Panel
Members
Facilitator: Natalie Robertson
Research context Professor: Louise Paatsch
School Principals: Jennifer Deeble and Peter Fahey
Classroom
teacher: Elise Fraser
Dr
Natalie
Robertson
(Natalie)
So welcome everyone to the first webinar for the differentiated, play-based and inquiry learning in the early years of learning Project.
My name is Dr. Natalie Robertson and I am facilitating this afternoons session.
With me this afternoon, we do have a panel of experts in both practice and knowledge of play- based and inquiry learning.
So I will get each of our panellists to introduce themselves. Starting with Jenny Deeble. Jenny, Sorry, You're on mute.
Jenny Deeble (Jenny) Ok, My name is Jenny Deeble. Well, I'm the Principal of Wales Street Primary School. We are an IB credited WELDS School.
Natalie Thank you, Jenny and which School do you work at?
Jenny
Sorry,
Wales Street
Primary
School
Natalie Thank you. Then I will ask Peter, would you please introduce yourself?
Peter Fahey (Peter) Hello everyone, Hi Natalie. My name's Peter Fahey, I'm the co-Principal at St James Primary School, in Ballarat we're a P-6 Primary School and we have four learning areas and we have around 200 children.
Natalie Thank you Peter, and Elise.
Elise Fraser (Elise) Hi, I'm Elise Fraser. I teach at St. James, in Ballarat and I'm in the discovery learning area, which is also equivalent to Foundation.
Natalie Thank you, Elise and Louise.
Louise Paatsch (Louise) Good afternoon everyone. I'm Louise Paatsch, I'm a professor of education at Deakin, and my area of research is in play and language and literacy. So welcome everyone.
Natalie Thank you all very much for coming this evening and for being part of our expert panel on play-based and inquiry learning.
Today's webinar is extending upon the online module, which was understanding on play-based and inquiry learning. So in the online module, if you have had time to work your way through the module or this this might be your first time in in being introduced to this exciting professional learning program.
The module introduce you to the concept of play-based and inquiry learning, also the theories in play-based and inquiry learning and it also started to explore the benefits of play-based and inquiry learning for children's learning, development, social, emotional capabilities among a wide range of (benefits).
Before we get started today, I would like to acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first sovereign peoples of this land, as a community of educators, we recognize the deep respect, that continuing connections to lands, waters, knowledges and cultures. In doing so, we pay our respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
So before we get started, I'd like to run a bit of a poll with you all where we are going to share with you in a minute on the chat function, a link to an online poll. And so what I'd like everybody to do is follow the link and you'll be prompted to answer a couple of questions. And as your questions start coming in, I'm going to share my screen with you, which is going to show us live your answers as they come up on the screen. You might be familiar with this type of technology, because when Louise and I were running a PD for early childhood teachers a couple of weeks ago, we found that some of the primary school teachers in the room as well had been using polls as well with their children.
Okay so I just pasted that into our chat now.
Okay. So the first question asks how long have you been implementing a play-based and inquiry learning approach?
I'm sorry, do you already use play-based and inquiry learning in your classroom?
It's starting to get something come through excellent. I'm just going to post the web link again. If you follow the web link, it will take you to the poll online. I just re-posted in the chat and all you need to do is click the link. All right, let's try again. Try again. Is the link coming through now? All right, so we've got 19, 22 they're starting to come through excellent.
So we can see that quite a lot of you are using play-based and inquiry learning in your classrooms, again already, which is fabulous. Because what this means is that you're going to be coming in the webinar tonight with some ideas and knowledge about what play-based and inquiry learning can look like, what its potential benefits are. But you'll also start to know about what some of the challenges might be, and tonight as we talk with our expert panellists, we're going to be really unpacking the concepts and the components of what play-based and inquiry learning can look like because they're not, not just one approach.
And then we're also going to be thinking about, well, how can we bring on board teachers and families within the school community to, I guess, value and adopt a play-based and inquiry learning approach. And further to that we're going to have a really great discussion about what the potential benefits of a play-based and inquiry learning approach can look like.
All right, so I'm going to move the slide over now and what I'd like you to share with us now is How long have you been implementing a play-based and inquiry learning approach for?
All right, good got quite a range of experiences in here as well, though. Some of you are quite new to the play-based and inquiry learning fame and we do hope that you're finding the professional learning program to be a supportive, resource as you move through this complex world of play and inquiry.
