfellows-or-ideal-match

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The important social and emotional skills needed later in life have their grounding in early childhood education.

By Rachel Helyer Donaldson.

How do ECEs teach 21st century skills to under-fives?

Learning dispositions, or ‘soft skills’ are acquired when children play, says ECE teacher educator Binky Laureta.

“Children learn socially acceptable ways of behaving when they have to wait for their turn, when they share resources or when they say please and thank you… They learn it in a natural way, as part of their daily experience, when they interact with the people, places, things and activities or events in the service.”

This is a really effective way of teaching the under-fives, she adds. “It’s happening within their context and so it is relevant to them and much more meaningful.”

Tamariki need to be able to get along with other children, work alongside them and have empathy for others, adds kindergarten head teacher Virginia Oakly.

“A lot of it is around communication and role modelling: we might talk to a child and say, ‘I can see you’re playing like a friend’. We might talk about playing like friends: you don’t have to be friends with someone but we have an expectation that you will play like a friend.

Teachers talk about using ‘gentle hands’, praise children’s efforts to be socially aware, and acknowledge feelings, she adds.

“You could give the child the words to use, such as, ‘maybe you could say, can I have a turn when you’re finished?’ or, if their language is still developing, ‘maybe you could say, turn please’.”

ECE teachers do a lot of coaching and the approach they use always depends on the situation and the children involved, she says.

“It’s giving them the words and the tools, working alongside them, role modelling, acknowledging other children who have said the right things, so that maybe the children who are still learning can hear that and know perhaps that’s a good approach.”

Social competence a vital tool Research shows that a preschooler’s social skills play a big part in determining their success in later life.

An extensive 2015 American study, The Relationship Between Kindergarten Social Competence and Future Wellness, followed 753 kindergarten students over two decades.

Researchers found that those “who exhibited traits such as being more likely to share, cooperate, or be helpful with other kids were also more likely to be successful as young adults”.

“For many students, it is the EOTC activities that they will remember for years to come.”

In contrast, “students who exhibited weaker social competency skills were more likely to drop out of high school, abuse drugs and alcohol, and need greater government assistance”.

In New Zealand, the world-renowned Dunedin Longitudinal Study found that self-control can make a huge difference in almost every measure of success. Self-control includes thinking before you speak, resisting temptations, and resisting ‘tit for tat’ measures – hurting someone because they hurt you.

The study, which tracks just over 1,000 people born in the city in 1972 and 1973, found that participants who displayed low levels of self-control during childhood presented with a raft of physical problems later on in life. These included obesity, heart disease and addictions to tobacco, alcohol or drugs.

“It’s just such an important skill for the 21st century; you need to be able to keep emotions in check and deal with the task at hand. This is something that can be taught, but is best introduced at an early age,” said study head Professor Richie Poulton in a 2016 interview.

“You can start to see the difference in children around the age of three; those who need a boost in self-control will be fidgety, easily distracted and find it hard to concentrate.”

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Building a strong bridge between

home and school

Fostering strong relationships between home and school are vital in early childhood education. Rebekah Fraser speaks to educators leading the way in encouraging families to feel part of their children’s learning journeys.

W

hen only three families turned up to an event at Papakura’s Community Kindy Marne Road, teachers’ hearts broke.

Centre manager Katrina Hunter says the evening, designed to allow families to share their aspirations for their children, was a flop.

“We were so disheartened. But building a strong relationship is really important to us, and we knew we had to continue focusing on it.”

The kindergarten tried again, this time offering supper to everyone who attended.

“We had a 100 per cent turn-out. So for other early childhood services giving this a go, don’t be discouraged, just get to know your community and try again.”

Hunter says the kindergarten strives to create a “continual link” between home and school. “Once you break down those barriers, you’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.”

She says the more a family is involved, the more a love of education is reflected back into the home.

“Parents are interested and contributing and we understand the funds of knowledge that those children bring with them.”

The kindergarten now holds portfolio evenings twice a year, inviting parents and whānau to share their aspirations. It also uses the online education tool Storypark, where teachers upload photos and stories.

