Cloud illusions Rik McShane, Director of Operations at Little Dukes

In working with children in Early Years education, I have discovered how to think again, says Rik McShane, Director of Operations at Little Dukes

Five years ago, I made the surprising change from a longstanding career in retail (as Director of Waterstones, Piccadilly — I was a martyr to those books) and jumped into Early Years education. Retail (and bookselling in particular) can be very insular, an inward-looking industry where people tend to get stuck in their ways despite the many changes in the world around them. In my 17 years of bookselling, I worked hard to challenge embedded perspectives and really get my colleagues to think about each customer as an individual and discover new ways of really engaging with them.

So, when I finally followed a long-held dream of working in education, I was determined to take my well-honed, tried-andtested skills and help my new colleagues. Education is an equally insular world and I wanted to help them discover new ways of looking at their roles, to challenge the accepted norms and find innovative ways of approaching their problems.

And to some extent, it worked.

As an outsider, an objective pair of eyes, one is in the lucky position of being able to observe without backstory or brainwashing. Being able to challenge jargon that makes no sense except to those in the know, looking at a convoluted (but much loved) process and being able to help simplify, taking a policy or curriculum at face-value and helping the team discover whether we actually do what we say or are just paying lip service to something decided on (and written down) long ago. Challenging colleagues to step back and relearn how to think, to rediscover what brought them to the role in the first place was really rewarding and re-energised the teams and settings I was working with.

What was more interesting, however, was that in working with the children, I discovered how to think again.

I vividly remember a pre-school activity that brought home to me the point of real discovery and real thinking. I had joined a group of children on a trip to the park because I was keen to understand how we could really improve on our engagement with STEM subjects in Early Years and prepare our charges for primary education. A very experienced educator intended to teach the children about the different types of clouds; a whole lesson had been planned around cumulus, cirrus and what they meant. The educator had briefed me on the activity so I could support, and everyone was clear about the learning goals and what we wanted the children to discover. Unsurprisingly, as often happens with Early Years, the activity didn’t go as planned.

The first answer to the question ‘what type of cloud is that?’ came back as “a dragon cloud”, and from that moment we went on a real journey of discovery. Scientific

names were forgotten as we embarked on an exploration of mythical creatures that we could see, battles lost and won in the war of the clouds and then, towards the end, a quieter and more focused discussion on emotions that we feel stemming from the angry dragon cloud and the sad unicorn (I admit I couldn’t quite see that one in the clouds!).

We certainly didn’t learn what had been intended in that activity, but we discovered a lot more than any of us expected. We regularly laugh at, and are frustrated by, young children’s constant reliance on the word ‘why’. But really, aren’t they the ones who have got it right? How often do we truly challenge our thinking and our understanding of the world? As leaders, we have a whole new generation of young people navigating the world with a completely different approach to learning, to careers, to relationships, to the future and it is up to us to learn from them, to discover how best to prepare them for a world that, if we are honest, we can’t begin to imagine. As educators, how regularly do we set out to challenge our assumptions and try to discover what will truly work for them?

Children see each new experience as a chance to discover, their minds are open, they embrace new ideas — often dismissing them of course — but if they do, they most definitely have popped them in and chewed on them first. What I really discovered in working in Early Years, where adult assumptions are thrown into stark contrast with enquiring young minds, is that somewhere along the line most grown-ups lose that skill of being curious. When challenged, we often shortcut to a default response, “oh we’ve tried that before”, or “well we’ve always done it that way and it just works”, or the particularly galling “what a lovely/nice/charming idea… but that won’t really work for us”.

Working in Early Years has taught me to genuinely try and see the world from a perspective different to my own. Whilst it is great to discover that your skills and experience can bring a new perspective and help others think differently, it is also incredibly humbling to have a four-yearold help you discover the things that you don’t know and give you a very clear list of reasons why what you want to do won’t work. Embracing questioning from an articulate and single-minded pre-schooler brings challenges that even the sternest of board meetings can’t match!

One of the best pieces of advice I was given on my very first day in a nursery was to get down to a child’s level. We as adults rarely think about our giant status in an environment intended to feel safe for much smaller people. Interestingly, when I did that (and I now do it every time I go into a class), my worldview changed.

Realising that a current design for a nursery put handles and taps out of reach of children (good if intentional and aimed at safety, less good if the aim is to allow children direct access to something) may seem simple, but sometimes our own perspective means that the truly obvious is inherently out of sight. Seeing that the displays painstakingly created by the teachers on the boards on the walls and on the strings across the ceilings of the classrooms were so far out of the children’s visual sphere as to be almost invisible really made me question who the displays were for.

Watching children having to walk a torturously circuitous route to rinse paint pots or open multiple drawers to find the dinosaurs (because they couldn’t yet read the neatly lettered labels on the drawers) was fascinating in helping me understand and question the thinking of adults in setting up an environment aimed at children. And watching children revel in the enjoyment of the wooden frame of a Wendy house that effortlessly becomes an aquarium, a doctor’s surgery, a jungle, a spaceship, a Chinese takeaway, or a whale, taught me a lot about what it really means to ‘think outside the box’ (or frame!).

All of this is an attempt in some way to highlight how important it is as an adult (and a guardian of children's learning) to keep challenging yourself and discovering. At Dukes, I have found a team keen to challenge themselves (however difficult that might sometimes be), a team determined to unpick the set patterns, to investigate, research, ask questions and truly discover the best possible approach to keep inspiring our children to learn.

So, if there is one discovery to take away from my time so far in Early Years, it's that if you really want to keep discovering, you must truly challenge your assumptions and set patterns of behaviour. Don’t assume that you know what’s best, really think about your audience and what they really want or need.

And, if all else fails, get down on your knees, look up at the clouds and try to find a unicorn. n