One day this week I over­heard one of the chil­dren say “I can hear my friend’s voice. Where is he?” I thought it was a very pow­er­ful state­ment from some­one so young and ten­der. It made me think how impor­tant and mean­ing­ful friend­ships are to young chil­dren and to adults.

I believe friend­ships sweeten our lives and for chil­dren they become an impor­tant fac­tor in devel­op­ing their own iden­tity as they so patiently build a social world of their own. Chil­dren pos­sess an imme­di­ate desire to make friends but it takes time for them to do this and no mat­ter how con­fi­dent they are they still wish for warm rela­tion­ships. Even though one of the chil­dren could not see his friend the emo­tional power of his voice was enough for him to feel his pres­ence beside him.

My friend sent me text mes­sage at the week­end to say she was think­ing of me because she was walk­ing in a land­scape that was famil­iar to me, a place where my ances­tors had lived, a place I love and hold deeply in my heart. I replied by say­ing I was there too with her as I visu­alised the envi­ron­ment in my mind. Even though our chil­dren like adults may not be phys­i­cally with their friends they still feel all is good with them, they are there for them and affirm the good things in life.

We are look­ing for­ward to imple­ment­ing the new EYFS guid­ance with its trimmed down bureau­cracy, with a view to savour­ing more time with the chil­dren and enjoy­ing the com­pan­ion­ship of every­day life rich in its pos­si­bil­i­ties, poten­tials and ful­fil­ment. The Cen­tre is a place where they feel at ease and at home and for them to be themselves.

June McHugh

Our dear Linda Cooper, Extended Ser­vice Man­ager sadly passed away peace­fully in her sleep on Fri­day 23^rd March, after a long ill­ness. Linda worked tire­lessly for chil­dren and fam­i­lies at Green­fields. She had a unique and gifted abil­ity to make a dif­fer­ence to the lives of indi­vid­u­als in our com­mu­nity. Linda was an active mem­ber of the Senior Lead­er­ship Team and played a part in the deliv­ery of the children’s cen­tre agenda in the Lon­don Bor­ough of Ealing.

Her pass­ing reminds each of us just how ten­der and frag­ile our lives can be. Linda dis­played tremen­dous courage dur­ing her ill­ness. Noth­ing was ever too much trou­ble for her and her gen­er­ous spirit always put the needs of oth­ers before her­self. She did all of this with a great sense of humour, a smile and some­times a com­fort­ing hug. 

We all loved Linda she was one of the best, a great and loyal col­league, staff will miss her.

Our thoughts and con­do­lences go to her fam­ily at this dif­fi­cult time. May she rest in peace.

June McHugh

I read some­thing the other day about for­est schools and the ben­e­fits for chil­dren learn­ing in an out­door envi­ron­ment, in touch with nature.

I imme­di­ately thought of Green­fields being sur­rounded by trees and sit­u­ated in the cor­ner of a park. Some­times we take the nat­ural world for granted and I was reminded how immensely impor­tant trees are in our lives. Then this set me think­ing of David Hockney’s fas­ci­na­tion with trees and the land­scape in his exhi­bi­tion ‘A Big­ger Pic­ture’ at the Royal Acad­emy. Oh! How trees teach us so much about life!

I can remem­ber as a child feel­ing utterly free and secure in trees, never feel­ing lonely, a place to escape from the daily rou­tines of life. Recently I planted five trees in my gar­den, each day I look at them and each day they ground me in the good earth. For me they are a sym­bol of an essen­tial union of our con­scious and uncon­scious lives.

Trees are amaz­ing to young chil­dren, they enjoy hid­ing in them, read­ing in them and they become a cat­a­lyst for their imag­i­na­tions to grow and develop. The tree becomes a car, a rocket into space or some­thing else. They become homes for mini beasts, birds and squir­rels. Trees pro­duce fruit, nuts and leaves and the earthy smells that go with them.

David Hockney’s exhi­bi­tion at the Royal Acad­emy expresses his pas­sion with the land­scape and his work illus­trates a rich­ness of lay­ers the cam­era fails to cap­ture. For me it is a reminder to con­stantly expose chil­dren to authen­tic, nat­ural expe­ri­ences so they may con­nect their very being to their imme­di­ate world and the environment.

