Retirement blog: Charlie and the Circus

Retirement blog: Charlie and the Circus: This is a blog about my interaction with my grandson Charlie who is now 3 years and 11 months. The last time we were together we were play...

Charlie and the Circus

This is a blog about my interaction with my grandson Charlie who is now 3 years and 11 months. The last time we were together we were playing with a range of IKEA soft toys that I use in my work with teachers. I had planned for his arrival by planning to read a story (also from IKEA) and by laying out all the story characters around the room. Charlie was excited when he saw all the toys and after his initial exploration I read the story and he enjoyed finding the characters as they appeared. I always try to follow Charlie’s interests and support his play and the next day play possibilities emerged that I would never have expected or planned for.

I was sitting on the sofa and Charlie was playing by himself with the soft toys. He picked up a large black rat saying, ‘they have these in Warwick castle’. ‘Rat-throwing’ is a rather bizarre game that Charlie has enjoyed playing on visits to the castle. This year, having moved to Oxford in September, he hasn’t been to the castle, but he still remembers the game. His imaginary play often reflects his experiences of the world and gives us some insight into concepts he has already acquired. He picked up a small drum in the room and began to pretend the rat could balance it on his nose. I asked him, ‘Is he a circus rat?’ Charlie nodded. I did a drum roll on another drum and called out to a pretend audience, ‘Roll up, roll up, see the rat balance a drum on his nose.’ Charlie seemed to enjoy this so I asked him, ‘Shall we do a circus?’ He nodded. ‘I think we have a toy clown, they have clowns in the circus don’t they?’ Charlie found the clown and began pretending it was standing on the drum, which he turned onto its side and rolled along.

I took on the role of ringmaster and rolled on the drum: ‘See the clown rolling a giant drum across the circus ring.’ ‘Who else can be in the circus?’ Soon we had a wolf who could swallow a grandma whole and emerge unscathed (a very entertaining soft toy, again from IKEA) and a king whose heart could be taken in and out of his body (IKEA again). Charlie picked up a little horse and pranced him around our imaginary circus ring.

 ‘Where’s the pixie?’ I said, ‘she could ride on the horse’s back.’

Charlie found the pixie and placed her on the horse’s back and trotted off with her.

 ‘What about Puss-in-Boots?’ I said.

‘He can be in charge,’ said Charlie.

‘The ring master of the circus?’

‘Yes’, said Charlie.

‘What about the dragon? Can he be in the circus? What could he do?’

‘Breathe fire and fly,’ said Charlie.

I did another drum role: ‘see the amazing fire-breathing dragon fly through the big top.’ Charlie swooped the dragon around the room. We repeated the whole thing again. I did the drum rolls and as I called out what each toy would do in the circus, Charlie picked them up and acted out their roles.

Later on we were in the garden and Charlie asked for some paper and a pen. He rarely shows any interest in mark making so I was surprised. He drew some scribbly lines on the paper.

‘Is that a poster to advertise the circus?’ I said.

‘No, it’s a map to the circus.’

‘Shall I write, “Map to the circus” on the top?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, so I did.

Charlie had made marks to create a map, a symbol imbued with cultural significance and I was thrilled. Today, a week later just as I was writing this blog, my daughter phoned me and said that for the first time ever on Wednesday, when she had taken Charlie to work to visit and see a member of staff’s new baby, he had asked for paper and pen and drawn people with round bodies and stick arms. He told her who each of the people he had drawn were and she wrote their names on the paper for him.

This is a really significant event for us as we had previously been worried about his disinterest in mark-making – especially as his 21 month old brother shows great interest in pens and makes marks everywhere. This caused me to wonder why in the space of a week he had freely chosen to mark-make in two very different and meaningful ways.

In reflecting on these events I realise I have learnt something about child-initiated, adult-supported play. Charlie had initiated the play with the rat and the drum. I extended it by suggesting it could be a circus rat. I wanted to pick up on Charlie’s ideas and knew he had some experience of circuses. We had been to the circus together when he was two and had often talked about it and watched a video on my phone of the trapeze act featuring a fireman. I acted spontaneously and on getting a positive response from Charlie, went on to consciously explore the narrative of a circus with him. He clearly understood the idea of animals doing tricks and readily responded to my suggestions for extending his imaginary play. This seems to illustrate the overlap between play as a natural development activity and play as an intentional educational activity. By building on Charlie’s personal knowledge and interests I was able to connect with him and help him to extend his understanding of the world.

I subscribe to a socio-cultural model of learning and believe we have to view this play in the context of Charlie’s social and cultural world. His experience of story, circuses and soft toys combined with his memory of the game he had played with ‘rats’ at Warwick castle had been incorporated into his play and has enhanced his imaginative capacity. Furthermore, Charlie has a lot of experience of entertainment and performance in general. He has attended plays, musicals and pantomimes, and therefore my introduction of a drum roll to stage-manage the ‘circus’ production made sense to him in the light of his knowledge of theatre, where music can be used to introduce action and mark transitions. His acceptance of my suggestion of creating a circus and his capacity to join in was an imaginative act we both participated in. I took on the mediating role of the adult by linking his play to his lived social experience to extend his imaginative play. Charlie had demonstrated his emotional engagement with the toys and by following this I was able to extend his thinking and imagination. Without his affective commitment I doubt this would have happened. And in the process I have gained a better understanding of the relationship between child-initiated and adult-supported play. Now I have had a chance to think about it, I wish we had gone on to look at maps and made links between Charlie’s map-making and other maps in our world, but we can do that another time.