And then we've also got some of you that have been using it for quite a long time as well.
And it would be interesting to hear some of your experiences during our question time keeping. All right, so I'm going to stop sharing my screen again and I'm going to start handing over to our expert panellists.
So, I would like to put a question to our two Principals, Jenny and Peter and ask you both, could you tell us a little about, the play-based and inquiry learning approach that is used in your school? So we might start with Peter this time, first.
Peter Thanks, Natalie. At St. James, we have been using a play-based inquiry based form for around 15 years.
Natalie Wow.
Peter And I will tell you right here and now we had been through times of absolute chaos and disorder and times of real coherence. We're at a moment now in our lifespan where for probably the last three to four years, we have a real coherence. So um it's we, we don't, what's helpful for us is that we don't call ourselves play-based inquiry based. We are a place of learning. That's our function. And in that place of learning we have multiple forms. And two of those forms are play and inquiry. What's really helpful also for us to understand the different forms, is to, to understand how we differentiate the acquisition of knowledge and skills. So the work of Geary and Sweller was really helpful for us in understanding primary knowledge and secondary knowledge. Primary knowledge is, is the acquisition of self-regulation, narrative sequencing, vocabulary, how we learn to speak. We learnt those types of things through imitation, exploration. Secondary knowledge is that human invented knowledge, such as reading, writing, spelling, um etc, which requires more explicit, explicit learning. So those two distinctions, the differentiation of those two knowledge types really helped us and we can drill deeper into that. That gave us a surface knowledge that we could help build coherence across our whole school and help us align the functions. What we wanted to achieve with the various forms.
Natalie That's great Peter Thank you. So are you saying that you use play or play-based and inquiry based learning as an approach to firstly teach children the primary concepts, of knowledge and then through that play-based and inquiry approach, you can also teach through explicit teaching of our math literacy science areas?
Peter Absolutely, they're reciprocal. And there operating not either, there operating and in each learning community. And we can the agility of the educator, of the professional educator to weave backwards, forwards in and out and align the function of learning with the form at that particular moment in time. It's, it, it's really emphasizing the craft of the educator to be able to do that. It takes, it, takes a really long time and a lot of expertise.
Natalie Great. Thank you very much. And Jenny, is there anything that you'd like to share about the play-based and inquiry learning approach that is used in your school.
Jenny Well, we've been an IB school, as I mentioned earlier on, so we use the IB framework and philosophy. So we had been, we've been an inquiry school, teaching in the enquiry approach for a number of years, and once we became accredited and we developed our next strategic plan. We did a focus on student agency and we felt that play-based learning for lends itself very nicely to that we had been doing a discovery learning which is more a free play which was very literacy oral language-based and that's where we've come from. But this year we felt after a COVID year, we really felt we needed to more emphasis on, play especially for our Foundation students coming in who had missed a lot of that social skills and that play opportunity with others, with their peers.
Some of them had limits with kinder experience as well. So we did look into doing a more rigorous play-based approach. And so we use the IB approaches to learning which, you know, the research, social thinking, communications and self-management skills. So each play-based session has a learning intention and it's focusing on one of those areas. And so we do look at more provocations and invitations to play. And we're doing a more structured approach in the Foundation years. And we've also now moved into grade 1 and 2. So our grade 1 and 2 teams have not really done extensive teaching in this space. But because we've done a lot of inquiry approach, we felt it's really a very child-centred way of really improving those curiosities skills and inquiry skills. It also, it's guided so we can really focus in on what we think students need and then looking and reflecting on what's happening in a lesson or a session, and then looking to how we can then build on that for the next session. So it's sort of still very organic at this point in time and we're still very much at the beginning stages of learning. As I said, when you start with discovery it's all a bit of fun play and kids love all that, but we wanted to really give it more meaning and purpose. And so that's where we sort of are coming to that entry level to give it some more rigour, the environment. And our prep team is quite stable. They've been together for four years, so they've had more experience in that
area, so they're leading the way with our prep and grade 1 and 2 teachers, and our PYP
coordinator of course has modelled a lot of this. She's gone into model one lesson, a session looks
like and how she's built-in those elements. So there is explicit teaching and explicit instruction that
sits
alongside
guided
play.
Natalie That's fabulous. Thank you. So Jenny, you mentioned that this year you're implementing a more structured approach to the play-based inquiry learning. What do you mean by a more structured approach? What does that look like?