It seems chil­dren in the UK are low down as far as 24^th and 25^th on the global list for read­ing and maths. I find this stag­ger­ing and in a lead­ing econ­omy! What is it that holds our chil­dren back despite a national obses­sion and neu­ro­sis with league tables? Have we com­pletely lost the plot? Should we be tak­ing a more con­ti­nen­tal approach? Why have par­ents become so anx­ious about their children’s edu­ca­tion and is all the pres­sure we put on them, their chil­dren and their teacher’s counterproductive?

Do we pro­vide for­mal school­ing too soon? My view is we do! It is an inter­est­ing debate.

I read an arti­cle in the Times this week on very young nurs­ery age chil­dren in France do not begin for­mal read­ing until the age of seven, they just learn let­ters and sounds and how to write their name.

The French have a much more relaxed atti­tude with an empha­sis on devel­op­ing their social skills, how to orga­nize their thoughts and learn how to speak well and com­mu­ni­cate verbally.

This makes sense because in order to read, chil­dren need to hear the sounds.

The child learns to adopt a point of view and begins to rea­son and is then capa­ble of count­ing and clas­si­fy­ing. This is based on the French logic that if chil­dren can speak clearly they can think clearly and so ask ques­tions and hypoth­e­size; they become ana­lyt­i­cal thinkers and intel­lec­tu­als as they become adults.

I read in the same news­pa­per that a gov­ern­ment advi­sor announced ‘Tod­dlers with bad speech are doomed to fail as adults.’

The world renowned pre– schools in Reg­gio Emilia chal­lenge the notion of for­mal­ity too soon and places empha­sis in cre­ativ­ity and dia­logue as an effec­tive learn­ing process. 

It is so easy to blame poor teach­ing meth­ods and teach­ers. I believe our prob­lems go so much deeper than this about child­hood and learn­ing. Much has been achieved in the UK in Early Years but the cul­ture of test­ing is con­cern­ing. For me really valu­ing child­hood in itself is cru­cial. A time to be savoured, enjoyed and develop at readi­ness albeit at dif­fer­ent times makes for a sound maxim for life!

Let me leave you with this thought. “And the first step as you know is always what mat­ters most, par­tic­u­larly when we are deal­ing with those who are young and ten­der. That is the time when they are tak­ing shape and when any impres­sion we choose to make leaves a per­ma­nent mark.” Plato (428−348)

We have two prac­tis­ing artists in the Cen­tre, Rosie Pot­ter and Kirstie Reid. They both have a range of skills and exper­tise and they work closely with the chil­dren one day a week. Part of their role too is to pro­vide pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment along­side prac­tion­ers to enhance learn­ing and devel­op­ment for the chil­dren. Being able to include artists in the work of the Cen­tre for me makes a very clear state­ment about the impor­tance of cre­ativ­ity and imag­i­na­tion in the knowl­edge build­ing process of our children.

Our artists sup­port the chil­dren and staff in our long-​term projects as they bring an extra dimen­sion to the Cen­tre. For me they are the icing on the cake, there to chal­lenge, pro­voke and cre­ate the think­ing rip­ples for chil­dren to prob­lem solve and explore in a col­lab­o­ra­tive culture.

One of the char­ac­ter­is­tics which define us as human beings is our cre­ative nature and the abil­ity to make mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions. Some of our chil­dren as young as they are can be amaz­ingly philo­soph­i­cal; they make pro­found state­ments and are able to ask impor­tant ques­tions, they never seem to be phased by adults! Oh, at my time of life I am still learn­ing from them, they are always full of sur­prises, so imag­i­na­tive and so gen­er­ous with their humour!

Work­ing in a cre­ative envi­ron­ment helps chil­dren to see what they look at, hear what they lis­ten to and feel what they touch. Our project work with the artists Rosie and Kirstie allows them to see beyond famil­iar bound­aries and hori­zons and hope­fully as they grow older develop a tol­er­ance for life’s uncertainties.

Children’s draw­ings never cease to inspire me; they pro­vide us with a real insight to their stage of devel­op­ment, a tan­gi­ble record of their think­ing and under­stand­ing of the world around them. Their first scrib­bles as we call them go on to por­tray their rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the visual world.

