TEY-10.2

ENCOURAGING A CULTURE OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE The ethos of a setting is at the heart of creating a culture of reflective practice. Writing about how to get this right could fill lots of articles and many books! However, leaders and managers are key here. Simple things like modelling the right language can make a considerable difference, for example “What would happen if…..?” or “I wonder if we could change….?” Questions like this encourage us to pause for thought and reflect. As settings open to even more children a simple option might be to have a weekly ‘reflective question’ which is shared with everyone. These questions might be good options: ● How are children engaging with the new layout or routine? ● How are children displaying their levels of well- being? ● Which activities are the most popular and why? ● Have there been any surprises this week? ● Which activities might we start to introduce again, perhaps adapted? ● What are we most concerned about? Inviting everyone to contribute is important. It ensures that all support children’s learning at home. As educators become more confident about technology, it can be used as a tool to benefit reflective practice too. You could use video, perhaps with a voiceover, to support your reflection. Visual and audio communication can be easier to share and feel more accessible to busy staff, and can require less explanation. As we have all been realising, technology can help us to stay connected. If a setting has staff who are shielding or needing to isolate, they could use Zoom, WhatsApp or Google Meet for meetings. These would be inclusive, allowing all staff to have a voice in reflective practice. MAKING THE CASE FOR INFORMAL REFLECTIVE PRACTICE Another thing that lockdown has underlined is the value of informal reflective practice. For many, being at home and away from children was a real loss, but it also offered a chance for us to step back and think about what we might want to change ‘when we got back’. I lost count of the number of chats I had with people about what they’d learnt during lockdown and how that might change what they did once settings opened to more children. In lots of cases these were fleeting thoughts. I feel these fit into ‘informal reflective’ practice and they’re important to note. As reflective practitioners we need to learn to be alive to these and to capture them. In this new educational era, we face a great deal of uncertainty. Developing our own routines for reflection, independently and with others, is more important than ever. Many of us have honed these in the past few months. My view is that these are ‘skills for life’; valuable for us as professionals but also helpful throughout our lives. Tapestry is an online learning journal for early years and schools which encourages reflective practice. For more information visit tapestry.info Teachearlyyears.com 35