Navigating Play in A Redeveloped Curriculum: A Primary Inspector's Perspective

Welcome to another episode of The Play for Lens. In this episode, we are so fortunate to speak to Carey Dee and this is an episode that we think will resonate with teachers everywhere and what Care has to say is so important. Carey, you're so welcome to The Play for Lens. Thank you. I hope I can deliver. Can. Claire, would you like to introduce yourself for our listeners? Yeah, so my name is Claire. I'm a primary school inspector based in County Washford. At the moment, I have most of my work is in the curriculum unit of the inspectorate. So we're in that space of kind of negotiating what that change is going to look like. We work with our colleagues to create sense of common understanding. It's a really exciting time to be anywhere around that curriculum landscape, I think, and prior to joining the inspectorate, I would have worked also with the NCCA. So it's a lovely kind of sense of full circle for me of coming back into that space of curriculum. I think in the context of the conversation we're having today, everybody is really excited about the move towards the GZR on phrase play for Lens in the in the new primary curriculum framework. But it's a shift and it's one that we're going to need to negotiate at system level. They'll be emerging understanding. There'll be changes as that kind of Patrick Sullivan talks about the making the road as we're walking us or walking the road as we're making it maybe. So there is that sense as well that although we're expressing things in a particular way at this moment in time, there's also a likelihood that like everybody else, our understanding will evolve over the course of this period of enactment. So that's a caveat I'll give to the answers I'm giving today if that's okay. That makes a lot of sense. Would you like to us talk to us a little bit so clear because we know that we've moved away from Ashter and we now have play, play for learning in our new curriculum. Would you like to talk to us a little bit about the inspectorate's understanding of that? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's one that we're being asked about a lot by schools as well. And actually just for information, we have in early years, inspectors as part of our, so we have the early years primary and post primary and we would work very closely to have that sense of continuity of messaging as well. So although Ashter now formally sits within that early year space, the primary curriculum framework is very intentional in signaling continuity and that would have been a big aim of the redevelopment. So that kind of relational response of playful practice that emerged so strongly with Ashter was never intended to be left behind. The Ashter hour and the restrictions of that and the sense that it was an event that happened over the course of the day, that was an understanding that I mean, it's supported a particular development and pedagogical practice for teachers that can only be seen as a positive thing now, but it was never the intention in the beginning anyway. So we are now saying like the framework creates that opportunity. It gives explicit permission to maintain and extend that good practice. We don't want to lose any of that. So rather than kind of allowing play to diminish just curricular pressure increases, we're going to see effective practice not as a move away from play, but a refinement of it. So language becomes more precise, it moves into the disciplinarity of things. Problems become more complex collaboration becomes more intentional and a child's independence increases. So we're we're we're done by deepening learning. We want children to understand, not just to remember. So that's where we're we're sissing with the Ashter space at the moment. We don't want to lose any of the really good pedagogical practice that emerge, but it is time to move it on and have that sense of the development of play practice. So in terms of the development of play practice, because one of the things that we frequently are from teachers is what will the inspector say if you know my fifth and sixth class we're just saying could you talk to us a little bit about the evidence of learning what will the inspectors be looking for in terms of supporting progression of play throughout the school? Yeah, and I think that's probably one that we're going to have to navigate that anxiety with teachers and schools at every level of the system for the next while because teachers have that sense of wanting their professionalism to be recognized and and very validly so and there is there can be a sense of time that that time that plays into serious thing. You know that it is it is the serious deeply human work of childhood and when we look at how that develops over time, we're looking at the research that underpins the framework that talks about continual experience, you know, we have that sense that the age and she ages these shifts fluidly between child and teacher at different times in learning children may be initiating and directing the play themselves, they may be shaping learning with sensitive guidance or engaging in learning experiences that are intentionally teacher led but still approach playfully and all forms of play belong at all stages of primary education and we need to be really careful in our messaging there that is not a sense of developing from warning to the other but that they all exist along that continuum appropriately. So what varies probably will be the proportion, the emphasis, the balance and the complexity and that's the professional task that's going to be really tricky. It's not to decide whether play is appropriate but how different forms of play