Parents can only access information about their own children and can invite extended family to join in too.

“We have a Chinese family that are relatively new to New Zealand. They’ve invited their whānau back in China to the website and it allows them to still be a part of their life.”

The kindergarten has found Storypark is invaluable for parents who are not involved daily with their children. “For our single parents who can’t be there physically, this allows them to feel like they are a part

of what is happening, and they can see that their child is happy and well cared for.”

The website is non-invasive, allowing families to take part in their own time.

“Once a parent gains some confidence, they can contribute. We’re not putting them on the spot during pick-up or drop-off.”

Reciprocal relationships Big River Educare in Balclutha also uses Storypark to build relationships with families. Teacher Philippa Geary says family members often write stories or share videos about what happens at home.

“We even have an aunt who lives in Poland who comments and adds to stories frequently.”

Geary says it is important to foster reciprocal relationships between home and school. “These conversations are vital. They allow both parents and the centre to know about the child’s wellbeing, to see them holistically, to learn more about what they bring with them.”

Having families involved in learning also ensured children saw the value of learning, she says. “It shows the children that they care. They know their child best and we need guidance from them too.”

She says strong relationships help to build a strong sense of belonging. “Parents need to be involved. They need to feel safe and comfortable, so their children can too.”

Strengthening ties Paikea Kindergarten in Whangara, north of Gisborne, uses a range of tools to involve families.

Head teacher Rowena Chaffey says whānau are invited to share long-term aspirations. Individual learning goals, often co-constructed with the children themselves, are also shared.

“The implementation of these is often a shared process. We’ve had a child whose plan was to ‘learn more about growing things’ and they brought in seeds to plant from home. Another child wanted to learn how to make pasta, and their mum came in and made it with us.”

The neighbouring school, community, and the land are also “vital elements” to the kindergarten.

“We are continually looking for ways in which we can strengthen these ties and keep us connected. For us, engagements and relationships are not limited to who we are, they are also about where we are.”

Regular excursions, supported by families, provide a “fantastic opportunity” for engaging whānau, says Chaffey.

“Sharing more about ourselves, and them with us, allows us to get to know whānau and tamariki in a new way. These excursions are opportunities to share the stories we tell of Whangara and place them into context for our tamariki.”

She says sometimes this is new information for families and becomes an opportunity to share local taonga. “And sometimes we have opportunities to learn from whānau who share with us their own stories.”

The kindergarten places relationships at the centre of its teaching philosophy.

“Whānau are trusting us with their taonga and we view whānau as the first and most important teachers of their children. Tamariki come to us already with gifts: talents and skills perhaps inherited and certainly enhanced by their whānau.”

Chaffey says establishing strong relationships between home and school are hugely beneficial for children.

“The more knowledge we have, the more power we have to work together to provide the best environment.”

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How to choose

a quality early learning centre for your child

F

ortunately, research shows that children benefit from quality, loving, stimulating and supportive early childhood centres.

Although there are many different types of centres, all share the same world-renowned education curriculum Te Whāriki, and are licensed by the Ministry of Education.

The benefits of early learning centres We know that a quality childhood education can have a great effect on children’s social skills, communication and language, which can give them a head start when beginning school. Research shows these skills can also set them up for academic success later in their adult lives.

Centres provide a wide range of experiences that extend children’s abilities, giving them opportunities for physical, mental and emotional growth. All qualified teachers have early childhood degrees or diplomas. Teachers use language, games, music, reading and other activities to promote children’s natural curiosity and stimulate learning.

The skills that older children learn at early learning centres enable them to start school feeling confident and ready for the next part of their learning journey.

Choosing an early learning centre Firstly, we recommend you shop around. Jump online – what’s in your community? There are many different early learning centres, including private centres, kindergartens, Montessori and more.

Differences include size – some centres have over 100 children in them, others are small with around 30 children – some are open for long hours, accept children at different ages, have waiting lists, or are ‘sessional’, meaning they only operate for limited times each day.

Find out their differences, locations, and try to match them up with your child’s personality and your needs.