Jenny Well, the teachers have a number of different stations which the play area is set up. And so they're not always just a cafe or something. We've actually set up some maths stations where teachers might sit down and invite children to join in where they're sort of experimenting with base 10 and blocks and creating numbers and things like that in a play environment. So they being more conscious about the types of activities. Plus we also have a unit of inquiry, that at the moment we're doing community. So I very much a lot of the play direction is linked to that unit of inquiry. So that we're also looking at, the central idea and addressing and teaching through that unit inquiry along the lines of inquiry as well.
Natalie That's a right. I might just go to Elise. Elise I'm just wondering while we're talking about what a play-based and inquiry approach look like. You're on the ground. What does it look like in your classroom?
Elise Yeah. I mean, each day can look different, but we always start out with so certain areas still setup. So we make sure we've got our role-play. We use the mini world figurine areas, construction and that sort of thing. But then what might be there is, is agile and fluid as well. So as Jenny mentioned, if we do see a need for a particular maths focus, we might bring that into some play.
But too we have noticed with our children this year as well for many other years, we use the pretend play checklist, through Karen, to kick us off. And definitely just saw some of those primary skills that Peter talked about. That, that's probably a next step that we were able to use that checklist so the play has changed depending on the day, what the outcome might be, what we're looking for. But yeah. Each day's a little different.
Natalie Right. Fabulous. Thank you for that. And so when saying Elise that you will, you teach explicitly maths concept, science concepts or literacy concepts through the mini worlds of pretend play. What does that look like?
Elise Yes, again, that can be quite varied. If we're focusing on, say, for instance, play scripts or story development. So for some children, they very much they ready to jump in, they're modelling it to others. For some children we're having to guide that a lot more with them. But I guess it depends on the child. But knowing like the adults knowing the space kind of the outcome for each kid or where their next step might be with that as well. With the maths, for instance, you know our overall target at the moment is one to ten, coming from the curriculum we've had. So the MAI or the maths assessment at the start of the year, we know that there's some children who are still only grasping one to five. Noticing in small explicit workshops they might not be there yet. But then bringing their interests in, so (child's name) loves garbage trucks and garbage bins. So we've set up the little role of okay so how many bits of rubbish are going to go into that bin instead and he gets to that out
and gets to be a little garbage man. But at the same time still using those maths, concepts and
similar to the feeding the teddies or going to the supermarket and purchasing different things. So
guiding
it
that
way
a
bit
more.
Natalie That's great, thank you, Elise. We're just getting a couple of questions about the play checklist come in and I thought it might be good to, to talk about it now, but we will be expanding on the pretend play checklists more in Module 3. But Louise, would you like to quickly talk about the pretend play list?
Louise Yeah sure Natalie Thank you. So the pretend play checklist came out of extensive research from one of our Professors, Emeritus Professor Karen Stegnetti, who does a lot of work in therapy with play. And we've been working with Karen, myself and Professor Andrea Nolan for quite some years now. And then we saw the need for a checklist to be developed, to be used by schools because picking up from both, well, all three Elise Jenny and Peter, around making play more explicit. Understanding that play actually is a cognitive skill. Understanding that play has various phases and development, and particularly for pretend play. We saw the need that we not only need to assess the areas of the curriculum, but we actually also need to assess the children's play.
And that's also come out of our research that we've conducted together around looking at the importance of pretend play and how it actually does, it's a predictor of children's language development, which then obviously leads into literacy.
So the pretend play checklist was developed by Karen and myself in 2018, and in Module 3, we will be unpacking that more. But I can give you, this is what I have to take my background off, sorry, I'll just put my background in and you can. So here is the pretend play checklists for teachers manual, and it has a number of the instructions around how it's used, as well as the actual checklist itself, which comes in a tick the box form.
But in Module 3, Natalie, Andrea, myself, and Virginia will be going through that in more detail for you. Is, did you want me to expand anymore with that yet Natalie? I can later but I think it'll be good to continue. Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie Okay. Thank you for that, Louise.
Louise A pleasure. Good, to just to expand on what that was. How lucky I had that right beside me.
Natalie I just want to go back to Elise for a moment just because when I was having a look at the Padlet online, I was noticing that within our professional learning program there are a few question with that. Well, what does that actually look like if we had a play-based and inquiry learning approach in our classroom, how would I set up my day? So Elise would you be able to share with us what a day would look like for you within your classroom?