Let’s return to the idea of mark making. Charlie is in pre-school and his lack of interest in mark making was beginning to worry us. The assessment instruments schools are expected to use are designed to measure children against nationally expected outcomes.  He will be starting school in September and in order to be ‘school-ready’ there are expectations that he will acquire some competence in mark making. Because of this we have been worried about his lack of interest in this activity. I was worried that when he is assessed against the learning indicators he would be found wanting and that this might lead his teachers to focus on what he can’t yet do – in the name of getting him ‘school-ready’ – rather than build on his achievements. Increasingly it is the ultimate demands of the school and getting him ready for school that drives the experiences offered to him and sparked our fear that he won’t measure up. I know from my work with early years’ settings, that instead of following the child’s lead in play, many settings are planning individual curriculum activities to address a child’s perceived deficits.

Mark making is important and is one of the many languages of children. In these two examples of Charlie’s spontaneous mark making he has shown us that he is perfectly capable of communicating through his mark making when he decides he wants to do it. In his life he has been exposed to maps and drawing as a way of communicating which will have shown him that graphic communication is a valued activity and can be used to express ideas. By adding words to his map and his drawings of people we have linked his mark making to another communicative tool, that of writing. Because this is embedded in his everyday experience it holds meaning for him that no amount of targeted teaching to address a deficit can do.

As I said in a previous blog, Charlie is already very aware of environmental print and knows that symbols convey information; of course it was just a matter of time before he appropriated this communicative tool for himself – it is part of his socio-cultural context, unfortunately time has been elevated to a high status when judging children’s capabilities – it is not just whether or not they can do things, but when they can do them that is important. Charlie already risked being judged as deficit because he had not made marks according to the timescale set by the developmental criteria. Unfortunately, we have made when as important as what in our developmental milestones and I think that can have a negative impact on children’s sense of themselves and their capabilities and will alarm parents when they are told what their child can’t yet do. The fact that Charlie’s mark making has started later than most of his peers has been a cause for worry. I wonder how often, when a child doesn’t demonstrate competence in a pre-determined learning outcome at the age they are ‘supposed’ to, the result is a child worrying about their lack of competence. How soon would children like Charlie, who began mark making later than most of their peers, be made to feel that they were lacking and start to worry about it? And would that school-induced worry (and often parent-induced as well) make children anxious because they are unable to do what the adults around them expect?

I think it will have an impact. A teacher friend of mine recently wrote to me about the experience she had at parents’ evening for her four year old:

“At my son’s nursery they compare him against outcomes and his teacher spent the whole evening telling us what he can’t do, we had to find the things he can. She said, ‘we are a bit concerned that he only likes to play with the small world, he always chooses that.’ She rattled off some more things he can’t do. I said, ‘what about outside, he likes to be outside.’ She said, ‘Oh yes, he is OK outside, but he didn’t want to build a castle in a group, and his castle wasn't as big or as elaborate as the others.’ Everything is focused on what the children can’t do, but there was no emphasis placed on what he can do.”

What kind of messages are we giving to children when we focus on what they can’t do, instead of building on what they can do and what they are interested in. As a doting grandmother I am tempted to think that Charlie waited to mark make until he could see a communicative point in doing it. Yet if he is viewed as a child who doesn’t make marks and if, in response to this, the provision offered to him targets mark making, we will be responding to a perceived deficit in the child rather than build on his accomplishments. If choices of activities for children is driven by targets that have been set because of the child’s failure to demonstrate the pre-determined outcomes of the early years foundation stage we sacrifice a child-centred curriculum.

I am worried about the increasing prevalence of a deficit model of the child’s capacity to understand and act upon their world. I want a model that assumes each child is a competent learner, that is someone who is capable, confident and self-assured.  It follows from this that we need a model of children as active and capable of fully participating and directing their own learning through the social interactions we provide for them in educational settings and sometimes with practitioners who can follow their learning. In contrast, a view of the child as deficient leads to a different kind of curriculum and interaction. The deficit model fosters a ‘can’t do’ rather than a ‘can do’ attitude that I am afraid will transfer itself to the child. Thank goodness Charlie has started mark making before he saw himself as deficient in this area.  I look forward to finding out where our play might lead us next.

Retirement blog: Charlie and the Beanstalk

Retirement blog: Charlie and the Beanstalk: Charlie and the Beanstalk – an account of critical, creative and collaborative story-telling and making. In this blog I recount what h...

Charlie and the Beanstalk

Charlie and the Beanstalk – an account of critical, creative and collaborative story-telling and making.

In this blog I recount what happened at bedtime one night when I asked Charlie, aged 3 years, 7 months, what story he wanted. The result was a creative and collaborative process in which Charlie had a big input into the shaping and molding of a story that suited him at this stage in his life. Having described the process and told the story that emerged I raise questions about what will happen to Charlie when he starts school next year and apply the same questions to thinking about the teacher and what opportunities she will have to respond to the children in her care critically, creatively and collaboratively.