Think about location – do you need a centre close to home or close to work?

There are many types of financial support for you to check out too; find out what suits you. WINZ can help subsidise (conditions apply) and most centres offer 20 hours free from three years of age – others have more offers but again, every centre is different.

Get personal recommendations from other parents.

Can they recommend the centre their child goes to?

We recommend if you’re interested in a centre that you request a copy of their last ERO (Education Review Office) report, which will provide you with a professional insight.

Draw up a shortlist of centres you prefer. Visit them with your child by setting up a planned visit or simply drop in. The benefit to setting up a visit is centre staff will be expecting you so will be available to talk with you, show you around and answer any questions you may have.

Take time to absorb the feeling of the centre. Are staff interacting respectfully and engaged with children in the centre? Are there good play resources available?

Are children fully engaged at the centre?

Talk to the staff about what you want for your child, any concerns you have, and listen to their responses.

Thursday, 30 May 2019 | 9

Choosing an early childhood education centre is a big decision, and as new parents you might have many questions about it.

By Michela Homer, BestStart Regional Education Leader.

Ask them how they will help develop your child’s social skills and help them feel they belong here. Ask them how they will regularly communicate with your family about your child’s wellbeing and learning journey.

Every centre should be responsive and inclusive of our diverse New Zealand culture. Can you see your culture reflected here, is this a place you would feel welcome and a part of?

Learning and teaching through play Lastly, a word on the value of early childhood education teachers and centres. The terms 'Daycare' or 'Childcare' can be misleading. Although it can look like it, children in centres are not simply playing, they are experiencing a vast amount of learning!

Some experts would argue that early childhood is the most important period for your child to learn, but there’s still a lingering perception that the real learning starts at school. Research tells us that from 0–7 years, children’s brains are hard-wired to learn through play, and the foundations for children’s lives are largely built in this vital preschool period.

Finally, quality early childhood teachers are amazing.

Teachers prompt, ask open-ended questions, follow children’s interests and extend their understanding of the world around them by encouraging them to fully engage in experiences that promote learning.

They’ll work closely with you to give you and your child confidence in their first years’ learning journey.

BestStart Educare has been operating for over 22 years and is New Zealand’s largest, trusted early childhood education provider. Find a centre near you by calling 0508BESTSTART or visit www.best-start.org.

10 | Thursday, 30 May 2019

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Surf’s up:

community support comes in waves A small-scale inter-school surfing competition in the Bay of Plenty has demonstrated the importance of involving the local community in school events.

Jude Barback explains.

I

t’s hard to strike a bad day at Papamoa Beach, but surf conditions were particularly first-rate on Friday 3 May for an inaugural inter-school surfing competition supported by the local community.

Against a backdrop of sunshine, music and enthusiastic spectator support, 12 students from Tahatai Coast School and Arataki School took to the water to put their surfing skills to the test. Thanks to local community sponsors Future Focus Early Years Education, surf and lifestyle business NOXEN, and Diffuse Screenprinting NZ, the kids wore rash shirts specially designed for the event.

The competition, judged by Jack Oades from ANZ, was won by Year 3 Tahatai student Taj Aitchison.

Event coordinator Andre Jay, a team leader at Tahatai, was delighted with the success of the event.

Jay, along with deputy principal Darren Scott, has been instrumental in getting a surf club up and running at Tahatai.

One lunchtime a week through terms 1 and 4, students from Years 3 to 6 walk the one block from school to the beach to surf together. With the help of the PTA, Tahatai purchased a number of surfboards and wetsuits to ensure students wouldn’t miss out.

“It’s evolved from just six kids to 60–70 students,” Jay says of the surf club. “A lot of it is around understanding the surf and what the conditions look like, and it’s also about getting up on the board and having some fun with it.”

With the school surf club now taking a break until term 4, Jay saw the surfing competition both as an opportunity for some of the kids to showcase their progress and a great way to wrap up the surf season.

However, the most rewarding aspect for Jay was collaborating with another school and local businesses.