best serve learning in that moment and we come back all the time to that piece from Vigotsky where he talks about you the child being head taller in play and to be very clear that play isn't something that's low challenge, play is stretch and when we do it really really well and the characteristics of play that inspectors are noticing very much mirror the play characteristics that would be described in that research work, which on the joyful meaningful active issue is social work and where we see those things working as a child moves through the school and the complexity of them grows they're kind of engaged in revisiting ideas and talking and testing and refining and that social sense of learning but I suppose the commitment we would give is that we're not interested in the of play so much before the children are experiencing and when we go to observe in the classroom we are coming back all the time to what is the learning experience for the child we're looking at the outcomes as well but they vary so much even across the experience of a class but what is the child experiencing? Is it appropriate are the teachers professionally and lyrical? Is it intentional? Is it responsive and that's the piece I suppose in play that that we're really looking forward to seeing more of. I love that and I love that you said you know the inspector is learning to navigate that. And that makes such sense because children know it's not uncommon for children in fifth and sixth class or third and fourth class to have last touch with play so when when it's reintroduced it's going to look very different compared to you know you're talking with that beautiful progression and development but if children in fifth and sixth are reintroduced to it we're a long way off from that direction and development I feel like we've been nearly back to exploration and back to basics. I would say where we see very good practice or excellent practice even at times quite often it is rooted in those playful pieces and I was talking to colleagues about this in preparation as well and we agreed fully that often some of the very best play for learning we have seen has been in quiet conversation as some of the least playful activity we've seen has been in very resource heavy very complex very overstimulating activity and that piece around what is playful I think is the piece that's going to it's a system challenge for the years to come and just to come back again to in case I didn't give the yeah the nuggets of an answer there on the evidence of learning and I suppose we're going back to that valuing the process over the product not everything needs to be recorded on a worksheet we're talking not a proof of work but of evidence of learning and the evidence of learning exists in dialogue and existence sustained shared thinking it exists in problem solving and negotiation and revision movement music laughter all of these things and it really in terms of playfulness exists and persistence and resilience it's one of the places that you can really see where a child can persistently engage in something without becoming deeply frustrated it's often in the teachers play for leading of that situation give it another go you know and it really is sure as a process so we begin to notice learning growing in real time then not just when it's finished and displayed and I think again from listening to a copy of previous episodes people spoke about the classroom wall and that pressure to have things off we need to check in with where that pressure is coming from because is the wall something that's supporting the children's learning or a we under pressure to have classrooms that look like their performance ready yes yes it needs to be an invitation to play an invitation to learn and the children need to have ownership of that space all of these things are harvesting well being affected as well yeah I absolutely agree and it makes me so glad to hear you say that and actually I said on a previous episode that I had that classroom where it was you know ready for the children it was the children's stuff but there was a teachers meeting in my classroom and I spent the afternoon, I've got things because I was so afraid of my colleagues coming in going, "Oh, she's laughing on the wall." She's not happy. Yeah, there's nothing always on here. Nothing I put up was being used by the children. Actually yesterday I did something with the children. I took photographs as a really playful, less playful activity, the old and moving to everything. I put up pictures. Now the children are in the pictures. And you always see them coming in today and they're like, "Oh my gosh, and that's the cylinder and that's this, and that's." And they were using all of the language I wanted them to use, but it was because they were looking at themselves and the pictures. They were using what was on the walls then they were like, "But that cylinder that we found is the same as the one in the poster." That's what it meant. It's not meant to be this gorgeous classroom that I put up that I think looks lovely. It's for them. It's their working wall, their learning journey. And I'm so glad to hear you say that because I think it's such a pressure. And as you say, where is this pressure coming from? And I think it's another piece that contributes to that sense of overload at times where the physical environment of the classroom is something that exists separate to the learning. So we're planning for the environment, we're planning for the learning, but those things aren't happening in tandem with the learners experience of us. And if you go into a classroom in September and it's ready and done and the walls are all filled, it's not the children's work. We did