Charlie was three years and 7 months when this story was created. It was bedtime and he wanted a story with ‘Jack’ in it and I offered to tell ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, one we had been sharing for well over a year.  But this time Charlie wanted to change the story. He didn’t want a giant in the story because, “Giants are too scary.” Charlie’s Mum had been reading Charlie The BFG – the Big Friendly Giant ­­– by Roald Dahl and he had been scared by the giant in that story. What follows is another example of how Charlie and me create a new version of the old fairytale and once again incorporate some of his favourite TV characters. For the first time Treefroo Tom makes an appearance, but Fireman Sam is not excluded, he is still there too. As I tried to accommodate his requests I had to think about possible new scenarios for the story and with Charlie’s help we created the following adaptation.

Once upon a time there was a boy called Jack who lived alone with his mother, who was a widow and Daisy their cow. Everyday Jack’s mother would milk Daisy the cow. She would make butter, yogurt and cheese from the milk for them to eat and they were happy.

Then one day, Jack’s mother went to milk the cow but there was no milk left. “Jack, Jack” said his mother, “there is no milk left, we haven’t got anything to eat, you will have to take Daisy to market and sell her and use the money to buy food.”

“Oh no!” said Jack, “Not Daisy the cow, I love Daisy.”

“I know” said his mother, “but unless Daisy gives us milk, we won’t have anything to eat – we have to sell her. Now be a good boy and take her to market. Make sure you get a good price for her.”

“OK Mother…”, said Jack and sadly he tied a rope around Daisy’s neck and set off to market. He hadn’t gone far when he met a small man wearing green trousers and a hat with a feather in it.

“Hallo Jack”, said the man, “where are you going with that fine cow?”

Jack wondered how the man knew his name and said, “This is Daisy, but unfortunately she can’t give us milk any more so I have to take her to market to sell her.”

“I will buy her,” said the funny little man.

“Really?” said Jack, a little surprised, “How much will you give me?”

“I won’t give you money,” said the man, “Oh no, I will give you something better that money. I will give you these magic beans.” And he held out his hand to show jack the beans. “With this beans you will never be hungry again.”

“Never be hungry again,” thought Jack, “that would be wonderful.” But he hesitated. His mother had said he must get a good price for the cow. But he decided he would accept and said, “OK, give me the beans.”

The little man gave Jack the beans, “You won’t regret it,” he said and walked off with Daisy the cow. Jack ran home. When he got there his mother was surprised. “Well, Jack, you were quick, did you get a good price for the cow?”

“Yes, mother,” said Jack, “but I didn’t get money, I got these magic beans,” and Jack opened his hand and showed his mother the beans.

“BEANS”, said his mother, “BEANS! We can’t live on beans – you stupid boy” and she threw the beans out of the window and sent Jack to bed without any supper. Jack was so sad and he cried himself to sleep.

The next day Jack woke up and something was wrong. It was morning, but his bedroom was dark. “What’s going on?” thought Jack. He jumped out of bed and went to the window and there growing tall into the sky was an enormous beanstalk. “Wow!” thought Jack, a magic beanstalk, “I must climb it and see where it goes.” Jack ran out of the house and started to climb the beanstalk, he climbed and he climbed, climbed and he climbed – through the clouds, climbing, climbing until at last he came to another land. Jack got off the beanstalk and looked all around him. There in the distance was a huge castle. “I wonder who lives in that castle?” thought Jack.

“Not a giant,” said Charlie.

“No, not a giant” I said, “but who does live there?”

“A Knight”, said Charlie.

 “OK,” I said. “Off Jack went to the castle, he went run, run, run, walk, walk, walk, run, run, run, walk, walk, walk, run, run, run, walk, walk, walk until he reached the castle door. He looked through the door and there sitting at the table was,

“Mike the Knight,” said Charlie.

“Hallo, my name’s Jack”, said Jack and he told Mike the Knight all about Daisy the cow and the man who had given him the beans for her.  Mike got excited. “Evie, Evie,” he called, “come and see this boy Jack, he has a story to tell.”

Evie came in and Jack told her the story.

“Was the man wearing green trousers and a cap with a feather it in?” she asked.

“Why yes,” said Jack, “but how did you know?”

“That is the man who stole my magic beans from me,” said Evie. “What did you say you did with the beans?”

“That’s what I have been trying to tell you,” said Mike. “The beans have grown into a giant beanstalk and Jack here has climbed up the beanstalk. This means we can all go home.”

Mike then told Jack the story of how a giant had captured Mike and Evie and taken them up through the clouds to the castle and left them there. They had no way to get back to Glendragon because the castle was in the sky. But now that Jack had grown the beanstalk they would all be able to go home.

“I want Tree Fu Tom in the story”, said Charlie, “and Fireman Sam.”

“What does Tree Fu Tom do?” I asked.

“He’s magic and he can fly,” said Charlie.

“OK” I said.

Mike was now getting excited. He called for Sparky and Squirt and told them about the beanstalk. He then called for his horse, Gallahad and he and Evie and Jack jumped on Gallahad and set off towards the beanstalk. Sparky and Squirt flew along beside them. Soon they arrived  at the beanstalk.

“Oh No,” said Mike, “what are we going to do? Evie and I can climb down the beanstalk, and Sparky and Squirt can fly, but what about Galahad? He won’t be able to climb down the beanstalk.”

