Case Study: Continuous Provision and EYFS-Inspired Practice in KS2

Bringing an early years approach into KS1 isn’t unheard of – there are plenty of Year 1 classrooms where continuous provision has been effectively established. But, at my previous school the vision was grander: we wanted to know if EYFS-inspired teaching and learning could have an impact, not only in KS1, but also in KS2.

The rationale for taking an EYFS approach into year 1 is perhaps to provide children moving from Reception with some familiarity, however many proponents of a EYFS-inspired KS1 would argue that it is more developmentally appropriate for children to have a ‘play-based’, ‘child-led’ learning experience.

Why KS2?

But why any further? Why continuous provision in KS2? Well, ahead of Ofsted’s not-so-gentle reminder that the curriculum should be broad and balanced, the founding staff of my previous school didn’t want to compromise on teaching and learning in the foundation subjects – we weren’t going to be a school who narrowed the curriculum the more the KS2 tests drew closer. We believed that providing a broad and balanced curriculum, and developing children into independent learners, was firstly our moral responsibility, but secondly that that would also result in good academic outcomes.

One of the key features of this approach is that children, regardless of year group, have access to ‘areas of provision’ where, at given times (so not ‘continuous’ as it is in Early Years where children can access different areas almost all the time) they are able to learn and create more independently.

Play-based? Child-led?

Returning to those phrases ‘play-based’ and ‘child-led’ – concepts which are heavily misunderstood outside of the Early Years world: when I first came to the school, it was these ideas that I wanted to interrogate the most as I was of the opinion that direct instruction was the most effective form of teaching. But what I came to understand was that play-based and child-led didn’t mean no teacher involvement. The philosophy very much revolved around adults as experts teaching, setting up meaningful learning experiences and then interacting in a masterly way as children played and led their learning.

Once understood, it was easier to see how this approach might work as we introduced it further up the school, year on year, as we added new cohorts. 

A Strong Underpinning Curriculum

We saw that, in order for this pedagogical approach of providing continuous provision in ks2 to work, a strong underpinning curriculum was needed. Our aims as a school were still to ensure that children learned certain things at certain times, that there was progression and a very deliberate building of schema. We developed a curriculum where links are made within and across subjects and year groups. Each unit of work has its own set of key facts (which are intended as gateway facts to lead children down their own lines of enquiry) and key vocabulary as well as a unit overview to guide teachers as to the content which should be learned. For subjects where the national curriculum is scant in terms objectives we developed our own progression of skills to guide teachers in how children should be developing over time.

Learning Experiences

The biggest challenge then was to design experiences which we were certain would allow children to learn or practice what we intended them to learn or practice. This, as the children got older, took a lot of collective thought and a great deal of tweaking to get right. We experimented with having one big project which culminated in children holding an enterprise event (a Souk) inspired by their learning about ancient Islamic civilisations. We pulled things right back and had directed tasks that children had to complete, managing their own time as they did so, but ensuring that they completed each one during the half term. We had masterclasses led by teachers followed by apprentice tasks where children then used and applied what they has been taught in a more independent way, sometimes with complete creative freedom, but more often with a specific brief. 

What this experimentation certainly did achieve was that children experienced working in a range of ways and that our delivery of the wider curriculum certainly wasn’t boring. Teachers became highly creative as they sought to find ways to ensure that the key learning was taught, at the same time as giving children some autonomy in their work.

The Timetable

Aside from curriculum and task design, this approach also required good timetable design – if we wanted children to spend time accessing the areas of provision that had been so carefully planned, we had to ensure that that time was in the timetable. Then, we had to make sure that there was time for teachers to deliver new content as well as children having time to use and apply that content. Time, as we all know, is the enemy of the wider curriculum.

Outcomes

So, what have been the outcomes of introducing continuous provision in KS2 so far?

• First and foremost, the engagement and motivation in subjects across the curriculum is high and the time given over to foundation subjects is sacrosanct.

• The links that have been made allow children to see the relevance of what they are learning and the way that they have been allowed to work has led to levels of freedom and independence that perhaps wouldn’t be seen in other settings.

• When you speak to the children – the best way to find out how learning is going in the foundation subjects – they are knowledgeable and can remember prior learning from other units of work. In fact, children have learned things beyond the scope of the key knowledge specified in the curriculum – this as a result of that more self-directed time and those gateway key facts.

• Children’s success in maths and English certainly hasn’t been hampered by this approach to teaching either and, given the cross-curricular nature of English (texts are linked to the unit of wider curriculum work), it would appear that there has been a mutually beneficial relationship with teaching and learning in one subject supporting and inspiring teaching and learning in another.

Your Own School

If you, having read this brief case study, were wanting to try something akin to this approach, here are my top tips for making it effective:

1. Be very clear about what you want to achieve and design everything – curriculum, timetable, environment, tasks – carefully in order to achieve it – this is more pertinent the more you allow children independence.

2. Ensure staff understand clearly what you are trying to achieve, especially how you envisage the balance between teacher-led and child-led learning to look and how the teacher’s role changes depending on that balance.

3. Provide staff with lots of planning time – it is easier to plan lessons where the teacher is leading at all times and planning tasks where the children have more autonomy will be a new skill to many.

4. Allow plenty of time for this approach to embed – time which is also spent monitoring and evaluating it closely, allowing all forms of evidence gathered to influence tweaks to the approach.

5. Foster a culture within your school that allows teachers to experiment, and where things that don’t work can be learned from. If you are asking them to work in this way, this will be necessary.

6. Listen to feedback from teachers as to how it is going – be careful to separate the feedback which is constructive from that which arises from it being new and difficult.

7. Deliberately train children to work in this way – they won’t suddenly be able to do it, especially if they have been used to working in a less independent way. To this end, a year-by-year roll-out is preferable.

8. Ensure task design is of a high quality – children’s independence shouldn’t come at the expense of their learning. Developing a set of questions from which to guide task design, and with which to evaluate tasks, might help with this.

9. Be ready to adjust your metrics for what learning looks like – teachers and leaders will have to train their eye to what learning looks like under this approach.

10. Work with all staff to ensure that they can articulate and rationalise the approach accurately and with clarity to ensure that it is not misunderstood.

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