What adults can do enable active learning

• Support children to choose their activities – what they want to do and how they will do it using their preferred mode of communication.

• Stimulate children’s interest through shared attention and calm over-stimulated children.

• Recognise and respond to different learning styles.

• Help children to become aware of their own goals, make plans, and to review their own progress and successes.

• Describe what you see them trying to do, and encourage children to talk about their own processes and successes using their preferred mode of communication or by providing a suitable narrative.

• Be specific when you praise, especially noting effort such as how the child concentrates, tries different approaches, persists, solves problems, and has new ideas.

• Encourage children to learn together and from each other.

• Children develop their own motivations when you give reasons and talk about learning, rather than just directing.

What adults can do to tap into play and exploration

• • Play with children. Encourage them to explore, and show your own interest in discovering new things.
• • Acknowledge that some children may need some structured direct teaching prior to being able to independently explore resources.
• • Help children as needed to do what they are trying to do, without taking over or directing.
• • Join in play sensitively, fitting in with children’s ideas.
• • Model pretending an object is something else and help develop roles and stories.
• • Encourage children to try new activities and to judge risks for themselves. Be sure to support children’s confidence with words and body language and visual support and modelling.
• • Pay attention to how children engage in activities – the challenges faced, the effort, thought, learning and enjoyment. Talk more about the process than products. Comment and keenly observe.
• • Talk about how you and the children get better at things through effort and practice, and what we all can learn when things go wrong.
• • Allow appropriate time and repetition to process and respond to stimulus.

What adults can do to support Creativity and Critical thinking

• Use the language of thinking and learning: think, know, remember, forget, idea, makes sense, plan, learn, find out, confused, figure out, trying to do.
• Modify the use of language and vocabulary to match children’s need and level of understanding.
• Model being a thinker, showing that you don’t always know, are curious and sometimes puzzled, and can think and find out.
• Encourage open-ended thinking by not settling on the first ideas: What else is possible?
• Always respect children’s efforts and ideas, so they feel safe to take a risk with a new idea.
• Talking aloud helps children to think and control what they do. Model self-talk, describing your actions in play.
• Give children time to process talk and think/use preferred mode of communication.
• Value questions, talk, vocalisations and signs and many possible responses, without rushing toward answers too quickly.
• Support children’s interests over time, reminding them of previous approaches and encouraging them to make connections between their experiences.
• Model the creative process, showing your thinking about some of the many possible ways forward.
• Sustained shared thinking helps children to explore ideas and make links. Follow children’s lead in conversations/actions and responses, and think about things together.
• Encourage children to describe/share problems they encounter and to suggest ways to solve the problem.
• Show and talk/communicate about strategies – how to do things – including problem-solving, thinking and learning.
• Give feedback and help children to review their own progress and learning. Talk/communicate with children about what they are doing, how they plan to do it, what worked well and what they would change next time.
• Model the plan-do-review process yourself.

What adults can do to support emotional well-being

 Ensure each child has a constant and consistent key person in their family and at school to help them develop a sense of trust and security.

 Nurture warm, loving relationships between the child and their key people.

 Provide positive, warm role modelling by adults, both in their relationships with parents and other key adults in the setting and with parents and children.

 Welcome, greet and say goodbye to friends and family.

 Model emotional literacy by naming, expressing and commenting on feelings.

 Nurture relationships between children through planned cooperative experiences such as listening, turn taking and social modelling, e.g. Can I play with you? What’s your name?

 Model strategies and behaviours consistently to support positive learning behaviour, e.g. empathy and Conflict Resolution steps.

 Give opportunities for children to think, reflect and clarify and to receive full attention when they look to an adult for a response.

 Listen to, value and respect the views and ideas of other children.