July 2022 Parenta magazine

Issue 92 

JULY 2022 

FREE 

Industry 

Experts 

How to build a play trail 

What does leadership 

look like... when others 

think they know best? 

Early years music 

training: do we need it? - 

part 2 

+ lots more 

Write for us for a 

chance to win 

£50 

Jump to page 8 

Children’s Art Week 

It’s back! Children’s Art Week is here to inspire and help children and young people to take part in practical activities with 

artists and art educators. 

CHILDREN’S ART WEEK • SUPPORTING PARENTS WITH SEN CHILDREN • PLASTIC FREE JULY

hello 

welcome to our family 

Hello and welcome to the July edition of the Parenta magazine! 

Summer has eventually arrived …and long may it last! 

As the summer holidays approach, we know that some parents feel a sense of dread at the thought of needing 

to entertain their children, or at least keeping them occupied for a few weeks – so we have some articles this 

month which parents will find particularly useful. 

Industry expert, Katie White, comes to the rescue and has chosen one of her favourite holiday activities to show 

us how we can keep the children amused for hours! Turn to page 10 to discover how to build a play trail from things not just outside, but 

that can be found around the house too – you’ll be surprised how many rooms and objects you can use! 

Arts and crafts activities can be a lifesaver for parents, and inspiration can be found on page 20 as we draw inspiration from Children’s 

Art Week; getting our creative juices flowing and encouraging parents’ participation in artistic endeavours. 

The summer holidays can be especially difficult for parents of children with SEN as they could be spending more time than normal with 

them and trying to understand them more fully. We have some great ideas and strategies to help them make small changes, but which 

can have a big impact. 

Another piece of advice which we think parents will really benefit from comes from early years expert, Helen Garnett, who has some 

fantastic guidance for parents of sensory-seeking children who struggle to stay still for periods of time. 

We have so many more insightful articles from our industry experts this month: Joanne Grace nears the end of her ‘Egg-cellent Advice’, 

Chloe Webster talks to us about The three Ps, Mona Sark continues her leadership series, Kathryn Peckham explores children’s emotions, 

Frances Turnbull concludes her music education training article, and Gina Bale tackles the difficulty that some little ones have with 

skipping. 

As always, everything you read in the magazine is written to help you with the efficient running of your setting and to promote the health, 

happiness and well-being of the children in your care. 

Please feel free to share the magazine with friends, parents and colleagues – they can sign up to receive their own copy here. 

Allan 

Egg-cellent 

advice: when 

play becomes 

work 

12 

Having lots of toys can be 

stressful to a child and feel 

like a chore... 

The three Ps 

14 

We all know how important 

our policies, procedures and 

protocols are, but do we know 

how important it is to get 

these documents right, rather 

than write them... 

What does leadership 

look like when... 

18 

In this article, we look at how to flip the 

narrative in a situation like this and support 

even the most resistant members of staff. 

JULY 2022 ISSUE 92 

IN THIS EDITION 

Regulars 

8 Write for us for the chance to win £50! 

34 Carrot star bites 

35 Finger painted trees 

News 

4 Childcare news and views 

6 Small stories 

39 Congratulations to our Parenta 

learners! 

Advice 

20 Children’s Art Week 

22 Supporting parents with SEN children 

30 Supporting apprentices with peer-onpeer 

abuse issues 

32 Plastic Free July 

36 The nightmare of skipping 

Industry Experts 

10 How to build a play trail 

12 Egg-cellent advice: when play becomes 

work 

14 The three Ps 

18 What does leadership look like... 

when others think they know best 

24 Supporting sensory-seeking children in 

your setting 

28 Early years music education training: do 

we need it? part 2 

Supporting parents with SEN children 22 

Understanding children’s emotions 26 

Plastic Free July 32 

The nightmare of skipping 36

Thousands of babies to join study 

of early childhood 

Thousands of babies are set to join 

a study of early childhood as part of 

research into children of the 2020s. 

The study, commissioned by the 

Department for Education and led by 

researchers from University College 

London will follow children for the first 

five years of their lives at least. 

