Early Years Connect

Hello there everyone, Our next break is just around the corner, and it's getting chilly soon near the Lunar New Year. Stay warm and bundle up next week! 🧣 1 REFLECTION Last week, Lewis Newman (Y1 Lead) and Katie Stears (Y2 Lead) at RCHK facilitated the first-ever meeting for Early Years Phase Leaders across ESF. It speaks to the commitment ESF is making to the early years, but also of the urgency of which we need to come together and start having conversations around a shared vision, the strengths and stretches of individual schools and as a Foundation, and what tangible steps we're going to take to move steps forward.  Takeaways from the day: We need to start thinking of the early years as a phase, from Pre-K to Y2, whether it be through the lens of values, beliefs, mindsets, or practices. Continuing to make the distinction between kindergarten and primary does not serve the goal of individual development and continuity of learning. When we say the child is at the heart of th...

Good morning all! I hope everyone managed to stay relatively dry over the weekend 🌧️ I was at the HK Philharmonic Symphony Under the Stars (or maybe more aptly, symphony under the rain) and they had to suspend the concert after one song because the rain was getting really ridiculous and nobody could actually hear the music on top of the racket that was rain hitting umbrellas. How wild that we have this many typhoons in November?! This SCMP article explains it. “The waters have stored vast amounts of heat and energy from the long summer,” he said. “Global warming is also a contributing factor, enabling them to stay warm. “The sea surface temperatures this year and last year have all broken records in being very warm.“Warm waters could provide enough energy for tropical cyclones to form. If the sea surface temperatures were too low, there would be no need to consider other factors.” How does anyone need more of a reason to believe in, learn about, and teach about global warming? 🫠 1 R...

Good morning!  😊 I hope you've all had a restful term break. No matter where you were, I hope the weather was in your favour, and for those of us who stayed in HK, I am still in disbelief at how beautiful and comfortable the weather has been - did we actually just experience proper Autumn? 🍃 This EY Connect issue will center around the Chapters Early Years Conference. Over the course of two days, 6 amazing presenters and EY advocates provoked our thinking, helping us to reflect on our identities as educators and the values we hold dear that directly impact our teaching practice.   1 REFLECTION (From left to right: Megina Baker, Jennifer Ryan, Anne van Dam, Liz Pemberton, Fiona Zinn, Mark Church) Having the opportunity to connect with colleagues both from Hillside and across the ESF early years phase re-engaged our common goal for play-based learning and the importance of an aligned philosophy and pedagogy. In fact, particularly for our primary colleagues, it was a nudge towa...

Good morning!  😊 I hope everyone has had a great start to the school year. I'm eager to jump back into this monthly passion project of mine as I invite educators to engage with content that inspires and advances our thinking and breathes new inquires into your teaching practice. As always, if you read something that resonates with you, share it with your colleagues, bring it to planning meetings, and extend the learning for the collective. 1 REFLECTION During the beginning weeks of school, we know that relationship building is the priority. A child's relationship to teachers and peers, but also their relationship to the physical space, and to materials old and new. Relationships are the bedrock upon which everything else is built.  I was helping a K1 child with toileting last week, and he said to me "Don't talk to strangers". I replied, "Hmm.. am I a stranger?" He smiled and said "no!" Unfortunately at that time I was too busy to further the c...

Morning everyone!  Thank you for your readership this year, I hope the content has been thought-provoking and helpful. Now let's wrap up the school year with some celebrations 🙌  1 REFLECTION Last week marked the end of the second iteration of "A Closer Look at the PYP" PD series. One thing comes to mind when I think about this cohort of learners - "The more you put in, the more you get out of it"  Educators came with an eagerness for learning and growth, and their efforts were evident in the many connections they made between theory and practice.  During the last session, educators did a thinking routine (see above) to synthesize their learning around transdisciplinarity and inquiry. They zoomed out and really thought about this conceptually, coming up with symbols such as waves and interconnected rings, to symbolize all the elements of the PYP coming together in cyclical understandings.  Well done Hillside EAs! 1 IDEA At the third ESF Annual Research Conferen...

Morning everyone  Keep your wellies and umbrella with you this week, it looks like it'll be a rainy one! ☔ 1 REFLECTION I've been thinking a lot about time. Especially nearer the end of term, a lot of conversations I've been having with educators are around time - the lack of, the slipping away of, the constraints of. It has always been a tricky layer in education. Educators make time for what they value. What you see happening in classrooms is a direct reflection of the values, beliefs, and culture that is cultivated in that space. However, teachers' autonomy over their use of time does seem to decrease as we move up year levels, as whole school timetabling trumps the individual teacher's preference for when and how long their children engage in playful learning.  Recently, both Shelley Moore and Fiona Zinn have got me thinking about possibilities when we reframe time as rhythms.  The topic of rhythms offers a generous and fertile space for our consideration - it n...