Giving back Todd Hilleard, owner of NOXEN, one of the community sponsors, agrees the best part about the event was seeing how everyone came together for the kids.

“The genuine want to make this day special for the kids was awesome.”

Hilleard sees NOXEN as a vessel to give back to the community. He references the donations NOXEN makes to Lifeline.

“These kids may need that resource one day, so showing the community what we do and being involved in what we can was great!” says Hilleard.

Ray Everest, who founded Future Focus Early Years Education in Papamoa with wife Courtney, agrees it is so important for schools to collaborate with their wider community.

“Access to opportunities is vital to a person’s health and wellbeing,” says Everest. “Both Courtney and I are extremely grateful for our opportunities in life thus far, so it was natural to us that we want to enable opportunities for our local community.

“Providing access is critical to the development of our young people’s ability to positively engage with our community and reap the rewards of forming new relationships and understandings.

“This will not be our last venture of support,” says Everest.

Plans are already afoot for the next comp in term 4. Jay is keen to build on the success “Access to of the event by getting more opportunities is vital schools involved and more kids competing, as well to a person’s health as continuing to nurture and wellbeing.” the connection between the schools and their local community.

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In defence of play:

why imagination is key in early learning Early childhood education researcher Kelly Warren says the emphasis needs to change from focusing on young children acquiring formal learning behaviours to fostering social and emotional skills.

“Pushing threeto seven-year-olds towards early reading, writing or maths will not improve their long-term chances of success.”

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s parents, we will do absolutely anything to protect and prepare our children for life. There is a sense of pressure and responsibility when it comes to our children’s success and it is our primal instinct to equip them with as many resources as possible to ensure success.

In helping our children become literate, we often hear parents leaning towards the idea that teaching their children to read and write before they start school will ensure academic success. This is something we have heard for years, but as an early childhood educator and mother I can assure you we have this wrong.

For most children, reading and writing are formal learning behaviours that are best left until the age of seven.

This is backed by longitudinal studies and research on brain development which shows the frontal cortex, which is associated with numeracy and literacy, is not something we move into until the age of seven.

Nathan Mikaere-Wallis, researcher and educator, recently stated: “Pushing three- to seven-year-olds towards early reading, writing or maths will not improve their long-term chances of success. Instead, it’s far more important to foster positive social and emotional skills.”

Children need down time In a world driven by technology and speed, it is more important than ever before that we start supporting our children’s need for down time. Giving them opportunities to be bored, for just ‘being’, and simply playing.

It is silly to think that we have to defend our children’s right to play (real play, not activities directed by adults), but here I am defending it again, even though it’s backed up by current

developmental theory and research.

So, the question remains. How can I give my child the best head start at school? It is all about fostering imagination and providing our children with opportunities to develop it for themselves when they are very young.

As parents and educators, we can take some steps to inspire our children’s imagination and creativity: 1. Spend time outdoors engaging with nature.

2. Allow lots and lots of time for unstructured/undirected play.

3. Encourage art activities that nurture your child’s creative expression (rather than following prescriptions and conforming).

4. Ask open-ended and thought-provoking questions: “What do you think would happen if...?”

5. Engage in verbal activities – riddles, rhymes, silly games, “I spy”.

6. Tell stories to your child – get them to tell you stories!

7. Limit screen time.

8. Give them basic tools to play with – simple household items and generic materials (forget the fancy plastic toys and keep it simple and open-ended). The more passive the item, the more creative your child can be.

9. Allow for plenty of down time – time to be BORED! 10. Give your child the freedom to explore the world around them. Provide opportunities for them to actively use their senses as part of their exploration of the world. This is as simple as playing in a pile of wet leaves, smelling a flower, feeling a pile of cut grass, and listening for dogs barking.

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Lifting the lid on lunchboxes School lunchboxes are often seen as the basis of good nutrition for our children.

However, as Rebekah Fraser discovered, a holistic approach to healthy eating can have more of an impact on our next generation.

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ith the school year well underway, the routine of packing lunchboxes will be starting to pall for parents. While schools and health professionals regularly advocate for healthy lunchboxes, Healthy Food Guide nutritionist Claire Turnbull says lunchboxes are often a source of stress for parents.