Elise Sure. This has changed sort of even just as issues going on and you've gotten to know the children more as well as than in previous years, depending on team as we've read more around research, so, it hasn't definitely been a This is how we've started the year and it's going to be always like that. So currently at the moment our children come in and we gather, being a Catholic school in prayer, and we've even used play in, in that sense. So if we're looking at a piece of scripture or around a concept, we might model it as well as then we repeat it using symbolic. So for instance, my creation story, so I've had animals, but then a few days later we've started to use symbolic pieces to replay that or to re-tell that same story. Our children then move in to some little literacy rotations and through that there's hands-on experiences specifically chosen as well, so as Jenny mentioned, there's definitely been at times that idea of discovery where it's well, hang on is just real, or what are they really getting from this. Our kids then move into some, what we call it guided play because some groups might be with an adult. An adult might be modelling something specific or we might just be the observers as well. And that takes us through then into we end that with writing to try and get whatever stories the children had been telling me in that time, down on some paper and we've even noticed the difference from the start of the year. Where it was this is the paddock with the animals or just telling what they've seen was. Now they've been able to say a bit more or start to tell that story as we've introduced those, story markers and story grammars.
Then good old snack, and they get plenty of play outside. We're also really lucky in our space that we have indoor and a separate outdoor just for discovery as well. So, they have they can move in and out of those two spaces. Generally on another day or a normal day as such, we then move into some explicit math workshops with again, that play happenings so the adults are aware again of what targets might be and we might then have some more, again, guided, but around the math concepts. But again, that might even happen in the morning. So as much as they're telling the story, if they're at the mud kitchen, are you making that cake? How many spoonfuls or how many cups and you're getting them to count it out for you. And then in the afternoon, that's generally where we've been bringing in our larger Storyboard or it's a larger mini world, well, basically, and that's where a lot of our larger concepts of law ,where looking at belonging at, the moment being Term 1. So, they've been getting letters from pay pal these little story people which then sends
them off into, morphing to another activity. It began as little symbolic people on the table, but now
they've actually the kids have added their own identities to those people, so there's a bit more
purpose around that as well. That that's a typical day as much as it's a typical day in a school, but
yeah,
just
being
that
agile a
little
as
well.
Natalie That's fabulous. That's great, it sounds great, I think I want to come and teach at your school.
Elise It's good. Like I said, we definitely still always have a role-play area that changes. So as their starting to look at that concept of caring for animals we've bought in a little vet we've got the mini worlds, we've got our construction a bit of art and things around, so, just linking that depending on what's happening.
Natalie That's fabulous. Thank you, Elise. Jenny, I'm wondering if you could tell us what a typical day would look like for a Foundation teacher in your school because it sounds like it could be a little bit different.
Jenny Yes. So we do we do have two double sessions. At the moment we do have two double sessions a week. We're starting small that are just purely on the guided play sessions. So we still, we do a synthetics science program in the morning, so that's quite structured. We also do they do, other types of play where they take the play and then use a writing lesson as well, and because we do and the same with maths they'll do, do more rotations, literacy rotations numeracy rotations. But then I suppose because, we're still at the beginning stage we want our play sessions to be, we want to really get the students really in that habit of, we do a provocation. We introduced the learning intention and could be just something like, I try new things. This is what they're all trying to do. We have an inquiry diary, which we record the learning intention. The teacher goes through what the range of different play stations areas are. She might even go and say, well, I'm going to visit there if, you would like to come with me, and she has an invitation to children who want to join that particular task. They do have opportunity to move around quite a bit and then they'll come back together and do the reflection and they'll record their story and their ideas into the inquiry diary.
Now often the teacher will then take this further and then maybe do a writing task after that or just writing down what they thought of them and the teachers walking around recording conversations, listening to what the children are talking about and maybe using that information to take further for publication down in the next session or the next week. And then the teachers all coming together and reflecting on what they've learned from the session and where to next. So that's where the teachers are sort of trying to support each other in implementing this, this new approach. But the rest of the day it's still probably typical Foundation day where they do explicit teaching of literacy and numeracy. But they're trying to sort of gradually build upon that to increase the amount of play- based sessions as their confidence and experience grows.
Natalie That's fabulous. Thank you. And it sounds like you're in a process of change at the moment. So how do you support teachers to value and implement the play-based and inquiry learning approach?