I recently read ‘A Big­ger Mes­sage: Con­ver­sa­tions with David Hock­ney’ by Mar­tin Gay­ford. For me Hock­ney is one of the great­est liv­ing artists, his work is inspir­ing. I men­tion Hock­ney in the con­text of children’s draw­ing because he talked about the impor­tance of draw­ing in his own life. He said the mak­ing of marks had always appealed to him from a very early age and he always found the art of see­ing as enjoy­able. He goes on to say that draw­ing makes you see things clearer and clearer, the image pass­ing through you in a phys­i­o­log­i­cal way to your brain and to your mem­ory, where it stays and is then trans­mit­ted into your hands.

David Hock­ney com­ments on draw­ing to be a pro­found expe­ri­ence. ‘Chil­dren usu­ally want to draw what’s in front of them, don’t they? I’ll make you a pic­ture of a house or peo­ple, or some­thing. That sug­gests a deep, deep desire to depict.’

For me, it is a priv­i­lege to be wit­ness to chil­dren draw­ing. It shows the child as a com­pe­tent learner with rich poten­tial. As prac­ti­tion­ers, par­ents and those inter­ested in chil­dren let us respect and take the ideas of our young and ten­der chil­dren seriously.

‘Once chil­dren are helped to per­ceive them­selves as authors and inven­tors, once they are helped to see to dis­cover the plea­sures of inquiry, their moti­va­tion and inter­est explode.’ ( Malaguzzi 1998)

What are we doing to our children?

There has been much debate recently about the cot­ton wool cul­ture we wrap our chil­dren in and the con­se­quences of erod­ing their child­hood and stunt­ing their emo­tional devel­op­ment. At the same time per­haps we should be reflect­ing upon the soli­tary pur­suits of our chil­dren such as play­ing com­puter games together with the pres­sures of a cli­mate of test dri­ven edu­ca­tion. What is this say­ing about child­hood? Is it impor­tant to have a child­hood? What about chil­dren grow­ing up as bal­anced indi­vid­u­als? What about child­hood obesity?

Research shows as a nation that we have the low­est lev­els of children’s well-​being in the devel­oped world!

It is my view and I am sure the view of many that we place our chil­dren into for­mal school­ing too soon and then cre­ate an envi­ron­ment in which we inhibit their development.

I can remem­ber my own child­hood albeit full of chal­lenges, I was able to climb trees, make dens, mud pies and explore the great out­doors, enabling me to acquire and develop a per­sonal resilience that has helped me through the trau­mas and expe­ri­ences of life. I can remem­ber falling over and injur­ing myself, this equipped me with a real sense of health and safety!

There has been grow­ing con­cern about health and safety fears and pre­vent­ing chil­dren from play­ing conkers and ban­ning sack races and other activ­i­ties in case they hurt themselves.

Chil­dren have a right to oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­sol­i­date friend­ships and deal with con­flict cre­at­ing long last­ing and deep relationships.

For chil­dren to man­age their lives risk tak­ing is essen­tial and chal­leng­ing play pro­vides such oppor­tu­ni­ties. Con­stantly wrap­ping them in cot­ton wool may well leave them ill– equipped to man­age the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions they might encounter in later life. I can’t help but think we are doing such a dis­ser­vice to our young children!

Allow­ing chil­dren adven­ture in their play excites them and helps them instil sus­tain­ing crit­i­cal life skills.

It is wor­ry­ing that cocoon­ing young chil­dren, we might as a soci­ety be deny­ing the next gen­er­a­tion from grow­ing up to become capa­ble, con­fi­dent and resilient adults.

The Cen­tre recently had its three yearly review for Investors in Peo­ple. One of the most impor­tant assets of any orga­ni­za­tion is its peo­ple and their capac­ity to grow and learn in the job they do.
Although the process of change is part of our daily lives, being able to iden­tify what should never change is very impor­tant as this is what makes an orga­ni­za­tion great!
Of course some things have to change in order to move for­ward. I believe team­work under­pins the process of change and devel­op­ment.
For me team­work is cru­cial in an early years set­ting so as to pro­vide out­stand­ing ser­vices for its com­mu­nity of chil­dren and fam­i­lies.
Since our last Investors in Peo­ple review in 2008 we have gone through many changes includ­ing the con­struc­tion of our new build­ing.
“It is the Assessor’s view that this per­for­mance would not have been pos­si­ble with­out a deeply com­mit­ted and skilled team led by excep­tion­ally inspir­ing man­agers. The new build­ing show­cases the phi­los­o­phy of a child cen­tred approach that under­pins the Centre’s vision and val­ues. This is an inno­v­a­tive method­ol­ogy that val­ues diver­sity and respects the indi­vid­ual as the basic build­ing blocks of the Centre’s cul­ture regard­less of whether that indi­vid­ual is a child, its par­ent or carer, a staff mem­ber, other pro­fes­sional, or a gov­er­nor. Green­fields is excep­tional at inclu­sive­ness, it is a place of calm cre­ativ­ity, every­one smiles. It is clear peo­ple really enjoy their work.“
As Head of Cen­tre I feel priv­i­leged to be work­ing with a team of peo­ple who are com­mit­ted to improv­ing the life chances of chil­dren. I use the word team broadly. This includes the staff employed at the Cen­tre, a wide range of multi agency pro­fes­sion­als, the LA and the tremen­dous sup­port I have from the gov­ern­ing body.