“As parents, it's easy to feel like we’re not doing enough, or we’re always being criticised.”

She says while it is important to aim for a healthy lunchbox, parents should also look at the bigger picture. “It’s about balance over time. Look at what they’re eating over the whole week, not just at school.”

She suggests parents go “back to the basics”, picking food that is as unprocessed as possible.

“The perception of normal is based on what food manufacturers make available. We need to get back to what is it that our bodies require and go from there. The way that children eat now, they learn that as the ‘normal’.”

Turnbull says sugary drinks are not needed. “They are sold to make money, not because they benefit our nutrition.”

Water should be the “line in the sand”, she says.

“Social pressure has a huge influence on what children eat and what they want to eat. Water-only makes it very easy for children to decide and to make the right choice.”

Unprocessed foods best Sport Waikato chief executive Matthew Cooper says unprocessed foods are the best choices for lunchboxes.

“Packaged and processed foods are often high in sugar and/or fat. These two things can have a big impact on behaviour and energy levels.”

He says any healthy change is a good change, and suggests schools look at milk and water-only policies as a place to start.

“Small changes can have a big impact on health and wellbeing for our tamariki, whānau and communities. Being active with friends and whānau is enjoyable and can positively impact on social, emotional and mental wellbeing, as well as physical.”

New River Primary School recognised it needed to make a change around healthy eating and physical activity.

Teacher Gina Larson-White says healthy eating is essential for students to “achieve their full academic potential,” physical and mental growth, and lifelong health and wellbeing.

“We wanted to create a healthy eating environment by enabling students to possess the knowledge and skills necessary to make nutritious and enjoyable food choices for a lifetime, and for the staff to model healthy eating as a valuable part of daily life.”

The school is part of Fruit in Schools programme, which provides a piece of fruit to each student every day.

It is also a ‘Koha Kai School’ with hot lunches cooked onsite three days a week. The meals are only $2 and follow Heart Foundation recipe guidelines. A breakfast programme is also run at the school, and the school has sandwiches available every day for children without lunch.

“This ensures our tamariki can access healthy meals regardless of their social or financial circumstances.”

The school is also water or milk-only, and has a large school garden cared for by students.

Lunchbox promotion week An annual healthy lunchbox promotion encourages families to explore and include healthier options.

“At the end of our lunchbox promotion week we have an end-of-term celebration lunch, where families are invited in to share healthy kai. We also run termly healthy lunchbox workshops for whānau from Yvette at the Heart Foundation.”

The school also piloted a toothbrushing programme in 2014 that continues today.

“All students brush their teeth daily at school. This has been shown to improve the overall oral health of our tamariki and reduced our plaque scores.”

Heart Foundation national nutrition advisor Lily Henderson says children need a variety of healthy foods to learn and grow.

“Try packing lunchboxes with plenty of whole foods that are close to how they’re found in nature like vegetables, fruit, legumes, whole grains, lean meats, fish, dairy, nuts and seeds.”

Turnbull says parents shouldn’t assume food is returned home because their child doesn’t like it.

“It might have been impractical for them to eat; they may have been more interested in playing. There’s lots of reasons food doesn’t get eaten.”

“Small changes can have a big impact on health and wellbeing for our tamariki, whānau and communities.”

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Why self-control is so important and how to develop it in kids We know that children who exhibit self-control in early childhood are destined for better outcomes later in life. However, the good news is that self-control skills can be developed. Jude Barback looks at the research and interventions that could make a big difference.

The ground-breaking Dunedin Study findings The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, widely known as the Dunedin Study, is a longitudinal study tracking the lives of more than 1,000 people born in Dunedin between 1972 and 1973. It has revealed many fascinating things about the things we do in early childhood that can have impacts on our adult lives.

One of these findings was around self-regulation.

The researchers found that young children’s self-control skills – such as conscientiousness, self-discipline and perseverance – predict their health, wealth and criminal history in later life, regardless of IQ or social background.

