Episode 6: Observation and assessment in early childhood education

Hello, my name is Colin Kelly, I'm a journalist and dad of two young children. In this series I've been learning more about a frabiliant approach to early childhood education, about how young children learn in a holistic way, the importance of play, and why learning should never be compartmentalised. So I'm interested to find out now how this approach fits with modern assessment processes in early years settings and schools. How can a frabiliant educator navigate assessments, inspections and the progress reporting systems to make them across? What does frabiliant assessment look like in practice? And how might observing young children help educators to truly see what young children know, understand and are able to do? I'll be discussing all these issues with my two guest speakers, Dr Stella Louis, lead tutor for the Frobot Trust short courses, she's also an author and early-use consultant, and gain a brimble school improvement partner for the South East Wales Education Achievement Service. Well, hello to you both, and probably a good place to start, Dr Stella Louis. How would you define assessment when we're talking about the early years? What exactly is it? OK, um, hello, I think I would say there's an old saying, in order to find someone that's lost in the woods, you need to know where it is they could be at. And I think that is exactly what assessment is. It's knowing where to find your children. And I think it's quite widely recognised in early years that children discover, you know, as and when children discover new things, they link that to what they already know. Education should be about helping children to make those important links. And I would go on to say that awareness of children's prior learning is absolutely essential. If we want to teach them new things, this is absolutely key. It will help us to use what we know about individual children and we'll be able to guide them as we teach, making the necessary adjustments along the way. But what's most important, I think, in all of what I said, observation is part of this process because they contribute to the way the educators are able to assess where they know where children are are in their development and in their learning. I think educators have a responsibility to gather information about children that informs them. It's not just about observing children, it's about observing children acting on what we've seen and responding to them appropriately and helping them, I think, to make those links. And Gaina, when you were helping the Welsh Government shape their policy in this area, what sorts of things were you telling them that assessment ought to be at this early youth stage? Exactly, what's then been describing, actually, that we need to start with where the child is and not come from that deficit model of what they don't know, that's not helpful to the child or to the practitioner, actually. So we look very much at starting with the children, what does a knowledgeable adult do to support the child moving forward? So assessment as well is not what it used to be, which was tick sheets, one off events, accountability measures, proving how well you've done. And it was really about the teacher proving what they'd done rather than thinking about what's important for the child. If you're starting with the child from what they know, then it's easier to lead them forward to new knowing and to link back their knowledge that they're understanding is deeper and firmer and then they can build on it for themselves. So when we looked at our assessment arrangements, we very, so we've previously written a curriculum for three and four-year-olds. We made sure in that curriculum that we're very authentic to three and four-year-olds, what they're going to be interested in. There's another problem sometimes that adults will choose topics and themes that they think the children are going to be interested in. But if they'd used their observations, they would have noticed that actually this theme is going nowhere. They're actually more interested in transporting objects or emptying and filling and actually they're doing that in lots of places. Or we've noticed that their mathematical development is coming on in the cooking corner or in the block play. So those sorts of things, we wanted everything to be more authentic to the child. And also for the adults, the authenticity for the adults, we've made an assessment that's going to inform their planning and their provision. So we're looking forward to the publication of the assessment. And hopefully for the educators out there, particularly those in schools who have been under a very different regime, that they're going to get some professional acknowledgement of what they can do and what they know that it's best for children. Sometimes, and this is for both of you, sometimes when politicians or parents talk about assessment, they immediately think of tests. And that's, Throbel doesn't talk about tests, does he? No, I mean, test is very much a deficit model. It's not focus on what children can do. And I think sometimes children are tested in really superficial situations where the resources aren't meaningful. They don't have the experiences embedded in their life experiences for them to be able to talk, live it, feel it, play it. And as Gainer said, the old style of assessment was very much just ticking things off. You can do this, you can do that. Children are quite complex and we go back to knowledgeable adults. Adults need to understand what it is they're seeing. I would love politicians and policymakers to spend a day with a two-year-old or group of two-year-olds. And they will be able to see just so much working out, thinking, problem-solving, finding solutions, and trying things out. You know, they will see learning taking place, but you have to understand what you're seeing in the first place. And if we're starting with where people are at, I think for educators that has to be our first port of call. Gainer is right when she says that the educators do know their children. They just don't know how to articulate it. Always. Gainer, I thought it was very interesting