a lonely piece of work and there's a chapter in the annual report. It's the inspectorate last year on the transitions the children experience going from early years into primary to primary to post primary. One of the kind of profound learnings for me in it was how much the children wanted to show you themselves in their classroom. So when we were capturing the voices of young children in their first weeks and months of primary school, they wanted to show you pictures of their siblings that were in books. Anything that was their sense of their being present in their room wasn't kind of the learning almost. They contributed in ways, but the children really wanted to feel like they had ownership in their space. I belong here. I belong here exactly that. It's such a contributor to well-being, I think there as well. Huge, hugely important. There you mentioned there that value in the process over the product and the evidence of learning. So obviously one of the questions the teachers will often have then is, but if I don't have the worksheet completed and the inspector comes in, how do I show the evidence of learning? So can you talk us through the view of assessment and evidence of learning and that professional responsibility of teachers with regards to play and play for learning? Yeah, and I think that's the one that's going to be really, really complex for us to navigate together in the kind of months and years to come as well. So if I start maybe with the assessment piece, if that's okay, because I think again that's often where the anxiety sits most strongly and the framework takes a very deliberate stance. Assessment is not separate from learning. It's integral to us. The continuum of assessment from kind of intuitive noticing to planned interactions, to assessment events, allows teachers to notice learning as it happens, respond in the moment to support progression and build evidence over time. Playful learning makes assessment more visible, not less. The absence of a worksheet does not mean the absence of learning and we're very clear on that. I think there is a sense of times that that inspection is done to people, but we're all active participants in that program. For its negotiation, tell us what's happening. Tell us where the evidence is. Show us the progress. Talk about your professional decision making. That's what the professional conversation is. And as we all become more confident and fluent in that space, I think that process becomes increasingly meaningful for everybody involved. So the question I would often ask in classrooms is, why is this lesson for these children at this time? Invariably, teachers will have a really, really good evidence base for what they're doing. Without being asked for it, sometimes it won't be offered. And you're looking for the evidence of learning because you don't have any other context for it. I would say that's a huge piece to be actively involved in your own decision making. Be reflective and be proactive in this. When we talk about the kind of preparation for teaching and learning, one of the big pieces is, what are we choosing to make visible? We don't need more paperwork. We need meaningful paperwork. And I think when we look at the impact that the guidance on preparation of planning for teaching and learning has had in the system, teachers identified with this a lot more strongly than they have with perhaps other circular developments over time. And there is another iteration of that coming out. With the same intentionality, I would say, of trying to develop effective planning practice that that's meaningful for everybody involved. It supports that approach about not producing more documentation for the sake of us, but at the same time, we need to make professional thinking visible. We need support coherence. We need to know how we reduce that kind of unnecessary workload. And we need to enable reflection over time. So planning for us is very much understood as a living process rather than a static product. And I think if we can come back to that line all the time, we're not looking for uniform templates. But we are interested in clarity of intention, alignment between preparation, teaching and assessment, unsiveness and context, and evidence of reflection and adjustment. It's so important. If this is what I was planning, but it's changed significantly, not reams of justification, stick a post, it knows on it, right on your plans. There shouldn't be pristines out of plans in one place and something that you're actually finding meaningful somewhere else. We're not there for that kind of duplication to be there for the sake of compliance. We're seeing preparation for teaching and learning very much in that space of navigation rather than as a compliance. We need to prepare. We need to record our preparation meaningful and it's important. And it allows for progression and continuity in the child's learning. It allows for communication at whole school level, part of the professionalism of the experience of teaching and learning. But if we're just doing it for the sake of compliance, we're missing a trick. It's not a good enough reason. It doesn't speak to the hearts and minds of teachers. But as a tool for navigation of our professional experience, the learners experience, hopefully we can begin to see more value in this. Yeah. That makes so much sense. It's so clear as well. As a teacher, I certainly feel hammered when I have a plan. When I know what I'm out, and it's lovely that you're saying, "We're open to plans changing because it's so fruitful." So it's so wonderful. And everyone is really invested in finding out. Yeah. But there's a part of what we need for that to be really effective is we need knowledge