The researchers assessed the self-control of the participants at three years of age, and then examined their health outcomes, wealth outcomes and criminal conviction history at age 32.

Their findings suggested that even small improvements in self-control for children and adolescents could yield important reductions in costs of healthcare, welfare dependency, and crime to a nation.

Even after accounting for study members’ differences in social status and IQ, children who scored lower on measures of self-control were more likely than children with higher self-control to have physical health problems, substance dependence, difficulty with financial planning and a criminal conviction record in adulthood.

Interestingly, children whose self-control increased with age tended to have better adult outcomes than initially predicted, showing that self-control can change and with desirable results.

Can self-control be learned?

Of course, researchers have been preoccupied with the benefits of developing self-regulation for many years. A review of 102 studies found that two approaches most commonly used to promote self-regulation, either alone or in combination, were teaching caregivers how to coregulate, and providing children with age-appropriate skills instruction.

The Dunedin Study findings added to the importance of developing self-regulation in young children and prompted Dr Dione Healey from the University of Otago to investigate the subject further.

“Self-regulation is essential for school readiness and success as you need to be able to sit still, not blurt out answers, persist with tasks, manage frustrations, and give and take in social relationships,” says Healey.

“We also know that early self-regulatory skills are predictive of adult outcomes,” she adds, citing the Dunedin Study.

“Therefore if we can find ways to improve selfregulation in preschoolers we can alter the life course trajectory for many individuals”.

Healey noted that while the number of preschoolers with behavioural difficulties (including hyperactivity, inattention, and aggression) is on the rise, current treatments, including medication, have their limitations and are not effective for all children.

She acknowledged the effectiveness of the reputable Positive Parenting Programme (Triple P) which works to improve self-regulation by providing clear and logical consequences to guide behaviour, and uses techniques such as quiet time and time out to allow children space to self-soothe.

‘ENGAGE’ alternative Healey’s study, published in Scientific Reports, trialled an alternative intervention based on structured play.

Enhancing Neurobehavioural Gains with the Aid of Games and Exercise (ENGAGE), was found to be equally effective in managing children with difficult behaviour and complemented current treatment options.

Children learn self-regulation through play. In structured games they need to wait their turn, plan their next move, focus on the ball, and manage frustration when things don’t go their way, Healey says.

ENGAGE involves parents playing a range of common games with their children in a structured way, for 30 minutes a day. Games can include puzzles, musical statues, hop scotch, blocks and skip rope.

Sixty families with children aged three to four took part in the study and were randomly assigned to undergo the Triple P or ENGAGE intervention over eight weeks, with a follow-up after 12 months.

Overall, ENGAGE was found to be as effective in improving children’s behaviour as Triple P. Reductions in hyperactivity, inattention and aggression, to within the typical range for their age, was evident post-intervention, and maintained for 12 months afterwards, according to parent reports.

“Our results indicate that parents spending regular one-on-one time playing with their young children has the same positive effect on children’s behaviour as using behaviour-management techniques, which have a long history of being effective in managing child behaviour.

“With ENGAGE, we now have an additional treatment option for young, at-risk children that is enjoyable, low

cost, easily accessible, and associated with long-term maintenance of treatment gains. It’s good to have a choice of equally effective options as what works well for one family may not work as well for another,” says Healey.

An example of the programme in action is a game participants played called ‘Animal Speeds’. Children would engage in various activities – such as dancing or moving around the room – at various speeds based on what animal name was called out. Cheetah mode was fast, giraffe mode was moderate speed, and tortoise mode was really slow.

“Then when they are out and about as a family, parents were able to just say ‘tortoise mode’ when they wanted their child to slow down. They found this worked really well and helped manage their child’s behaviour very effectively, whereas in the past they were constantly telling their child to slow down with no success.”

A large trial of ENGAGE has just been run in early childhood settings in Auckland, in conjunction with Dunedin’s Methodist Mission, along with a home-based care trial in partnership with Pioneers in Dunedin.

“Results of these studies are still being worked through, but anecdotal feedback has been very positive and led to significant improvements not only in children’s behaviour, but also in the practice of those teachers involved.”