what you were seeing about the value of observing and assessing. It's not about checking on the child. It's really it's about helping the educator maybe change the environment or plan what you're going to do next. Absolutely. In our curriculum, we have three enablers, one of them being the enabling adults, the other being effective environments and engaging experience. It's that knowledgeable observant adult that makes the changes for those engaging experiences. And again, if we think about, instead of just describing two and three-year-olds, they are probably the greatest I feel in education system, the greatest period of autonomy. And as they get older, they get less and less opportunities or fewer opportunities to be autonomous. So the more that we can provide environments and experiences that allow them to show us what they can do by themselves, what they're puzzling over, they will ask us for help sometimes it might not be verbal, it might be an eye indication. But the more that we can do around observing what they're doing and how they're doing it, how we might support them and nudge them forward, think is about gentle nudging rather than a direct instruction that I've seen a gap. You don't know your four shapes. I'm going to teach you triangle this week. That kind of thing is not helpful to the learning process of that child, I think. So let's say that you observe four-year-old or a three-year-four-year-old and they're regularly playing. And every time they do it, they take the toy cars and they line them up like bumper to bumper a huge, big, long line of cars. What sorts of observations or reflections might you make on a child that's doing that? I mean, number one, that is one observation of one activity, but I appreciate you saying they're coming back to it all the time. So we talk and Stella has been fabulous in terms of training myself and educators in Wales on schemas. So children have biological drives to do such things as positioning. But underneath that position in schema, there are mathematical concepts that the child is driven to do. So they'll be learning about one-to-one correspondence. They might be counting their heads. They might be seeing how long they can go. Am I doing this longer this time than yesterday, but also you'd want to see whether they do the same kind of thing in other areas of provision. And if they are, then how are you supporting them to really feed that schema? Stella, would you want to add anything to that because you are? Yeah, no. I'm knowledgeable on that. Oh, I know. I think you're very knowledgeable yourself, again. Now, I think what I would add to what you're saying is I would want to observe them in other areas because I think, you know, the story behind that, Frobal talks quite a lot about the inner life of the child. And Wales doesn't add out. It's really easy to assume or a child just lining up cars bumper to bumper. They're just doing, you know, they're lining in, maybe it's a schema. But actually, it could be a scenario of a traffic jam or a road trip they went on or something they have experience from their own experience. And that will be represented in lots of different ways. So I would want to be looking out for those different representations. But I think it's about an adult, ultimately, understanding what they see. I often say, "Everything children do they do for a reason. Our role, whether we're parents or whether we are observers and educators. Our role is to work out whatever the question it is. Children are trying to find the answer to." And I think Frobele had the foresight to see that. He really encourages us as adults to look for children's good intentions. And quite often we don't look for their good intentions. We see what they've done and all we see is the behaviour. We have no idea about what the processes or the fault processes that are going on behind their actions. Observations provide us with a path to begin to get to know children better. In fact, it provides us with a path that we can get to know children really, really well. That influences the way we teach and that influences, I think, our relationship with children. I think observations give us insight into children's interest, their abilities, their strength, their knowledge, and all that they can do. And as Gainer said, it's only when children have opportunities where they can make decisions, where they can make choices, where they feel in control, they can repeat, they can practice newly acquired skills, they can select stimulating and engaging activities. It's only when they're in that kind of environment. Is it possible to truly assess where children are at? Gainer, we know all the observations and assessment they need to be recorded. So that's an area that I gave you. And I know there would be much more work rather than just one situation, but something like that. How might you go about recording that and then what sorts of things would you be seeing to a parent? So I think that's a really good question, Colin, and I think there's not one answer to it. So in terms of recording, you might mentally record it and have a conversation with a colleague about how you seem similar behaviors. What would you think about that? You might record it on a post it because it might not be significant. That's it. I think we have to also in terms of recording, sometimes we record for recording sake. And when we look at it after it's going to go so, what did that tell me? Absolutely nothing. So we've got to be really careful about how we record. We might choose to do a long observation where we describe that scenario, but also in the describing, we also try to interpret, because you can never know what their intention was with that scenario. You can record video record on a iPad or a phone. I always caution against too much recording that way. I feel like it's an inhibitor to building up relationships. And also you might stop the play or alternatively children then perform for the camera or they don't feel validated if they haven't had a photograph or a video taken of them. So I think there's a real strong significant balance that we have to come to there about the use of our recording implements, the video