Everyone looked very sad for a moment. Then Mike jumped up. “By the King’s Crown, I’ve got it. We must send for Tree Fu Tom, he can fly and if he gets on Galahad’s back he can fly him down to the ground. But there’s one problem how do we contact him?”

“Leave that to me,” said Evie and she took out her magic watch and dialed up Treefru Tom.

“Hallo,” said Evie, “is that Tree Fu Tom?”

“Yes” said Charlie (aka Tree Fu Tom).

“We have a bit of a problem Tree Fu  we are stuck up in the clouds in the giant’s land, but Jack grew a giant beanstalk from magic beans so we can be rescued, but unfortunately poor Gallahad can’t climb down the beanstalk. Can you help us?”

“Yes”, said Charlie.

“Can you come now?” said Evie.

“Yes”, said Charlie, “right away”.

Quick as a flash Tree Fu Tom span around and flew right up the beanstalk to the mountain.

“What about Fireman Sam?” asked Charlie.

“Yes. I know,” I said.

“What will happen when the giant gets back and finds Mike and Evie have gone?” asked Jack.

“Oh no”, said Mike, “he will follow us down the beanstalk and when he catches us he will grind our bones to make his bread. What are we going to do?”

“Fireman Sam,” said Charlie.

“Good idea. I’ll ring him now” said Evie.

Briing, Brriing.. Briing..”Hallo, is that Fireman Sam?”

“Yes,” said Charlie.

“Fireman Sam, it is Evie here and I need your help. Mike the Knight and Jack and me are stuck up in giant’s land and we are going to climb down the beanstalk to get home, but when the giant comes back …

“No giants” said Charlie.

“No giants,” I said, “when he comes back and finds we are gone he will chase after us down the beanstalk. Can you come and chop down the beanstalk when we get down?”

“Of course,” said Charlie. “I’m coming right away.”

“Ok,” said Mike, “Treefru Tom can you get on Galahad’s back so you can fly down.”

“Of course, Mike” said Tom and jumped up onto Galahad’s back, “now Galahad don’t be afraid, just close your eyes and step off into the clouds.” Galahad was very scared, Squirt and Sparkey flew around him to encourage him and then he stepped off into the clouds and began to fly.

“Hurrah!’ said Mike, come on Evie, come on Jack. So Mike, Evie and Jack started to climb down the beanstalk. Squirt and Sparky and Galahad with Treefroo Tom flew down to the ground. Just as they all arrived on the ground they heard the sound of Jupiter. “nee naw, nee naw, nee naw, nee naw”.

“It’s Fireman Sam”, said Jack. Sam got out of the engine and took his axe and started to chop down the beanstalk. (Charlie began to make chopping motions with an imaginary axe).

Jack’s mother ran out of the house, “what’s all this commotion?” she said. She was so surprised when she saw what was going in. Jack explained to his mother what had happened and at that moment CRASH! The beanstalk hit the ground and everyone started to cheer. “Hooray for Fireman Sam, you’ve saved the day.”

“No problem,” said Sam, “But I have to go now, bye.”

“Bye Sam, and thank-you” said everyone.

Mike turned to Jack’s mother. “Your son Jack has saved Evie and me from the giant, now I want to invite you to come and live with us in our castle. You can work in the kitchens and Jack can help look after the horses. You will have somewhere to live and all the food you can eat. You will never be hungry again.”

“Oh thank you,” said Jack’s mother and she turned to Jack. “I’m sorry I was so cross Jack, this is wonderful news, let’s set off for the castle at once.”

So Mike and Evie, Jack and his Mother, Galahad, Sparky and Squirt set off for Glendragon where Jack and his mother lived happily ever after. And they were never hungry again.

“That was a good story, Nana.”

Reflection

At the age of three years and 7 months Charlie shows himself to be a critical and creative thinker with the capacity for collaboration and agency.  Drawing on the wide repertoire of stories he has been exposed to which include traditional fairy tales, books and TV characters, he can take ownership of stories and direct them in ways that suit him at this moment in his life. As I have discussed in previous blogs, stories move him; he can be frightened as well as excited by them. He knows he can manipulate them to provide a satisfying story that incorporate all the fictional characters he cares about and exclude those he isn’t sure about. I am constantly delighted by his capacity for powerful thinking and learning.

When Charlie starts school next year I wonder if his capacity to input into his own learning will be valued, or will he just be expected to engage with the curriculum offered by the teacher? I want to raise some questions that I will return to when he does start school to see what the answers might be.

What will role will Charlie play in his own learning when he starts school? 

Will he get to play an active role in his own learning? Or,

Will the teacher decide everything he is to learn in advance?

Will Charlie be expected to conform as a passive recipient of the knowledge the teacher wishes to transfer?

Will he have any opportunity for agency as a cultural being with experiences, insights and ideas of his own?

Will he be encouraged or even allowed to develop new ideas or question the knowledge the teacher transmits?

Will he get the opportunity to dialogue with his teacher, to shape the curriculum to incorporate his ideas and thoughts?

Will his natural creativity and criticality be nurtured or suppressed?

The teacher will be under great pressure to ‘deliver’ a curriculum that has been decided by government, I also worry about her opportunities for creativity and criticality.

What role is the teacher expected to play in Charlie’s learning? I have taken the same questions about Charlie and applied them to the teacher.