Red Light, Purple Light Wayne and Chloe Wright, of the Wright Family Foundation, which owns New Zealand’s BestStart early childhood centres, also took a keen interest in the Dunedin Study’s findings on self-regulation.

Realising the significant implications for children’s future outcomes if they could help children develop selfregulation, the Wrights embarked on some research with the University of Auckland.

A self-regulation intervention programme called ‘Red Light, Purple Light’ developed at Oregon State University was trialled at 16 BestStart centres in June and July 2018, with eight centres forming the control group.

The intervention focuses on a series of music- and movement-based circle time games that can be used to promote young children’s self-regulation at home and at school.

The trial has been evaluated by University of Auckland and results will be disseminated shortly. It is hoped that the findings will help inform future interventions in early childhood centres that will help children develop selfregulation skills that will equip them well for later in life.

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EOTC:

broadening horizons Education outside the classroom gives children new experiences, opens their minds and takes learning outside the classroom.

By Rachel Helyer Donaldson.

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hether it’s an organised visit to a museum, creating a ‘forest school’ down at your local park, or planting a school ‘discovery garden’, education outside the classroom (EOTC) can give children new experiences. It also offers students some engaging and exciting ways to learn beyond the usual confines of the classroom.

EOTC recognises that learning takes place everywhere, says Dr Andrea Milligan, the associate dean of teacher education at Victoria University.

“Children, in their daily lives, don’t only learn in the classroom. Their communities, their environment, and including some of the places that they don’t often go to, perhaps like a museum, are part of a whole eco-system of learning experiences.

“The neat thing about education outside the classroom is that it extends those classroom walls. It recognises that children and young people learn in a variety of ways, in a variety of contexts.”

Most educators would argue that it’s “fundamental”, she adds. “Otherwise, you bracket off the school environment from what can be learned beyond the gates.”

Wide variety of programmes At Maraetai Beach School, on east Auckland’s Pohutukawa Coast, students from Years 1 to 8 get the chance to take part in a wide variety of EOTC programmes.

They include a ‘have a go’ sailing day, shorebird studies and beach clean-ups, marae visits, planting projects, orienteering and other outdoor activities.

Years 4 to 8 students also go on school camps.

Principal Mark Keenan says such experiences reinforce learning, by enabling students to make connections between what they have learnt in the classroom and the world beyond the classroom.

“For many students, it is the EOTC activities that they will remember for years to come.”

EOTC also gives students a different way to demonstrate the ‘key competencies’ identified in The New Zealand Curriculum, particularly managing self, relating to others, and participating and contributing.

Careful planning by teachers and schools means that EOTC activities align with a school’s curriculum and motivate and inspire children’s thinking, he adds.

“Children learn a lot about risk-taking, working as a team and being resilient when things get tough, especially on school camps and outdoor activities they find challenging. They also gain a better understanding of their local environment and what they can do to have a positive impact on this.”

EOTC does not need to involve expensive camps or trips, Keenan says. “It can be making use of the school environment, local environment and people to reinforce and support the learning taking place in the classroom.”

Access difficulties But access to EOTC has become more difficult for some schools, says Milligan.

There can be “logistical, practical and economic barriers”, such as financial costs, health and safety requirements and transport issues.

“When you look at the kinds of children who are taken on school trips, they tend to be higher-decile

schools; they tend to be predominantly Pākehā, so we need to think about how we enhance participation in Māori and Pacific and lower-decile schools.”

Meanwhile the amount of investment that EOTC requires – from funding for EOTC providers to the time, planning and resources put in by schools – means it needs to really count.

New experiences are highly valued by kids, says Milligan, but the learning can be “quite eclectic”.

“What we want is an education outside the classroom experience that is high interest, really valued and is also really rich learning. We don’t know enough about what the children take [away] and how enduring that learning is.”

Two-year study Milligan and her co-investigator, Experience Wellington director Dr Sarah Rusholme, are at the start of a twoyear study that explores how teachers and informal educators (those who provide EOTC experiences) can create stronger connections between the classroom and informal learning.