ones in particular. So in answer to question, I couldn't give you one answer and people will find that really frustrating because sometimes they want one answer. When you're talking about children and the progress they're making, the most important thing for that parent to know is that you know that that child really well. Actually you like them and you can pick out significant characteristics of the child that says that you know them really well as well. But also that you know how you're going to take them forward with with their learning. And we have tried really hard to talk about having narratives, whether written or conversational, rather than boxing things into right now I'm talking to you about their well being, now I'm talking to you about their communication skills because that doesn't help in terms of that holistic picture of the child and where you think they are currently and where they might go next and it is a way they might go next. And Dr Stella Louis, there's a wonderful quote in one of the papers that you produced. Nothing gets under a parent's skin more quickly and more permanently than the illumination of his or her own child's behaviour. I think that's so true, isn't it? It's not my quote, it might be one of my books. That's from Chris Afi. Again, I'm going to add to what Gaina has just said, parents want to know that you know their child. They don't just want a generic overview of child development. They want to know that their child, the child they know at home is the same child. They can identify what you're talking about. But in relation to the question that you ask Gaina initially, I would want to know how this child is exploring this schema at home. Did the parents know anything about what it might connect to? Are they traveling in the car a lot? What does he talk about in his drawings? What the books are like? I would want to link it to more than just one thing. What sorts of places are they going to? So there isn't one answer. And I think for us to think there's one answer, that's our biggest mistake. And that's what's amazing about children's experiences. Their experiences are similar, but they're different. And because they're different, that's the detail we have to tune into that that's significant learning. I once wrote an article about observations. I was quite clear that I felt that practitioners didn't need to do more than six observations a year. And they would need to do six really detailed observations that really captured significant learning. Not that little Johnny can stand up turn around and touch the ground, but like, you know, little Johnny when he's exploring mixing water and soil and all that's happening in him trying to capture anything that's significant. I will have lots of observations of little Johnny over a period, which would give me significant information to structure my learning environment to support Johnny, but also allow him to practice all his newly acquired skills, because only once he's done that really got them out of his system in loads of different ways. Is he kind of ready to move on to the next thing? I just want to pick up on Gayner mentioned how the observations are recorded. And you mentioned the technology. And it's probably interesting just to explore that a little bit, because I guess that's the last sort of 15, 20 years that's come into all our lives. Yeah. And there is a convenience aspect. I heard what you said Gayner about don't overdo it because people start performing for the camera. Overall, is it forced for good or bad? Are there some centres that are trying to avoid it? I would say it's like anything that you use, isn't it? It's how you use it to its best effect. So where I see video recordings in particular being used well is where the camera is set up and obtrusively, and they're capturing children's play, that's then is taken into a staff meeting later on in the day where the adults can and pick the learning and everybody will see different things in that video, which is powerful. So that then becomes a staff training really. And also, if we're talking about children's progress, then really we've got to be on the same page about what we're seeing. So what I might decide is progress, you might not. So we can have a conversation around why I do and you don't. So I think, yes, embrace it. But what I would say is that it shouldn't be a barrier, and we've written this into our assessment document. It shouldn't be a barrier to interactions. So you can make it an observational assessment just when you're interacting because we're adults and we can multitask. So when we're engaging with children in a play situation and we might be talking with them, there might be some servant return going on. But we're making moment by moment decisions about what to say, how to say it, when to say it. So I know I've gone off a little bit in terms of the digital aspect. I think there is power in it, but we must use it carefully. And if we do notice some of those things happening, I think again, I would come back if I was in a setting, I would come in and talk about, is this influencing the play in the way in which we want it to? So, Gena, you mentioned this idea of maybe three or four educators observing the same experience and then discussing it. Is that important to try and make sure that I'm not bringing my own prejudices or maybe even judging the play in what I'm seeing in front of me? Is that what that's about? It's partly about that, but it's also about, you know, it depends on the educator's length of experience, how confident they are. So some of that is purely about, we're calling it professional dialogue. So it's learning together. And in those situations, they've got to be very trust in relationships, respectful relationships. We are not pointing fingers at each other, so that's not right. No one is judging or being judged. I've been fortunate to be on the the frugal trust training this year. And that whole notion of bringing a group of educators together to expose ourselves to what unconscious biases we may have, but also to expose ourselves to things that we don't know and we're afraid to say we don't know. So it comes back to trust in