Early Years Special Visit

On Monday 25th April, the Early Years team welcomed some student teachers from Vilmos Apor Catholic College. The student teachers are on an Erasmus program for the semester, and they came to observe our wonderful Early Years students in action.

They joined us for our weekly forest trip, spent time talking to teachers about students' play and learning and joined Ms Bell for a question-and-answer session. During this session, Ms Bell was able to share more about our specific practices in Early Years and talk them through a typical day.

Ms Bell explained the purpose of the photos and video footage we had captured in the forest, discussing how these would be used later in the day for students to reflect on individually and as a group. Every day, the students in Early Years look at photos and videos of their play and create a drawing or writing piece called a Play Story to reflect on this. They follow this by having a group dialogue about the photos and videos we share. Having these experiences each day supports the student’s communication, language and literacy skills. It is also an opportunity for social and emotional development where students can discuss any social challenges they have faced. In addition to this, students often discuss scientific problems they have solved together, their understanding of the world and mathematical concepts.

Here is some of the student dialogue based on the play the student teachers observed at the forest on Monday.

Ms Emma: Would anyone like to share about this forest play? 

Henri: We was playing we were building a fire but we didn’t have fire lighting sticks. Then we just tried to rub the sticks to make a real fire. We wanted a really big fire and you have to rub the sticks really fast to make the fire come. 

Maxi: We used little rocks to make a circle and then twigs to make a fire. As soon as we left the forest I looked back and I could see the fire. It was a big fire (translated from Hungarian). 

Henri: We put little rocks and some big rocks to keep the fire inside. We played it started to snow. It was a lot of snow and we saw snow is coming to our fire. 

Maxi: We played on the top of the hill (translated from Hungarian). 

Sanjay: I saw Henri and Maxi playing. I was watching from the bench and I ran to see what they were doing. I saw they were making a fire and I helped collect sticks. Then suddenly Juhan saw a spider. 

Milu: Where is the spider? I can’t see it (Mila asked pointing to the photo). 

Sanjay: I am looking but I can’t see it in the photo but we did see it in the forest. 

Dexter: The spider is on the ground. 

Juhan: Mummy spider. 

Sanjay: I thought it’s a baby spider because it was very small. Juhan thought it is a mummy spider. 

Dexter: I stepped on the fire and said ‘ouch’. The flames were shooting up like a meteor. 

Henri: I put leaves on the fire to stop the snow coming on but then the fire was gone because the snow is too cold.

Emma Pickering

Early Years Leader