The older I become the greater I under­stand the rich value of lis­ten­ing and the impact it makes on the the lives of our ten­der young chil­dren. I do believe our world would be a bet­ter place in the present global cli­mate if we all lis­tened more effec­tively to each other. Lis­ten­ing is a dif­fi­cult under­tak­ing because it requires us all to be open to oth­ers and pre­dis­poses us towards change. It requires all of us to pluck up the courage to aban­don our­selves and embrace the value of oth­ers.
Green­fields pro­motes a ‘lis­ten­ing to chil­dren cul­ture’ where the voice of the child is respected. It is a place where chil­dren feel val­ued and their views taken seri­ously. This has a major impact on their learn­ing and emo­tional well-​being.
Chil­dren are the most extra­or­di­nary lis­ten­ers hav­ing the abil­ity to encode and decode infor­ma­tion with the most amaz­ing cre­ativ­ity. They are such gen­er­ous lis­ten­ers enjoy­ing the many oppor­tu­ni­ties to com­mu­ni­cate and engage in form­ing rela­tion­ships.
Lis­ten­ing is more than some­one talk­ing, it takes many forms and here we must be inspired by Malaguzzi and his ‘Hun­dred Lan­guages of Chil­dren.‘
A cre­ative learner has the poten­tial and abil­ity to make mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions between thoughts and objects and so bring­ing about inno­va­tion.
So how do we lis­ten to chil­dren? We do this by tak­ing what they say seri­ously and respond­ing respect­fully to their views. Also by giv­ing them all the time and space pos­si­ble to express them­selves. Young chil­dren can be intim­i­dat­ing, they can see right through you, they know if you are lis­ten­ing to them, so beware!
Chil­dren must be heard, it is their right, they have a voice and they are our future.

Lead­er­ship devel­ops com­mu­ni­ties and builds poten­tials.
A few years ago I had the oppor­tu­nity to attend the Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence ‘Cross­ing Bound­aries’ in Reg­gio Emilia, Italy. It is where the world renowned pre schools were founded by Loris Malaguzzi. I sat in the Grand Opera House lis­ten­ing to Pro­fes­sor Aldu Masulla, a man well into his eight­ies speak­ing off the cuff for a very long time! He was a psy­chol­o­gist by pro­fes­sion and what an inspir­ing human being! He spoke with such pas­sion and very mov­ingly talked about the child.
He reminded all of us that “Young chil­dren are the first chap­ter of the book of human life.” Pro­fes­sor Masulla believed lead­er­ship begins at birth. From the moment the child is born it has an invi­ta­tion from the mother to com­mu­ni­cate and if we focus on this we are imbued with a desire to care for our own exis­tence. It is impor­tant to be able to care for your­self in order to care for the most vul­ner­a­ble in soci­ety. Being able to care for our own exis­tence is a phi­los­o­phy for life. So deal­ing with chil­dren is a vital exis­tence we all have as we learn to share the ten­sions in the lives of oth­ers.
It seems that suc­cess as a leader depends some­what on your suc­cess as a human being.
So, for me learn­ing requires all of us to be lead­ers in our lives. It is about a com­mu­nity rela­tion­ship and hav­ing the abil­ity to feel with pas­sion, con­tributes to a gen­uine com­mu­nity.
Every­day our small rela­tion­ships are a source of change. Children’s Cen­tres and indeed schools every­where can empower our chil­dren to shape their own future and how we do this is key to their success.