Will the teacher play an active role in planning learning?

Will the teacher be expected to have planned the curriculum in advance before getting to know the children in her class?

Will the teacher be expected to conform as a passive deliverer the knowledge predetermined by government?

Will the teacher have any opportunity for agency as a cultural being with experiences, ideas and insights of her own?

Will the teacher be encouraged or even allowed to develop new ideas or question the knowledge she is expected to transmit?

Will the teacher create opportunities for dialogue with the children with a view of incorporating their ideas and thoughts into the curriculum?

Will the creativity and criticality of the teacher be nurtured or suppressed?

Forty Eight Hours with Charlie

In this blog I describe in detail forty-eight hours in the life of Charlie, three years and nine months and reflect on what an amazing learner he is. I then wonder what is happening to him in his pre-school as they prepare to assess his readiness for school this year. The activities planned in his pre-school are posted each day on the classroom door and show how each is designed to help him achieve the learning outcomes deemed necessary for moving to 'big' school. I argue that this is the earliest example in our system of the assessment tail wagging the learning dog. Drawing on my descriptive account of Charlie’s life I question and critique this system that now determines how Charlie, an expert in planning and negotiating his own learning experiences, spends his day at pre-school. I’d love to know what others think.

This week Charlie moved home for the second time and this time he seemed to settle very quickly. On January 7, I arrived to help with the unpacking and childcare. The following is an account of the next forty-eight hours.

Day 1 started around 6.15am when I heard Charlie and his brother Edward in the living room and joined them. It was lovely to see Charlie’s face light up with pleasure and his shout of “Nana” as he ran towards me.

He came into my bedroom and found some of my training materials – a bag of small world play figures and brought them into the play area of the living room and emptied them out. He quickly settled on two pirate finger puppets and announced that one was a “good captain pirate” and one was a “bad captain pirate”. Both pirates have cutlasses in their hands and Charlie wanted to simulate fighting. The good one has a smiling face and the bad one has a downturned mouth. I asked him why one was good and one was bad and he said the one with a parrot on his shoulder was the good one. My daughter brought me a cup of tea and we went back to my bedroom and Charlie asked for a story about pirates. I began by drawing a pirate ship and Charlie announced that this was the “good pirate captain’s ship”. He asked me to draw a ship for the bad pirate captain. I asked him how we would know which ship was which and he told me the bad pirate ship would have a skull and cross bones flag and so I drew one. “That’s really good, Nana, but you need to put some eyes in.” We talked a bit about the ships and about features of the ship, the crow’s nest, the scuppers, the sails and so on. He asked me about skulls and explained that we all have skulls as part of our skeleton underneath our skin. I told him that after we die our skeleton is left and our head is called a skull. Charlie seemed to be thinking about this but didn’t comment.

Later Charlie chose a baby owl from my collection and then went running upstairs to his bedroom and brought down a large owl. The owls were from the story, ‘Owl Babies’ and for a while he started playing and telling the story of the mummy owl and the babies. But it was the pirates who were really capturing his imagination. He picked up a toy ostrich and put one of the pirates on his back: “He’s going riding on the ostrich along the beach.” And off he set running around the house.

Soon after this we decided to go for a walk to explore the area around the house. Charlie had his scooter, Edward was in the pushchair and we went to a path alongside open woodland just behind the house. Charlie decided we were reindeer pulling Santa’s sleigh. He had been Rudolph in the school concert, but today he didn’t want to be Rudolph, he wanted to be Blitzen and announced that Edward was cupid. “Which reindeer do you want to be Nana?” I decided to be Dancer. For the next hour and a half Charlie led the role-play as we pranced our way along the muddy paths. Our journey was punctuated with extracts from the story, “The Night Before Christmas” that Charlie had learned large chunks of through repeated readings during December. 

Charlie loves his scooter and I was impressed by his physical control as he showed me how he could ride on his scooter whilst at the same time lifting one leg up parallel to his body and turning round to shout, “Look, Nana!” During our time out I showed him the school where he will be going in September and we went to the little playground opposite. Edward was asleep for much of this time. Charlie’s physical dexterity was further demonstrated as he climbed on the play equipment until a misjudged jump led to him banging his shin and he dissolved in tears and wanted to go home. We stopped at the corner shop on the way and he enjoyed choosing a snack to eat. As we approached the road where the new house was Charlie pointed ahead and said, “There is our new, new house.” He had recognized the white fence that surrounded the house. I also loved the way he was using language to distinguish the new house from the other two houses he has lived in in his short life. His first house he refers to as the ‘old house’, his second house, where he lived for only six months, is the ‘new house’ and the house he has just moved to is his ‘new, new house’.

When we arrived home he immediately went to play with his pirates. I found him on the sofa making up stories and animating them as he did so. He really enjoyed playing with these small world figures and accompanying this play with story.