Jenny I think they've always been very much in favour of inquiry approach and I know with Foundation, it was also a challenge because you try and introduce quite complex concepts. They feel as if the plays are really strong avenue for you know introducing, especially to PYP concepts of form and function and things like that and using that language. It gives them a way of introducing it in a more connected way with students as well. And I think the fact they're working as a team and it's really having those times together where teachers can bounce ideas off each other and say this has worked, this hasn't worked. You know, I tried this and really getting that support and with our PYP coordinator she has been very much there from the beginning and she's been sitting in on their planning sessions and as I said, modelling over this term to really get it off the ground. And then she's going to also model the other classes later on down the track. But I think with Foundation, they felt they had a lot of the materials. They did invest in some, buying some extra sort of resources that they felt they wanted to use. And then how do we use them effectively? I think that's really important. That collaborative approach, which is very much a key strategies that we use across the board. But yeah, they've always been interested in the inquiry, approach it and being able to do that but in prep. Sorry, in Foundation level I think you know you try to really keep it streamlined and simple so that students can actually learn as they go.
Natalie Yeah, that's a really great point, and it sounds like that collaboration among themselves and also having the support from leadership within the school as well has been a very helpful and valuable factor in leading them through the change.
Jenny Sure as I said we're very much at the beginning stage. I'm not like some so Jazz, has been there quite a number of years. But we've found it also because, we do four units of inquiry, a year, it means in a term we can bring in the central idea we can have that as our main focus. But as you know, Foundation every day can be bringing a different experience, a different curiosity. And you can break that into play-based as well. And they find that it's really successful.
Natalie Yeah, that's a great point and I just might extend upon that point that you've just raised. If a child comes in, children come in after the weekend and they've gotten a new curiosity how do teachers go with that. And I guess be flexible enough to change what they might have planned and introduce this new concept of learning.
Jenny That's all I'm not in the classroom knowing what they're doing with that. But I know that with the inquiry diary, they do record anything that comes up that they think will interest the classes that they'll go further with. And they might use that as a provocation coming up all through the day or teachers will talk about how they can incorporate it into their play-based session. So it's not forgotten that's actually taking that agency from the students that come in some ideas and how can we incorporate that into our play-based session.
Natalie No, Great, thank you, Jenny. Peter or Elise, what about you? How did you respond to children's curiosity in the moment?
Peter I will reply to this question from a leadership position. And from a leadership position. What we need to emphasize is, the craft of the professional educator. And and that craft, is unlike any other, and it needs to be highly valued. The closest metaphor I can think of is, an ED ward in a hospital. A professional educator has got a lot of things that they are thinking about at any one time, they are highly agile. And so they are, ready for whatever's going to happen. And, and what drives their decision-making is clear agency and purposeful learning. So when a child comes in on a Monday morning and they've been to the circus, or they've been here or there or they come in after recess, and they've, fallen over they've got a bloody knee. The teachers are ready to use that, that purposeful situation and apply it to learning. And that's the craft. So again, from a leaders leadership position I must ensure that that craft is really acknowledged and that craft is not, is not de-emphasised. Learning is not linear. And if you try to make it linear, you're on some bureaucratic political journey. We have we have got a really agile profession and I've got to make sure our educators, are well informed. So and we emphasize here the currency of knowledge. So we eradicate, everything that impacts on the educators being professional.
Natalie Really fabulous insights there Peter. So how does that impact on teacher's planning? Because planning is a big aspect of the teaching role. And how do they plan for children's learning with this approach?
Peter If I, if I answer that again from a leadership position, then hand over to the practitioner, Elise. But I need to make sure that our educators have real time PD. So whatever resources we have we make sure that the educator is the priority. So for example, in so many schools that I have been in, things are tacked on to the staff for the end of the day. We emphasize learning and the professional educators so much that they have real time PD. We give them time during the day. We give them time to learn. During the day. We give them as much planning time to together in team as possible. We eliminate as much bureaucracy and distractions as possible so that they can can attend to their craft. So I'll handball over to Elise.