relationships, relationships matters and that whole aspect of let's all be together learning together. So when we then plan or whatever we're going to do in the environment tomorrow or the experiences that we're going to plan, we all know why we've done it because sometimes what might happen in some settings is some people might get different jobs to do. So they know why it's there, but the other persons, the other people in the room might not. So we're working as a collective. Gaina Euren-Wales, I'm in Scotland, Estella's in England. How are the nations different in terms of observation and assessment? I can't speak for England in any great shape or form, but in terms of Wales, we have a new curriculum coming in, there's much more of an emphasis on children's progress over time, three to 16 continuum. I wouldn't say we're there everywhere in terms of observational assessment. It is a new thing. So where we are now in Wales and I feel like we're more aligned to what's happening in Scotland is that particularly in the early years, we are looking at a child-centered pedagogy with adults who are observing and noticing and changing their pedagogy to suit the children, rather than trying to fit the children into topics and themes and projects that the adults have chosen and the assessments that they think are important. So this morning we've had a conversation about why is it so important to you that you would write it down that children at three know their four shapes, they know the seven colours, they can name them. And children will be in withdraw to find out that sort of information. So you're dragging them away from their play, their exploration where they're really into deep-level learning to say, you know, do you know what this colour is? What colour is this? What shape is this? They're going to know those things later on. Why have we put importance on those items of knowledge at three when we know they're going to get it, they might have got it at two. But four or five or six, it's not going to make a big difference to their learning, the relationships and the experiences that on offer will make a difference to how they learn, particularly in their dispositions for learning. You were very diplomatic when you said, I can't speak, I can't speak for England. But I've certainly heard the Scottish government have said things that I've heard about England. Stella has England got it wrong? I think the honest answer to that is yes, England has got it wrong. I think play has taken a back seat. We all know that children learn through play. And I think the focus is too much on outcome. There were a group of early years providers and educators that were so upset with the last revision of the early years foundation stage that this whole coalition came together to form what is now known as birth to five matters. And that is curriculum guidance that we felt reflected all our beliefs and our values. And I have never in all of my life felt I needed to stand up for something as much as I felt I needed to stand up for the early years foundation stage. I would say having worked in Scotland, Wales and England, I think Scotland has a wonderful, the curriculum for excellence is a wonderful document because it values practitioner training, it values research and it values knowledge and I think the Frobeelian threads filtered through that document. And again, I'm going to say exactly the same for the Welsh document. I think practitioners I urge them in England to go with what they know about children and don't just look at children through this very narrow lens that devalues play but what it also does is it devalues practitioner knowledge. And there's a point I want to make quite recently I was doing some training on observation observing children's learning and I shared with a practitioner an example of an observation where this practitioner roles had done six observations of this little lad over a period of year. And after she had done these observations, she's got some analysis about what she knows and this educator said me where did she get this from. And I was just stunned she got that analysis from her relationship, her interaction, her learning environment and her knowledge of the child and I think some time. The consequence of when curriculums are played with and when we're focused so much on outcomes, not only do we make things difficult for children, but we devalue our educators to the point that they don't know what they do know and what is part of their everyday bread and butter. And that's sad. So there'll be people listening to this who are for billion educators in England and have to comply with, you know, offstead inspections. How did they do what they have to do while staying true to their for billion principles. I think it's possible to use the for billion principles to help you articulate your practice and that's how many for billions have navigated their way through offstead inspections because you know when you look at the for billion principles and you look at the principles that underpin curriculum for excellence, the the Welsh curriculum. And the English curriculum, these principles, they kind of into weed and because the for billion approach is based on those same principles, it's difficult to argue if you're able to articulate why you've done something what you're anticipating to come from it. I think it's when practitioners can't say why they've done what they've done that's when they get into difficulty the minute you are able to say I'm doing this because of, you know, this child has an interest in gravity, then it's less difficult. You know, we've spoken about this importance of observation, which I'm guessing is the skill that has to be practiced, maybe there needs to be training. What is what does good observation look like? What what's the educator doing? Mostly thinking again, said has got a quote is not her quotes externally passive and internally active so that you know you might walk into the room and it might look like the educator is sitting there and not doing very much, you might actually be engaging with the child. But actually, as I said earlier on, there's a lot of thoughts going into one of my seeing is it significant