of pedagogy, knowledge of the curriculum, and knowledge the children on front of you. If you have those things, then you can be very adaptive in your planning until we have knowledge of the curriculum. And some of the best teaching I've seen has been really iterative, but it's often been predicated on a teacher's deep knowledge of the subject. I've seen amazing lessons that were really, really subtle, but the teacher had a fluency in whatever subject they were talking about. They were able to connect it up to other schematics and history and geography and remember when we spoke about this. Now if we were to go back to that piece and it's a really gentle flow, but the teacher is not accountability to the curriculum, but knowledge of the curriculum and kind of response of pedagogy, but also knowing where the children were coming from and where they needed to get to, allowed it to be really playful and really subtle ways. And that just comes with experience the last time in the wilderness. I think so. And it's the piece that we can constantly challenge ourselves with as well. We all have one of your guests spoke about taking your area of strength and beginning to see how playful that can be. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that as a beginning, but I think there's another piece in checking in with how playful we already are and we may be underestimating it. Where we release playful is probably where we experience most discomfort in our own, maybe lack of knowledge of pedagogy or lack of knowledge about the curriculum area. That is going to be the place where we stick more rigidly, but that's okay as well. You know, you can mediate a textbook playfully. Not all is going to be really dramatic and based in the physical movement and kind of flageings for what it's the best. But we're not expecting and I think that's probably a really key message as well. We're not expecting to see this demonstrators in a particular way. We're not coming in to say show us play now. It will be a lot more again, probably subtle than that. We're going to be talking about how our decisions made here. How are children experiencing learning? How is teaching responsive and how is learning meaningful? Act of joy and social because we know and the children's life, school life study gave us really good context on this. Children spoke about how they value, I think most listeners are probably very familiar with that study already commissioned by the NCCA Inc. But we have used it a lot in our own reflection about what we can do to learn a well-being and excellence in teaching and learning. Children spoke about working things out together and having choice and voice and being listened to and learning the fears meaningful and feeling safe to make mistakes. So as they got older, we're going to be able to learn more about the learning and the they kind of spoke less explicitly about play, but what they were describing were playful experiences. It'd be less, maybe, about the labour and more about how the learning feels, and maybe being able to bring their whole personality to the learning and that that's what felt playful for them at that stage. That's what felt like learning was meaningful and productive. Yeah, but as you say, it's the experience of learning and how they experienced that in the classroom. It's just so powerful. I know what's coming to me now when I listen to you speak their clear. It sounds like you're approaching. If you do go into inspect, you're approaching it with curiosity. Ooh, what am I going to see from this teacher? Yeah, you're nearly, it's like, what's your, how we're expected to work with the children to be playful and curious, professional, follow their lead, make sure the learning is meaningful and we're bringing our professional and that curiosity. It sounds like that you were bringing that when you meet those teachers, it's like, okay, what am I going to see here? And that I can say, well, here is what I can stand over my work. I can stand over the experiences that you have. Yeah, it's like the fear of the vector. Yeah, and we all get to experience playfulness in our work at the best of the times. I'm sure as every inspector was a teacher. Yeah, I thought it was a six class from most of my career and I still get really excited about going into classrooms because there's people doing things are better than I am. And I always think if I were to go back to the classroom, I'd be much better for having seen the richness of the classrooms that I've got to visit in this role. And I think there's, there's a piece in all of that as well. Where really, very good practice looks completely different from one setting to the next. That's just music to my ears. You know, when I'm in a world where I feel like social media plays a big part in our classrooms and we see what other teachers are doing. And we ignore it in the first school context, but we feel like that's what I should be doing. But I'm lovely to hear you say it's going to be there. And what's really lovely sometimes is you can see a teacher showing up as their whole selves. In a way that's not depleting them, you know, we're not asking people to be constantly exposed and vulnerable, but there is a piece where the children will be telling you about teachers dark or my teacher loves pink or my teacher also has those shoes. There's a piece in like that where you know that they've experienced really relational pedagogy and they have a really trusting and safe learning environment. And again, it's it's often not in the high dreams and the drama is in there. So those things can be joyful and fun and really important in a child's experience of school as well. But they're not fun for every child. Yes, yes. And