Elise Thanks. On the previous question because I would have reiterated the same thing to say that it is about owning the profession and and knowing that now jumping to the planning, that if you have something planned, it doesn't need to stay with that. If it means, then that you're just doing it because you feel you have to. My own journey like I was teaching uppers something wasn't clicking for me. I came to St. James and that's when things started to make sense. So I had a group of grade 6s who weren't able to write but were expected to write about an experience of you know going camping. And this is middle of London, so you like they've never even been to the suburb over. So I made that experience for them in the space so had that camping experience. And then suddenly you getting these rich language. So I had these little one-offs going, Hang on, but even then I had to explain to my principal why my planning had changed where now it's, you know, you do you have that agency to go. Well, these are sort of the things we have ready to go. Yes, these are the targets or we would want the children to get to. So we backwards plan. Coming back to what Louise and I mentioned around the pretend play checklists are using that. That if you've got these kids who are already developing in these play scripts and can have these ongoing and switching roles. That's very different to some planning that you might have for a little kid who's still just using the tray and, and pushing it backwards and forwards. Sorry, planning comes down to knowing your students. Knowing that you can be agile and change if need be, knowing what your ultimate outcomes want to be or your goals for each of them.
Natalie Thank you Elise I think that that was really, really important perspective that you share. I'm just wondering, we've spoken about I guess, the value of play and sharing the value of play with colleagues. And it seemed like that collaboration and that time to talk and to learn about and plan for learning through play is something that's really important to introducing this mode of learning within your schools. I'm just wondering if Jenny and or Peter would like to just briefly talk about how you bring families on board because I know that that's probably a burning concern that some of you listening are wondering about.
Peter Jenny, if I jump first that's okay? I mentioned earlier that we had been doing these for a long time. And we've had periods of chaos and disorder. So some of my learnings have been that parents not to advertise I'm doing a play-based approach. That scares the bejesus out of those who don't understand. What's really helpful is engaging children in different forms and children actually learning. When they learn to regulate when they learn to collaborate, when their narrative understanding, is developing, etc, etc. The parents, they come and say, Wow, this is exciting. What are you doing? Well, this is what we're doing. So we don't put the cart before the horse. So we can gauge the families in learning. The families become excited and understand what their child is doing that they're learning and then we explain the forms that we use. That that's probably helpful if you're just starting off.
Natalie That felt like really good advice. Thank you for that and Jenny what about you. What advice do you have?
Jenny Well, I agree with Peter you don't go out there and and advertise this is a play-based approach because everyone has their own impression or idea of what that looks like. We're fortunate. A lot of our families have been at bush kinder programs that are in the local area. One of the key things we're building at the moment is a nature play, outdoor classroom space. So they do value the importance of play as a way of learning. And so that was a real push for our parents to raise as substantial amount of money to create this new play space. So they do have an understanding of play, play is an important part of learning. But we haven't sort of been out there advertising this is the way we're going but we are introducing it slowly and we use seesaw as a program, communicate with parents. So we still putting up, this is what they've done in play today or this is some of the learnings that we've been doing, over the last unit of inquiry. So it's all still linked to the units of inquiry, which is across the board from Foundation to grade 6. So they're very used to the idea of students doing a bit of the finding out about the central idea and then going further and then also having an action component so play fits in really nicely with that we haven't actually advertised the fact that it's we're moving more to that more structured or guided play experience, but it is just part of the way we deliver our program of inquiry.
Natalie All right that's great, thank you for that. And I think that, that probably also the insights that many of our participants could share as well, about parents and their feelings towards play. Yeah, I thank you for that. I think that's a good segue for the benefits of play. So Louise, you've done quite a lot of research on the benefits of play specifically for literacy and language. I'm wondering if you'd like to share some of these insights into that?
Louise Yes, thanks. Natalie. I suppose the backstory of the work that I've been doing, as I said, with Karen Stegnetti and Andrea Nolan, and also with you Natalie more recent times is that we often get approached by schools, leadership, but also teachers in different professional learning environments. They are saying noticing that young children coming into school with very low levels of language. And they have also noticed that these same children are the ones that are also struggling
When you see their NAPLAN results year 3 and again in year 5. And for many schools, they're looking for a greater opportunity to support the young children's learning. And have gone specifically through a play-based inquiry approach to support that. So our research has actually investigating whether this is actually supporting what we would hope.
And for one of the studies that we did just recently, with Foundation children entering Foundation level, we did formal play assessments on these children as well as their formal language assessment. And what we noticed were that many of these children, in fact, two-thirds in this particular group, were entering schools with very low language levels, both expressive and receptive, so they're listening as well as their speaking.
And we also notice that their levels of play, were quite delayed in many aspects. So they were below their expected age range, if you like. And when we looked closer, we saw that these children have difficulty with elaborating their place and making stories, building the stories up over time. We also noted that they were not able to self-initiate in their own play. We saw many of these children who were imitating others.