The rest of the day was spent unpacking boxes and sorting out his toys, mediating between the two boys and generally talking. Charlie has a kind of a telescope that acts like a kaleidoscope when you look though it. He was looking through the telescope at the new rug in the living room that was white with large ‘buttons’ of bright colours and wanted me to see the patterns, “Look at this, Nana.” Following on from his love of Robin Hood dressed in his Lincoln Green he looked more closely at the colours on the rug and announced, “this green isn’t Lincoln Green – what green is it?” I told him it was emerald green. Then he looked at the two different shades of blue and pointed out they were different. I agreed and told him that one of the blues was “navy blue” and the other was “royal blue”. He went through all of the colours and wanted to distinguish what kinds of colours they were. “What kind of red is this, Nana?” “That’s pillar box red”, I said. “What kind of yellow is this?” “It’s mustard”, his Mum said. “This one is just pink,” said Charlie. Later this interest in colours would be applied to the story I would tell him.

At bath time he wanted me to tell him a pirate story. I suggested there would be a boy in the story – “Yes,” Charlie agreed.

“What shall we call him?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about Peter?”

He liked this choice and so the story began.

“Once upon a time there was a poor boy called Peter. Peter had no mummy or daddy; he was an orphan and had to live with his wicked uncle who was not very kind to him. Peter wanted to leave this house, he wanted to be a cabin boy on board a ship and he decided to find a ship to stow away on. [I explain what stow away means] Peter went down to the harbor and begins to look at the ships.”

Charlie interrupted the story and said the ship he would choose should be navy blue. I found it interesting that he wanted to try out his new way of thinking about colours by choosing a colour for the ship. Having established that the navy blue ship (I noticed later that the ship on the cover of one of his books about pirates was also navy blue) would be the one Peter would choose, I continued with the story.

“Peter was worried that if he stowed away on the ship that the pirates would be angry with him and might make him walk the plank, [Charlie had earlier told me that walking the plank was something that happened to bad pirates] and he decided he would look for something to take on the ship that the pirates would like. He decided to look for a cat. Why do you think he wanted to take a cat on the ship Charlie?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you remember what cats are very good at on ships from our Dick Whittington story?”

Charlie’s face lit up: “Catching rats.”

“That’s right, catching rats. Peter knew that ships always have rats and that no one wants rats on a ship because they eat all the food and sometimes nibble their toes and that’s not very nice, is it?”

“No.”

“So Peter waited until it was dark and then he went down to the rubbish dump and waited for the cats to arrive. Just as it was getting dark the cats started to appear and Peter watched carefully. He wanted to make sure the cat he chose was the best at catching rats. Just then a big, black cat came to the dump and Peter watched in amazment as he caught lots of rats very quickly. ‘That’s the cat I want,’ he thought to himself and he waited patiently. Peter knew that cats love milk and so he had brought a little bottle of milk with him. He put the milk on a saucer and waited. Soon the big black cat came over and started lapping the milk. Peter was waiting with a big bag and popped it over the cat and captured him. The cat was cross and he struggled and meowed in the bag, but Peter talked to him and told him he was going to be a ship’s cat and he would have all the rats he wanted. Soon the cat calmed down and went to sleep. Now Peter went down to the harbor and, waiting until all the sailors on the ship were asleep, crept on board. He went down into the scuppers and found a little corner to hide in with the cat and soon fell asleep.

When Peter woke up he could feel the boat rocking in the waves on the sea and he could hear the sound of seagulls. He decided to go and find the captain’s cabin and knock on the door.”

“Captain Pirate,” said Charlie.

“Yes, Captain Pirate. He knocked on the door and the captain opened the door and was amazed to find a small boy standing there. The captain was very cross and, just as Peter had feared, said he would have to walk the plank as a punishment for hiding on the ship. Peter said, ‘before you make me walk the plank I have something to show you that I think will make you change your mind.’”

“What’s he going to show him, Charlie?”

“The cat”.

“Yes, the cat. Peter led the Captain and some of the other sailors,

“Pirates”, interrupted Charlie.

“OK pirates, went down to the scuppers and Peter shook the cat out of the bag where he was still sleeping. The cat stretched and yawned and smelling the smell of rats went to work and quickly caught three rats. The captain was amazed and so were the pirates. ‘What an amazing cat,’ they said and straight away decided that Peter could stay and become a cabin boy on the ship. And that was the beginning of Peter’s adventures as a cabin boy on a pirate ship.”

One story wasn’t enough for Charlie, he wanted more and I duly made up another adventure about ‘Peter and the Pirates’.

“I really like these stories, Nana.”

Day 2: Charlie was again up early and before he went to school he brought me a pirate book to read. “The Pirate’s Underwear” was a story about the golden underpants that had been stolen by the bad pirates. In the story the good pirates find the ‘baddies’ and using their cutlasses cut the elastic on their underpants so when they try and chase them their pants fall down. The good pirates take back the golden underpants and continue triumphantly on their way. Although he had had the story several times before Charlie had a question, “What’s elastic Nana?” I explained and showed him the elastic in his pants and I adapted a Michael Rosen poem, “Something’s drastic, my pants are made of elastic, something’s drastic.” Charlie loves words that rhyme and he has also become very interested in the sounds the first letter of a word makes. Throughout the two days he frequently interspersed the sound of letters into his speech, “c c c c cup”, or “b b b b baby”, or “p p p p pirate.” He also constantly found words to rhyme with other words, sometimes they were real words and at other times they were nonsense words. I joined in and going through the alphabet would try and find as many words to rhyme with the word he was interested in. He usually recognized when the word was a nonsense word and this made him laugh. That morning before he went to nursery we continued to talk about the good and the bad pirates and Charlie wanted to know what bad pirates do and what good pirates do. He really wanted bad pirates to reform and become good. He took his pirates to pre-school with him and kept them safe in his drawer.