I think when we're talking about play and we're observing how the children are experiencing it, really important to watch across the class. Is this really stressful for some children or is there is there something that needs to be adjusted here for this to become more inclusive of the range of children in my class? Do they need a countermer time in the morning? You know where your children are coming from as well. And that that situation of awareness and that's the piece where evaluation and professional conversations work really well. The teachers sharing that context, you know, well dependent on context isn't it? I mean what I did last year with the same level might not work with this class or the next door we're both teaching the same level what works in her class might not work in my class and vice versa. So it is a little context dependent really and I think teachers have to be okay with that. But she's doing next door just because I'm not doing exactly the same thing, but that's okay because I'm doing the best for my class and they are experiences. Yeah. And I think when we're going back again to that evidence of learning and the role of preparation. That should reflect using it's spoken. This was the general agreement from my class. This is the direction of going to just get it down because when you go back to think about that again, you're going to wonder why you made these decisions. When you decisions every day, you're only to record every single word, but the ones that feel significant or the ones that I watch that child really light up in that moment, there was something fault losses or if I did that work and what can I do pick it or no or grow from us or where was the gap in my own knowledge that I couldn't take them to the next step. There are the things that have really guide us in our own professional reflection, I think, and there is no template that's going to allow us to capture that. That's why we're so resistant, I think, at system level to bringing that sense of we talk about consistency, right? And we talk about quality and it's knowing that that looks really different in different places. Consistency is consistency of showing up and that responsiveness and that knowledge of your children that context, that's where your consistency is. It's not in doing the same thing as everybody else. And even there's such relief for me in what you said there that there's no template because I used to feel once upon a time, well, I'd love to know where I want my junior infants to be. Here is the end point, but that's very unrealistic expectations. I have September, sometimes you were thinking, well, we're going to be here by June and that doesn't make any sense. And that's hard as a teacher from having classes where maybe they just all gel very well and they're, you know, they're the academics click and you're teaching the sounds and we're flying through these and we're all in it. This is great. And then the next year you may have a class where maybe the children really struggling with regulation and you're meeting lots of big behaviors and that standard is going to look very different. And I think as a teacher knowing that that's my job to adjust and meet. Okay, we're just this is going to look different this year. We're not going to be at the same level of phonics that we were previously. It doesn't mean that I'm not working really hard with this class. I'm meeting them where they're at. When you look at the paradigm of a learning outcomes based curriculum, it creates space for progression. It's only trying to get children to the next space constantly. We want progression all the time and we want to know that direction of travel. It's the first time we've had a really, really good tool in the progression continuum. I would say that that that gives us that sense of what is the next step of what does it look like across different elements of learning. And I'm saying really good use of the progression continuum as a tool not to find teachers on for planning or anything like that, but for teachers to to find a location where the next steps of progression are where they would typically have done one thing and that doesn't seem to be working. They can go back and see well actually the next step is just that bit smaller than I thought it was. And it happens across a multiplicity of elements the same from ads, you know, there seems to be a gap in how we're reasoning this. So we're going to really focus in here for a while and that can be deeply playful still. No, it's it's but it's targeted and it's professionally responsive to where the children are at in that moments. The curriculum is written for teachers. The toolkit is designed for teachers. We don't need somebody or some program or anything else to mediate that space for us. Although programs and books and everything else can be really effective tools, the curriculum is there for teachers. It wasn't written for anybody else. It was written for teachers. And I think when there is that kind of proliferation of things coming in to us, we get the sense that maybe we need somebody else to mediate it for us. We don't it's there. It's a really really good tool. And there's a lot of supports being put in place to contextualize learning in different environments, but the tools are there. And there'd be further support says that as far as I'm coming on on play as well. I might just very briefly come back to that that kind of ethical and rights based dimension to play as well. Because I think it's really important to our consideration of it's you that play is a fundamental right of childhood and that I feel 31 of the United Nations Convention on the rights of a child to rest and leisure and engage in