They were just watching. And what we're seeing even this year when we've gone into a school with Peter and Elise is some of these children are doing a lot of imitation. And we're guessing in this project that many of these children, that's an impact of COVID as well. We're also seeing that for many of these children that they are unable to substitute an object for something else. So in other words, a pen could be a person, but even more, that the child is able to use this pen in all sorts of different ways, not just the way it actually looks.
And could turn it into a rocket ship. They could turn it into anything to tell their story. So when we look at this kind of play, we're also noting that many of these children's narrative, we're saying that they don't setup with characters and a setting, for example. And as you would know, for the genre of narrative, that's a problem. And the problem needs a resolution. And for many of these young children were seeing that there were no problems in their story, and therefore, obviously there was no resolution either. So our research then showed that in fact, that those children who could substitute an object where they could use any object for anything, or they could use an object for anything and actually talk about what it was and the function of that object.
So that very high level of objects substitution that then, their language was kicking off. And it was very, very high and usually quite complex. We saw that they had multi-word languages. They had greater complex of grammatical speech as well. And we also saw an enormous amount of more complex narrative. Some of these children actually had two problems or three problems in their story that they were then able to resolve throughout the play. And this play was also occurring over a period of two to three days.
So these children just didn't come in and play and then start another story five minutes later. They didn't come away and then come back the next day. This play continued on for two to three days. And for some children it was carrying over for two to three weeks, which is a really high level of play script. Yeah. And so some of the other things, just to finish up, we saw when we look at an aspect of language called pragmatics, which is the social use of language. How children enter a group, how they make friends, how they enter with their peers that have already started up a story.
We saw that play provided a really strong way for these children to master emotional ideas, their feelings, and their experiences. And it was also away for facilitating friendships and promoting that pro-social behaviour and attitude. So all of these learnings we see from a large number of projects over time with a large number of schools that we're saying.
Natalie Great, thank you very much Louise. That's some incredible data that you've collected that show the benefits of play and inquiry. Peter I'm just wondering if you could tell us about the more of the exciting benefits that you've found from your play-based and inquiry approach because you've had some exciting NAPLAN results that our participants might like to hear about.
Peter Yeah. Our journey as I said has been a really extensive one and we have had to hold our ground at the affirmed and confirmed our own research informed journey to stay the course with in today's session, inquiry and project-based. And the impact that will have on secondary learning.
What we found and what our NAPLAN results are starting to show consistently is that when our children whom many of started off at when they began school, started off when they began school at a two year, three age range, By the time they reached middle school, NAPLAN and in particular year five NAPLAN they had caught up with the peers and some had gone past their peers.
Now, what's really interesting also is we're able to follow the trajectory of those children into year 7 and year 9 and what seems to be happening is those children's NAPLAN results, in year 7 and 9 year are continuing an upward trajectory where as their peers who were actually at standard in primary school, we're plateauing or dropping. That is really exciting stuff.
Now, that took a lot of work to stand the ground and might I say. Educational policy begins at five. The definition of childhood begins at 0 and goes to eight. When you think about that, there's some huge dilemmas and myths and misunderstandings at play. When you acknowledge childhood. And you align your forms with the function of childhood, you get a totally different understanding of what education, particularly early childhood education is all about.
Natalie Thank you, Peter they were some, really good final comments to make about play I think. And it might challenge some of our participants here tonight thinking about play and childhood. So what I'm going to do now is allow a few minutes for some questions. We've got our expert panel here, so now's a time for you to have a chance to ask a few questions.
We started at around five past four so we'll go to five past five so that might give us time for, maybe two or three questions.
So if anybody has some questions, please feel free to put up your hand and I'll see if I can allow you to talk. Otherwise, please feel welcome to post your question into the chat and I can direct it to our panel.
I can see Kim and you've got your hand up that you might have had it for a while. I can say actually, I can see I think you have it for a while. I'm going to allow you to talk and let's see if you would like to ask your question. Kim, do you have a question? No, that's alright. Thank you.
Let's have a look, if we've got anymore hands we've got one that's come through on the chat room. So Nathan has asked can you tell us a bit about the role of the teacher through these sessions? So Elise, you might like to elaborate on this. Are the circus children what the Teacher follows? Or do you choose what do you do?