When Charlie came home from pre-school he was pleased to find more of his toys unpacked. He went and got his ‘Mike the Knight’ jigsaw puzzles.

“Let’s do these, Nana.”

“OK, let’s do it. But first we have to sort out the four different puzzles [all the pieces for four different puzzles were in the same box]. Which one do you want to do?” Charlie pointed at one that had a red border.

“OK, first we have to find all the pieces that have red around the edges.”

As we began to sort them and start the puzzle I realised that Charlie had very little awareness of shape, instead he was using visual clues to find pieces of the puzzle by relating them to the picture on the box, for example, “this bit has squirt on it” [a dragon in Mike the Knight], “this is Evie,” ‘this is Gallahad’s hoof and this is his leg.” When I tried to ‘scaffold’ him by asking him to find the corner bits or the straight edges he had no idea what I meant. I am not a visual learner and I found it very hard to see the clues in the pieces that Charlie picked out.

Doing the puzzles was hard, especially having to sort out the pieces for four different puzzles and Charlie got frustrated. He was tired after school and he just wanted to watch some DVDs and so we watched several short PIXAR cartoons/films before bath time. One he was really intrigued by was an animation about a uni-cycle that dreamt he could be a great juggler in the circus. Charlie and I had been to a circus a year earlier and we talked about it. He remembered the clowns and the uni-cyclist.

After watching the DVDs it was bath time and Charlie wanted more ‘Peter and the Pirates’ stories and I made up a story about Peter being promoted to be the look-out in the crow’s nest. His job was to look out for bad pirate ships. I explained that Peter had a telescope. Charlie put both his hands up to his eyes and made the shape of a telescope and said, two telescopes are called “binoculars”. I told him that “bi” meant two and explained that someone who was bilingual could speak two languages. He immediately started talking ‘nonsense’.

“Is that another language Charlie?”

“Yes”, he said laughing.

Charlie knew that bad pirates flew the skull and crossbones and that they would attack the ship. I told the story where Peter was the hero who spotted the bad pirate ship and in the ensuing battle the good pirates won. Charlie didn’t want to leave the bad pirates to drown; he wanted them rescued from the sea. “OK”, I said, “The good pirates lowered the rowing boats into the sea and rowed towards them and rescued them all.”

“What’s rowing?”

We stopped to have a discussion about rowing boats and oars and I reminded Charlie of the song, “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream etc” which we sang and acted out the actions of oars. I continued with the story.

“When the bad pirates came on board the good pirates put them in the scuppers and sang a song.”  Charlie joined in.

“What shall we do with the naughty pirates,

what shall we do with the naughty pirates,

what shall we do with the naughty pirates, early in the morning.

Put them in the scuppers until they’re good,

Put them in the scuppers until they’re good,

Put them in the scuppers until they’re good, early in the morning”.

After the story Charlie started talking about some of his bath time toys which include an alien, a rocket ship, a spaceship and astronauts. He told me that without gravity we float and astronauts could float in space.

“You’re right Charlie – how do you know that?”

“Kirsty told me.”

“Who’s Kirsty?”

“She is in my pre-school. She tells us things about space. I like her.”

“Why do you like her?”

“Because she is always smiling”.  

I asked him what Peter the cabin boy would think if something he dropped from the crow’s nest floated up into the sky instead of falling to the ground. Charlie knew that would be a source of surprise and laughed at the incongruousness of this idea but then after some reflection said,

“But it could be a balloon.”

Day 3: In the morning Charlie came into my room and started talking about the uni-cycle cartoon:

“Nana, it was just a dream wasn’t it.”

“You mean the red uni-cycle who wanted to juggle?”

“Yes, he was just dreaming wasn’t he? He was sad.”

“Yes he was sad, he wanted to be a great juggler, but it was just a dream and he was sad when he woke up. Do you have dreams?”

“Yes, I was dreaming about that last night.”

Later in the kitchen as I was clearing up after breakfast Charlie started talking about being dead. “Nana, if you are dead you can’t see anything can you?”

“No, you can’t.” Then,

“If you are dead you can’t hear anything can you?”

“No, you can’t.”

“My pirate is going to fly on this big parrot.” (He had taken a large parrot from my collection of small world play toys and ‘flew’ around with it).

Then I recorded on my voice phone a conversation we had. Charlie came into the kitchen:

Charlie: “Good pirates here now. I killed them now, I killed them, I killed them.”

Me: “You killed them.”

Ch: “Yeah”

Me: “Did you sink their ship?”

Ch: “Yes, I did.”

Me: “Are there any crew in the water we need to rescue?”

Ch: “There’s good pirates in the water.”

Me: “We have to save them.”

Ch: “cos they’re good.”

Pause

Ch: “We need to save them.”

Me: “We need to put out the small boats to collect them from the water.”

Ch: “I got the small boats, it’s picking up them.”

Ch: “Help, I fell in. I fell in.”

Pause

Me:“Save me, save me.”

Ch: “Help, I fell in. You’re my captain crew, get me out, said…”

Me: “You can’t let them drown.”

Ch: “I rescued them already.”

Me: “Oh good. Are they all in the boat now.”