play and recreation activities appropriate to the age of the child. We've ratified that and it's very much where the framework is grounded. And that phrase appropriate to the age of the child makes it really clear that it doesn't end in early years. It's not confined to one form of activity. It plays the responsibility on us as a system to ensure that children's environment or their entitlement to play is realized and developmentally appropriate context sense to ways. So it's evolving rather than disappearing as a child goes through school. It does become more sophisticated and it's expressed differently as learners as learning deepens and content becomes more complex maybe. But in that way playful and engaging learning experiences are not a soft option. They're part of how we honor children's rights and dignity and agency as learners and that that word agency that's so prevalent in the curriculum. We see that in play. It is such a natural occurrence in that space. The agency of the adult and the agency of the child and the interplay of those two things. You said there like in this whole conversation, I feel really reassured Claire because one of the things that I, we hear a lot in I think is we hear the curriculum is already overloaded. I'm where am I going to find time for playing. But as you said, the curriculum is for us for meeting where our children are at. If I the stack a text books. beside me for loads of different subjects. Yes, I'm going to be very overwhelmed. And I am actually not going to be able to find time to play because I'll have to get through those. Whereas if I take those out of the equation and say, well, this is the curriculum. And I've gone back to the concept without those. Well, and then take on playing. Oh, yeah, 'cause actually there'll be doing a bit of history. There, and there'll be doing a bit of geography there as well. Suddenly, this overloaded stressful curriculum is not a problem because these are washed my pupils are learning. These are the learning experiences that they have. And I can stand over that. The learning becomes more holistic. It becomes more integrated, more thematic. So yes, we're looking at literacy, but we're also looking at the through the lens of history, geography, you know, we're looking at that thematic learning is just so vital. And that's when you kind of step away from the textbooks and bring the playful element into it. The curriculum doesn't seem as daunting as we're ever. And I would absolutely agree, but sometimes it's not even getting rid of textbooks. Although that's a really valid option for a teacher who's very secure in their knowledge of where the curriculum's at. But maybe if I'm looking at is the text relevant in the, in the textbook, what am I going to do with different activity that's more playful and integrates it into another piece of learning? Do I have to do a part of it? You know, if 27 questions and they get it in three, do I need to do the next 24? It's how we mediate things as much as, I always think that there's no absolutes in any of it. Yeah. You don't want to. If something is working in a classroom for a teacher, and when I say working is working for every child, all the time, very rare. That's what they're thinking. You know, but we don't want to take scaffolding supports that are effective and are supporting teacher confidence and competence without making sure that knowledge and pedagogy and responsiveness is there and it's secure. But can we do it differently? Can we gradually move into that space where actually, the children in the classroom were more present, said that they're represented more in the activity that is not something that was created for the generic, kind of, the fourth class activity. What can I do with this material from my fourth class? Yeah, so it's about using it as a resource rather than being different. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They're not crosses to hang on, I always say. No, rather than being dependent on having, yeah. Yeah, different and different. And where it suits and the context of your class, as we said, you know, that this chapter is really beneficial and actually explains this in a really great way. So we'll do that, but I haven't opened it for the rest of the year. You know, it's just-- There might be a group of children in your class for whom it's a really relevant task. There might be a group of children who find really, kind of, kind of meaning in working through. Yeah, I was talking to somebody recently and she was saying, "Oh, I loved the handwriting book." I just loved sitting down and doing the handwriting book. Yeah, it's so interesting. Yeah. Where there were worker children who would be like-- From my entire prime studio, by the handwriting book, but they didn't deserve a pen. I still can't write it. But yeah, yeah. They-- They don't want to give any child a death sort of what they experience, but that's in knowing our children. Yeah. And that's the response of pedagogy, again, I think, that there is good or bad activity. It's a relevant appropriateness and contextualization. Yeah. Yeah. And it's an openness as well that I can have an activity that is a glorious disaster and just going, OK, I'm going to-- I'm going to-- Flick and learn from this. And I'm just going to do it differently if that's part of my job, because that's inevitable. It won't ever take professional risks like this. Our practice will never change. And if we need to always have that sense of this is the very defined and definite outcome from this, yes, we need to know what we're working towards. We need to have that sense of assessment built into what we're doing. Like, is this landing? Is there an impact here? Am I seeing