They will also look at how EOTC can help students respond to big issues, such as sustainability, diversity and inequality, that face their communities.

“We want to know more about how those learning experiences can shift from simply the detail of an exhibition or the detail of a natural environment, into thinking about some of the big issues that face society and how children can participate as active citizens in some of those issues.”

Schools are driving this change, and EOTC needs to reflect this, she adds.

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“For many students, it is the EOTC activities that they will remember for years to come.”

“It’s shifting the learning focus to ‘how can we connect education outside the classroom to a focus on those big issues, and children’s active citizenship’.

“It’s ratcheting education outside the classroom up several notches.”

Teacher in the Paddock, Bay of Plenty Teacher in the Paddock gives children the chance to learn first-hand about where food comes from, as well as the opportunity to experience and explore nature.

Kevin Powell, a qualified primary school teacher, and his wife Jane Powell, a gardening and nutrition expert, run the programme on their lifestyle block in Papamoa, in the Bay of Plenty.

Kevin Powell says that “the driving force” behind its October 2014 launch was society’s “disconnect with food”.

Visiting kindergarten and school groups are given the chance to feed the animals, see how milk is produced and make their own butter.

Powell is frequently asked ‘why isn’t the cow blue?’ thanks to, what he calls, “the magic marketing power” of milk producers.

Another frequent question – from parents as well as children – is how do the Powells milk their bulls?

“Our primary industry is dairy and yet no one knows cows have horns. It’s just incredible, we are so disconnected from where food comes from.”

Teacher in the Paddock also offers after-school and holiday sessions and foster and respite care

for children struggling in the school system.

Tamariki harvest fruit and nuts and make smoothies and pesto from edible weeds. They also learn finger knitting and how to whittle wood using a sun-warmed stone.

A big part of the Teacher in the Paddock experience is sensory learning – “touch, taste, see, smell”, says Powell.

“We’ve had a 10-year-old boy come and tell us all the different varieties of cicadas – he’s telling all the other kids and we’re learning too, of course. We’ve had kindy kids come along and tell us a worm’s got nine hearts.

“When you put children in the environment, they will just learn.”

“It’s life skills,” he adds. “These kids are doing this, and they don’t even know they’re doing it, that’s the beautiful thing.” https://teacherinthepaddock.co.nz

Cable Car Museum, Wellington A school visit to Wellington’s Cable Car Museum in Kelburn above the central city usually starts with a 10-minute cable car ride. But from there, each session is often tailor-made for that group, based on their current ‘inquiry’ (study topic), says Museums Wellington senior educator Shelley Gardner.

“A lot of teachers come to us with concepts like, we’re focusing our inquiry on discovery, or we’re focusing on journeys. We try and be as responsive to that as possible.”

One programme, Cool Little Capital, was initially created for a group of Years 5 and 6 students who

were thinking about Wellington’s identity and what makes it special.

At the top of the cable car, the students looked out over the harbour and spotted local icons such as Te Papa and the ferry. They also worked with a collection of cardboard cut-outs of recognisable landmarks to create their own ‘cool little capital’.

“It was a fun activity, but it also allowed them to connect with what they saw out there.”

The Cable Car Museum is based in the original 1902 winding house, used to haul cable cars up the hillside until 1978. A winding mechanism dating back to 1930 can be seen in the machine room, while the museum also boasts two cable cars, a badge-making machine and Victorian dress-ups.

The museum’s LEOTC (Learning Experiences Outside the Classroom) programme includes social history experiences as well as STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) learning.

Gardner, an ex-high school teacher, says EOTC provides “really special learning environments” for both tamariki and their kaiako.

“Teachers might say, ‘I didn’t realise so-and-so knew that’, or, ‘that student’s really shy but now they’re talking’.

“There are so many different ways of being able to learn: it’s not just reading or writing. It’s tactile, it’s movement, it’s demonstrating your knowledge that you might not always be able to show in the classroom. The whole experience is very interactive and immersive.” www.museumswellington.org.nz/cable-car-museum

Reimagining Teacher Education

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