have I seen it before? Is there a way I can support that learning or extend it some some way so an observation is something that might not look like very much at all for someone who doesn't know how important observations are. I think observations for me involve three things I think the first thing is having a well organized room both inside and outside that supports children's development and learning. I think the second thing that children are offered meaningful experiences that are socially and culturally appropriate and stimulating and engaging and I think the third thing links to to gainers point that the adults working with them need to be able to play. Quite close attention to what they're doing in order to gain understanding about their developing capabilities and become attuned with them. I think that's what observation is about it's not just about watching it's about being externally externally passive internally active thinking about what you're seeing asking yourself about the links what is it the child is doing what is it they're trying to find the answers to. How can you all the environment support that child so yes on one hand you're watching but actually there's a whole heap of stuff going on in your head. How can practitioners get better observation or if there's an early use setting that wants to maybe change the way that they assess what should they do what would be a good next step for them. I think I would say rather than sort of you know you'll get people that will kind of observe particular and specific areas of learning and as you said some time ago learning isn't compartmentalized you know everything absolutely links and children will learn about language and science and numeracy in the water tray or in the home corner depending on what resources they have available and how much guidance they get from their knowledgeable educator but I think we need to make sure that if we're going to observe children we observe all sorts of things about them so we get this whole picture so we observe what materials they play with what they do with the materials if they encounter problems how do they deal with them how do they solve the problems. We need to observe what they're interested in. What we need to have knowledge of what they like, what their choices are, whether they wanna play on their own or whether they wanna play with others, what they choose, the kind of questions that they ask, whether they use their body language or actual language to describe events and tell you stories, whether they share experiences with you, and how they symbolically represent their experiences, the sun, the dance, the model, the plot play. You know, so you can already see, I haven't just said one thing. If I'm looking at the maths, I'm quite narrow. That's all I'm looking at. If I'm looking at how they're doing, what they do it, and what they're interested, I'm gonna kind of get much more information that will tell me about what they want into express externally. - Today, I've been asked that question outside of this podcast, and what I actually said to the educators was, for next week, don't have any planning, just observe, make notes for yourself, mental or written or the recording ones. Stennis just described what happens in a really good earlier setting. So you need to look at what's happening in your setting, what are the children doing? And if they are flitting from one place to another, and it seems aimless, then there is probably something wrong with the experiences on offer or the way in which your room is set out. There's loads of things you can find out from observing your environment and how the children interact with it. That will give you the first step to getting better. - One thing I was gonna maybe just go a little bit deeper on was the feeding back to parents, and how often that might be done. So when I think of my kids, when they were that age, I had my two boys, you get the kind of daily catch up, they kind of hand over, this is what they did today, the kind of informal chat, but it was always well done. And then I think maybe once or twice a year, maybe at Christmas and then again at the summer, we would get like a memory stick. And it would have tons of photos on it and video clips and then notes that had been taken, sort of summarising where they were at. I found it quite a lot to digest all of us. - Yeah, that's the best. As you were talking, then I was thinking, oh wow, you'd be flicking through those quite quickly, wouldn't you? Because there's no context for you, is it? And I think so, again, I can talk about the context in Wales and our assessment arrangements that we're suggesting that settings use coming forward is that we have a period of six weeks when the children's first start education. So that's a period for them to settle in. And then after those first six weeks, we would expect them to have a conversation with their parents. It can be written down, oh, it should be written down actually, in a summary form. And today we've been looking at the best way to present that to parents and lots of settings now are setting them out as letters. So it's a letter either to the child or to the parents, or it might say, "Dear Shavon, it's lovely to see how you've settled into nursing, you've made friends with so and so and I know that you like to play over in the block play with Tom and Harry, whatever it is." So you build a picture of those six weeks and then you might say, and at the end, because there's always going to be kind of a, I don't like saying next step, you know, where are we going to go next? So there's a little section then that we'll say, "And next, we're going to be working on this." And we've tried really hard to not say to the parents and you need to do at home, because actually what we want them to do at home is love their children and play with their children and enjoy them and not put pressure on them, particularly in the early stages. And then they can, if they want to do another progress updates in the spring term, but certainly on transition when they're leaving their early years provider or their nursery class, moving into reception, you would want to tell parents about that