progression in children's learning and skills? But sometimes it would be no-- this was far too effortful. Yeah, for the outpush. That then realistic consideration as well, or the stress level in the classroom, they weren't working collaboratively. There can be pieces where I would see tasks where the executive functioning or the executive organization of the task is far too complex for the learning outcome. So there's a really high demand on cutting it, sticking it into time intensive for a very small learning outcome. And if the demand of the task is proportional to the outcome, that's a little balance, I think, to consider at times as well. Yeah. Both for the teacher and the choice. Or collute. And care something that you mentioned quite a lot, we mentioned it to Nina. Is that being reflective? Do you think, as a profession, we need to slow down a little bit? Do we need to take a bit more time, slow ourselves down? What are your thoughts on that? I think we need to be deliberate. Yeah. I think we need to be focused. Things are changing very rapidly, and the privilege of slowing down isn't always there in really busy schools. I think the schools' average evaluation process is such an inherently valuable one. I really believe in its efficacy when it's used well. One of the things I would see sometimes when I go into a staff room is the calendar that goes over all the weeks of the year. And there is something in every week. Oh, gosh. That's so much organization, and it's so much change, and it's a lack of predictability in the week, both for the child and the teacher. There's such a demand, an organizational demand, on all of these initiatives and all of these weeks and all of these days. Where I've seen it work really well, schools have identified priorities in their school self-evaluation, and they have only taken on initiatives or programs that responded directly to what they had identified as their school priorities. Just people, something is really good, doesn't mean we have to do it right now. It shows programs, they all come with marketing teams. You know, they're very attractive, and they all have merits, but you can't do everything all at once. So if we use our school self-evaluation process to really dig down and reflect, and again, it's not about the volume of the paperwork produced, it's, can we get to the noose of what we need to work on in our school in this moment? Then if something responds to that, absolutely, it can be part of our process of school self-evaluation and improvement. But otherwise, I think maybe we need to be a bit more judicious. This is a time of change. There's so many demands on schools, sociusly as well, but at times, I think we are contributing to our own sense of "tiny fires everywhere" by taking everything on. It might be relevant for the school around the corner, it might be really, really good, but do we need to do it right now? Is it our priorities? And if we go back to our priorities all the time, I think we may be able to lose a little bit of that sense of chaos, maybe at times. I have anything to agree with, I suppose what I hear there is just slow down in terms of taking things on, to be able to embed this change, and to slow down, to be reflective, and to slow down to take on the context. Not to slow down in our teaching and learning, but to slow in the context of my classroom, of my school, and just to go down with rushing through everything. So to be able to work through the teaching and learning, to give the children those wonderful learning experiences based on where we are. Yeah, and I think to extend that into the classroom as well, there's a lovely Irish concept called Pugno and Gura. It's that part of the field that the farmer leaves deliberately on-cott for the hair. But it also allows biodiversity to grow in that space. It's kind of it on-cott, and it allows regeneration, and it creates conditions for things to grow that mightn't survive if they were harvested. And there's probably a bit of learning in that for us as well. It's a metaphor, you know, not everything children do needs to be harvested, and formalized, and assessed, and displayed, and just because we're not capturing the totality of it doesn't mean it's not happening. Some learning needs space to unfold without being captured. And I think we come back to the essence. So if what you're working on in particular, the fact that it's not being captured doesn't make it less meaningful. Sometimes it makes it more alive, and play can really live in that on-cott space, in that Cooony on Gura. It's a really lovely thing to keep in mind and classroom is less space for things to evolve that I maybe hadn't learned. - Yeah, I love that. - Yeah, I love that. - From this better perspective was where we're going into this kind of next stage of enactment. We're not asking, are you doing play? We're going to be asking how are decisions made here? How is teaching intentional and responsive and how is learning meaning for an active and joyful and social and knowing that we're coming in during these next stage of enactment, curious, and we want to enable schools to really get to grips with the framework and the specifications and to see the potential of those for transformative learning, all children in all schools rather than being being something that we need to get really caught in the weeds of accountability with immediately. We really want schools to see the opportunity of curriculum and curriculum change and we can be supportive in that space. Yeah. That's a wonderful message. That's a wonderful resource for school leaders and for teachers to know that you're there in a supportive role. So one of the strongest message to inspectors has given in recent