Ch: “Yep”

Me: “You bringing them back to the ship?”

Ch: “Yep, (noises of action) there we are, we are at our big ship, now we’re getting out Mr. Boot (?).”

My daughter comes in at that moment to talk to me and in the recording I can hear Charlie making sound effects as he finishes his story.

Discussion and reflection

Forty eight hours with Charlie – what an amazing thinker he is. He is able to read the myriad of words, gestures, symbols and objects with which he is surrounded and make sense of them. As he negotiates the social world in which he is embedded he reveals himself as a unique thinker. I am struck by all that he knows and can do; not yet four he not only knows his colours, he is intrigued that colours can be further classified into different types of blues and greens and reds. His visual awareness is acute; he can see fine details on puzzle pieces and recognize his new house from a distance. He enjoys looking at my inept drawings of pirate ships and making distinctions between the ships of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ pirates. He identified visual clues to decide which of his two pirate finger puppets were good and bad.

Charlie is becoming a story-teller and incorporates fragments of stories he knows when making up his own stories. His imagination is strong, he can sustain interest in the imaginary world of pirates and uses his small world figures to actively play with and create his own stories, not only about pirates, but about owls and other creatures. He can make up his own stories and use them to explore what it means to be a good and a bad pirate. He makes it quite clear he prefers good pirates and wants to make bad pirates become good. His imagination is so fertile; he can direct his own fantasies and involve those around him. He directed me to role-play being a reindeer and included his sleeping brother, he incorporated his knowledge of a Christmas story and songs about reindeer into our play. He is intrigued by words and wants to know their meaning, nonsense words make him laugh; he loves to experiment with sounds of letters and rhyming words.

Charlie has a keen sense of humour and laughs at nonsense words, or at the consequences of elastic in pants being cut; he laughs when he is asked to imagine things that should fall to the ground floating up instead. He also knows that words are used to explain concepts and was able to tell me that without gravity you would float. He is wondering about the consequences of death. He loves songs to illustrate and explore ideas.

His body is growing stronger and he revels in his control over it as he does daring things on his scooter and at the park and quickly recovers if he falls and hurts himself; he has a strong drive to overcome physical difficulty and despite hurting himself returns to try things again.

In recording the things that Charlie does, the things he says, I am trying to understand his unique pathway to meaning-making. I want to get to know him better and understand what makes him tick. Charlie acts with intention and purpose in his quest to make sense of his world and it all happens so quickly! I am amazed how much he has changed in the last month and how quickly he is absorbing and learning from what goes on around him and how he uses his imagination to help him make sense of it all. His love of story continues and his access to stories of all kinds from oral stories to books, to film, theatre and TV is feeding his imagination as his understanding of the world becomes increasingly sophisticated. I wonder how I can keep up with him!

What will happen this year as he is assessed for his readiness to start school? His teachers are required to assess him against the pre-determined learning outcomes of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Already they will be charting his progress against these learning objectives and outcomes and noting things that he can’t yet do. These indicators pertain to tell us something about a child’s development but worse than that, claim to tell us something true about the child. Such claims to understand children, put forward by psychologists and therefore have the seal of approval of science, has resulted in adults exercising more control over children, since they can claim to ‘know’ how young children learn and what evidence they need to assess learning. It follows that teachers feel the need to design learning environments for young children that will help them achieving the EYFS indicators. Teachers justify their teaching approaches because it helps the children achieve the learning outcomes. The indicators therefore dictate the activities and experiences Charlie is exposed to for the express purpose of assessing him against those indicators. This is the earliest example of what dominates in our system – teaching to the test. Assessment is the tail that wags the dog.

Underpinning this regime is the laudable view that children learn best through activity and experience, but we need to ask: what activity? What experience? To what end?

The EYFS framework provides descriptive accounts of children’s development as part of the child’s journey towards adulthood. The discursive structures produced by the framework control our ways of looking and responding to the child.  By assessing all children against the same pre-determined outcomes we present childhood as consisting of stages of development that are universal, that all children will progress through them, albeit at their own rates. This denies what is obvious to any parent who has more than one child, that there are multiple ways in which children learn and grow. The discursive structures invented by developmental psychologists have created a regime of truth about children that controls our way of looking at and responding to the child in front of us. Just because we have decided to measure and chart children against learning outcomes does not mean it tells us anything true about the child, yet such assessment is widely considered to be ‘real’ knowledge.

My observations of Charlie show me he is very capable of directing his own experiences, of choosing his own activities. He is a knower and a creator of his own knowledge. He wants to be self-determined as he creates multiple worlds in his stories and his play. Unfortunately his play will be largely directed as school towards gaining skills so he can be judged against a set of universal indicators which purport to describe the ‘normal’ child. Woe betide any child who doesn’t measure up to those indicators – they will be labeled as having learning difficulties or worse. I don’t want that for him.

How will teachers respond when asking him to identify his colours when he distinguishes between Lincoln green and emerald green? Will they label him gifted and talented? What will happen when his lack of interest in using a pencil means he can’t form the letters of his name? Will he be labeled with a learning difficulty? A tick-list of competences is clearly an inadequate way of describing the richness of Charlie’s world. I want teachers to see Charlie as he is in all his complexity, not to judge him against some pre-determined criteria determined by experts who have never even met him.