whole journey, but again, I wouldn't be giving you a thousand photographs. It's like a pen portrait of your child and you want to be able to see your child and know that those adults really know the crux, the little bits that you know about your boy, that you want them to know as well and to appreciate as well. So that's kind of what we're hoping will happen. I have to say, at the minute, there is still quite a bit of going for finite bits of information that really, you probably wouldn't want to know whether they could use this as properly in September and now they can in August. It's. - Yeah. You mentioned the letter, which is quite interesting, because it's very personal and I support. - What's gorgeous. - Something for all talk to about, is that relationship? - Yeah, yeah. I think the settings that have taken on that style of reporting to the parents have had fabulous feedback from the parents. Some tearful, you can imagine, or joy, not through sorrow. But yeah, just because you've encapsulated their precious child in such a way that they know that their child has been in good hands, they've been cared for and nurtured. - I know that there's many people listening in settings where there are sometimes quite a few children with additional support needs. And I'm just wondering, does that have any impact on how observation and assessment is carried out? Does it need to change when you're looking after these children or does the same approach work for everybody? - I would say the same approach should work for everybody, particularly if we start from the point of where meeting children where they're at. Obviously, it depends on the complexity of the need, but then I would expect the educators to know very clearly what they're observing and how best to support them. But I do know that I've been into one or two special needs schools and I have taught them about the fact that actually, these children need the same as all children, that's first hand authentic experiences. So let's get them outside more often, that kind of thing. So they're really, the learning that they have and it is as authentic as their capacities enable them to. - I think what I really like about the Frobo approach, Frobo thinks about individual children, whether they have additional learning needs or whether they don't. And what he really encourages us to be aware of the importance of the different developmental stages that each child will go through. And he's clear that each stage needs to be lived fully and thoroughly without being rushed. And for some children with special needs, they're wanting that kind of sensory integration where they're just gathering and, they're just gathering that sensory information and they're interpreting and they're reinterpreting. But again, it's that knowledge of your children. But regardless of what stage it is your children are at, all educators need to be that stage. And draw on their first hand experiences as the biggest source from which we teach and obviously observe. - Final question from me. The more I listen to you both and the more I read about this, the more the word professional comes up quite a lot. And it can at least me thinking that these educators that you and Frobo are talking about, they are professionals. Do you think the local authorities and management always regard them as professionals? Are they, indeed, regard themselves as professionals? Or do you think that there's some that maybe don't see it that way? - Well, I think that's a really difficult question, Colin. Thank you for that. I think what, and again, I can only talk, and this is not for Wales, this is for the consortia that I working. And we work with professionals, educators who are working in non-maintained settings. We've done a really big job of demonstrating to them their professionalism and what they know and how important they are to children's lifelong experiences and where they can go. They're definitely not renovated appropriately for the job they do. I've just talked about you've handled your child over to educators, they could get just as much money working in a shop. What they do is fantastic. I would say where I'm working, we do appreciate them and we show we appreciate them. I can't say there is everywhere. I would hope it is. I mean, Stella, I would say that the frobile and the frobile trust, you have professionalised early years education to a world that doesn't value it that way, doesn't regard it as a profession, certainly doesn't pay them that way. - I think when we listen, I started off my life as an NNNB nurse, so I had two jobs, I remember. And I had two jobs because that was the only way I could kind of make ends meet. I think I'm really proud to be part of an organisation that values play and values knowledgeable practitioners. I think the practitioners do feel professional when they are respected as autonomous learners, when they are given training that they really need, that links to the work that they're doing rather than training that just ticks a box to say that we've done that, it doesn't matter how it's implemented or how it has all been. has not an impact on our practice. I think there are lots of things at play trying to de-professionalise educators by telling them what to think, telling them what to observe, telling them what to look for, and actually that's not how children learn. They learn in a holistic way and play coordinates all learning. In any curriculum that doesn't play at the heart, centre, middle, top, doesn't understand children and has no right to assess children because it's not assessing children based on how we know they learn. Well thank you very much to my guests Dr Stella Louie and Gainer Brimble. You can find out more about them and their work in the podcast description. This is the last episode in the current series of the Frobo Trust podcast. Remember you can visit the Frobo.org.uk website to download free resources for educators and for more information about training and courses available for early year settings. And please make sure to subscribe to the podcast. You'll be the first to know when new episodes are released later this year. Thank you very much for listening. [BLANK_AUDIO]