communications and any of you who've been, um, the day one of the IJ workshops will have heard us or there's been, there's been a number of different engagements that curriculum is not a product to be delivered. It's a professional task. It's enacted, it's lived, it's interpreted in context. True professional judgment over time and that language matters because it explicitly recognizes teachers as curriculum makers, not implementers. And actually it sits so naturally within that framing, not as a program, not as a method to be adopted, but as a way in which curriculum becomes inhabited in classrooms. Claire, are you ready for your rapid fire questions? I think so. Yeah. Oh, so these are harder to answer than professional ones. I'm sure. Yeah. What was your favorite thing to play with as a child? So I was thinking with this and I think probably washers, swimming, diving, um, often increasingly high things as we got older, when body boarding and laser surfing and sailing and scuba diving, even now, I think it would be the thing that that that brings most solace and regulation, but I would definitely say, water was there. The big joy of childhood and jumping in waves and even. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that it's still part of your age. Yeah. That's really nice. Oh, yeah. And if you had a stick to play with, what would it be called? So that for me, it's something that I can hear a ball with a tennis racket or a hockey stick. Anything that I can get into, so it's just some sort of compassion rhythm with. I find the ball. Yeah. I don't care who nurtured or nurtured your playfulness. Again, it's a lovely question. I think we, my parents first, um, we knew every playground in the country and sometimes when I'm visiting a school somewhere, I still recognize somewhere in the midlands that we would have visited at some stage. They were great at leaving space as well, not over scheduling. They loved a meandering day. We went on to every OPW site, galleries, public spaces where you could just get really absorbed and wander and wonder. I think I've carried that to Azure tour to and that that piece with friends now who kind of enjoy the same looseness, who kind of walk and swim and sail and head to festivals and dancing and talk and collecting days on folds and even having to go with the teams for going off competing for a day. There's that kind of excitement of like the whole day is ahead of us. That piece is still really meaningful to me of having not over schedule days but knowing this going to be fun. Yeah. Isn't that lovely to have? Yeah. Such a lovely way to live. Yeah. And Claire, what is a playful habit that you've never grown out of? Do-for-me-dressing. So I still like to dress really colorfully and show joyfully so color or texture or something a bit unexpected. Maybe I can overgrow 10 year old at times. It's a small thing but I think it's how you show off sometimes can almost indicate how you want to be in a space or a place. Yeah. The colorful do-for-me-dressing is one for sure. Yeah. I agree in a talk. I'm wearing black now so it's completely. You can't add a picture. I have a normally dressed but I would be very colorful as well. And I always say it's very fun. And it makes you feel great when you know you have a bright talk on or your runners are spits barkily. I love it. I know because you're a great contradiction. I do love it. It's definitely interesting with brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. And what is a small joy that you look forward to every day? I think movement still. I tried to book in my day with it so walk swim tennis paddle hike. Sometimes on my own, sometimes with friends but where I live and waterp it is really helpful with beaches and mountains all around us. And that keeps me fairly regulated and playful I think. Yeah. It's a lovely joy to have every day. Oh Claire, if we were to ask you for one final key message for our listeners, what would that be? Yeah. And I think again if we any of this is useful, just get the primord great hymns not asking schools to adapt a particular model. And now there are the inspectors. It's inviting schools to trust professional and judgment value relational practice embrace interpretive learning. See assessment as part of learning. Allow plain engagement to deepen across the school and keep children's life experience or lived experience at the center. Sutton Smith reminds us that play prepares children for life but not necessarily the same life. So from the inspectorate's perspective, we're standing alongside schools. We're curious, we're informed and we're committed to learning with you in these next steps. The curriculum is not about getting everything right. It's about getting better, talk to me over time and in the best interests of the children. Thank you so much for taking a wonderful conversation. The time to talk to us and you know be so brave. Oh, I really enjoyed it. It was a lovely conversation. I really enjoyed this feature back at the vlog as well. It's just a wonderful conversation. I think it is so reassuring. So it was a calming conversation. I think teachers would listen to this and go, okay, no, I can do this. Yeah, and take a deep breath. It is about that collegiality that when your principal comes in, audience spectra comes in that we can have those professional dialogues. Keep up the good work. I'll be listening to the future episodes. We'd like to say thank you so much to Claire for taking time out for busy schedule to talk to us. If you have any thoughts on this episode, as always, we would love to hear your comments and we would really, really appreciate it if you would like, subscribe and share your episodes with your friends and colleagues.