The Role of the Adult

What is the adult’s role at Woodcroft Nursery School?

 Adults are needed to:

• Organise an environment which is rich in learning opportunities. For example, offering many natural materials and plenty of space will enable children to explore and experiment, building their concepts about materials and physical forces.
• Organise an environment that promotes play, enabling children to integrate their learning across different domains.
• Structure the environment so that it is geared to the child’s development and progress. A logically ordered environment enables a child to move from simple and inflexible symbolic play, to rich, more imaginative play. This type of organisation also applies to puzzles (enabling a child to move from selecting and completing a simple puzzle, onto more complex puzzles), tools (ranging from big brushes, to very fine brushes) and all other aspects of the organised learning environment. However this should not be understood as an across-the-board assumption that children’s learning develops in an orderly way from simple to complex. Some children will show little interest in 3-wheel trikes but want to go straight to using the 2- wheelers. The accessibility of resources at different levels of complexity, with help, guidance and teaching from adults, ensures that the right conditions for the child’s development and learning are available.
• Interact with children’s play and learning, showing due sensitivity (not interfering when children are deeply involved, and giving children time to explore objects, ideas and equipment without being directed).

Some examples of the role of the adult

Adult-led experiences.

An adult plans an experience which is matched to the interests and development of a group of children. The adult provides encouragement and guidance for the children to work collaboratively together towards a shared end, sharing discussion and tasks along the way. This will often include the adult directly teaching new skills and ideas.

Adult co-operation with the child’s agenda.

An adult becomes involved in a child’s play, or the play of a group. The adult shows an interest, takes part, and may suggest some ideas, but does not attempt to steer the direction or the theme of the play.

Taking advantage of a teachable moment

An adult may shift from observing a child, to interacting, through spotting a “teachable moment”. If a child really wants to cut a piece of paper to a particular size, it is the right time to teach the use of scissors!

Reflecting on learning

In all of the types of interaction outlined above, adults can often provide useful, ongoing feedback to the children, though it is important not to bombard a child with language, and important also to judge when a child needs quiet and stillness to maintain concentration. Ongoing feedback is not empty praise, but an intervention to help the child. So you might say something like, “You’ve nearly cut all the way through now, let’s see what’s stopping the saw going through that last bit”; “You’re doing really well with this, but you look a bit stuck on this bit of the recipe, shall we look at it together”.

It is very helpful if children can look back at their learning over time. Little photo-books about significant learning episodes, PowerPoints on the computer with photos and video, posters and wall displays, and an adult taking time to look through the learning journal with a child are all ways of doing this.