Elise Again, this can be quite agile, so we've definitely got some children who at the moment, we are watching a bit more intently. So they might always be choosing to go to the same area. So as much as it might look like the play is continuing, over days it's a repetition of the same story. So that's when we kind of go, yep, Let's jump in and kind of guide the play a bit more.
Sometimes too though we do it more as a mixed, so then even the children might be guiding other children. So the teacher's role or the adult's role, might just be more of that observer at other times you're just the player you jump in there, they're telling you what to do. You're this character, I've got to think what those Pokemon do, but yeah, jump in and just have a go. It changes throughout.
Natalie Now and that's fabulous and Module 2, it's going to really focus on the role of the teacher in play. And that's some really good examples both from St. James and also from Wales Street that are going to be to keep that within that module.
Keep yourself posted and ready for when that module comes out shortly.
We've got a question here about EAL students. How are they included in play-based learning? I'm open to anyone answering that one?
Jenny I think as Louise mentioned, like the importance of it around the language and the language development. So a lot of it then might be a bit more repetitions. And that's what I did find or I have found is great with play, is that if a child wants, they can go back and revisit an area. If we kept changing that provocation every day, then it's a whole lot of new language to be learning and they might not get that stronger experience.
So even at the moment we've got the supermarket. So I'm going to buy an apple or he's going to do this. Because often we say with the EAL we might find that the pronouns around the wrong way. So it's, it's again just observing, jumping in, using that moment by moment experience as well.
Just to add to that Elise what we've seen with some of the children is it's really important as teachers to watch their play because they can often do very complicated play with very few words and non verbal. And so it's trying to get that language from them because for EAL, they have a strong L1. And it's a matter then of trying to support that with the English that they're learning as well. So that's also really important to think about. Yeah, Elise. Thank you very much.
Natalie We've had a question here yeah. And this might be our last question.
In regards to the amount of time that's spent on play-based learning per week, is there an ideal amount Do you think? That might be a question for all of our panellists to end with.
Peter I would say some things impact on our mindset. And time is one of them. We, we try to eradicate the westernised concept of time. We also try to eradicate stereo typing Withdraw intervention. When you can eradicate those you're opening yourself up to see learning to see children, their intricacies of their mind. So that's how I would answer that question.
Natalie Thank you Peter. Jenny what do you think?
Jenny We're probably a more traditional approach, we're a school of 600 so the timetable does have really time constraints on us in terms of delivering specialist classes and people having their time when we organize, our teachers have a meeting time together and through the day.
That's really important for the collaboration and also one after school. So that's the important part of the way we structured our program as well. At the moment I said they're doing two double sessions a week. They'd like to expand on that, but we're actually just doing it slowly as we go because we want to actually get teachers to really understand the process and just really be observant of what's happening in the session.
And using that information to then structure that, the next sessions coming up. So they're actually coming, it's a more robust model. So at the moment we're finding two minute sessions for us is working well, but that's not to say we're not fluid and open to expanding that as we get more knowledgeable in this area as well.
Louise And I think that's really important I know the work Andrea and I have done with a school where we support a school to put in play-based approach, you, you do need to start small and I'm sure Peter, and Elise, it didn't start the way it is now. It has to start small. And as you're saying, Jenny, just to get that feel, just to work out what you're doing and how you're observing, how you note taking and all those things that we do as teachers is really important.
And then just once you get comfortable and know what it's about, then it's expanding the time. Yeah. Yeah. I think and not just see it as an add-on. Sorry, Natalie It's that that change what Andrea and I saw as that they started to see it not as an add-on or an extra. It actually became embedded in what they did.
And sometimes it ended up that literacy that might have been a traditional two-hour went down because they could see the literacy happening in the play or in the numeracy block or whatever it was or inquiry that, that became reduced because they could see it happening in the play and Inquiry base anyway. So, you know, and then it became more individualised across the board for all children.
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that.
Natalie I think that that's a really good comment to make Louse.
And so I, I would like and encourage you all to trial some of the things that we've spoken about today. And it might just be a trial it for an hour in the afternoon or an hour in the morning and just have a go and report back on your reflection within the padlet within our professional learning module, because it'll be a great space for you all to share your ideas, get feedback from one another and also hear a response from us as well when we're monitoring that regularly and we're here to support you through your journey.
So unfortunately, that's all we have time for today. I think that we could And I can see that we've got a couple of questions about
Again, just keep your eyes posted, keep engaged, share your ideas and we'd love to hear