It hopes to inform decisions about 

early years and childcare services, 

exploring how both the pandemic and 

the cost-of-living crisis have impacted 

the children, the study’s researchers 

say. 

The research, which is the first birth 

cohort study to be launched since 

the millennium, will be conducted in 

partnership with Ipsos, the universities 

of Oxford and Cambridge, and 

Birkbeck, University of London. 

Research Director Professor Pasco 

Fearon, said he was “extremely 

excited” to start meeting families and 

their children, who are currently nine 

months old. 

“More than 75 years ago, the first 

British birth cohort study, which is 

housed at UCL, was launched to track 

the lives of babies born just after the 

war. 

“And now, Children Of The 2020s will 

provide vital evidence about the early 

years as families navigate their way 

out of the COVID-19 pandemic and 

through the cost-of-living crisis.” 

Parents will be asked about 

their child’s development, their 

Childcare news 

and views 

neighbourhood, their family, their 

mental health and the home learning 

environment. 

They will also be asked about childcare 

arrangements for their children and 

pre-school education. 

Between the surveys, they will be 

invited to use a smartphone app 

to log their baby’s language and 

development, as well as receiving 

news and tips from the team of 

experts. 

Prof Fearon added: “Our first five years 

are a crucial developmental period in 

our lives, every new experience can 

play a pivotal role in how we fare later 

on. 

“This new study will investigate 

how children develop and the 

circumstances and early years services 

that can make a difference. 

“By understanding how these factors 

impact their development, we can 

learn how to support them, so they are 

able to make the best start at school 

and flourish as they are growing up.” 

Children and Families Minister, Will 

Quince, said: “This is an important 

study that will provide an insight into 

the crucial early years of a child’s 

life and a wealth of evidence about 

their development and educational 

outcomes. 

“We know the pandemic has created 

unique challenges for families and I’d 

like to thank the thousands who will be 

participating in this study over the next 

five years. 

“We are committed to supporting 

families, including through a multimillion-pound 

package to transform 

services, which will create family hubs 

in half of all local authorities and 

provide important advice to parents 

and carers through the Start-for-Life 

offer.” 

Speaking ahead of a visit to UCL 

last year focusing on the study, the 

Duchess of Cambridge said: “Our early 

childhoods shape our adult lives and 

knowing more about what impacts 

this critical time is fundamental to 

understanding what we as a society 

can do to improve our future health and 

happiness. 

“The landmark Children Of The 2020s 

study will illustrate the importance of 

the first five years and provide insights 

into the most critical aspects of early 

childhood, as well as the factors which 

support or hinder positive lifelong 

outcomes.” 

The full story can be found on the ITV 

website here. 

Childcare costs increase by nearly 

50% for the under 2s 

A report by the TUC has revealed that 

childcare costs have increased by 44% 

since 2010, for parents with children 

under 2 years - and the union body 

is calling for an urgent cash boost 

for the childcare sector. It argues that 

childcare is a vital part of our economic 

recovery; and investing in good quality, 

affordable childcare would support 

working parents and help the sector 

recover from the pandemic. 

TUC General Secretary, Frances O’Grady 

said: “Childcare should be affordable 

for all. But parents are spending a 

massive chunk of their pay packets 

on childcare bills, while their wages 

stagnate. This is putting huge pressure 

on family budgets at the same time as 

other living costs are shooting up. New 

mums are caught in a catch 22. The 

UK’s miserly rate of statutory maternity 

pay means many are under financial 

pressure to return work early and are 

then at the mercy of sky-high childcare 

fees. We urgently need to get wages 

rising to stop households drowning in 

bills.” 

On the need to invest in the childcare 

sector – not slash staffing requirements 

– Frances added: “The government 

has done little to support the childcare 

sector – even when nurseries were 

forced to close during the pandemic. 

Cutting staffing ratios is the last 

thing we need. It would just put 

more pressure on underpaid and 

undervalued childcare workers. We 

need a proper funding settlement 

for early-years childcare that delivers 

decent pay and conditions for the 

workforce and high-quality care.” 

Purnima Tanuku OBE, Chief Executive 

of National Day Nurseries Association 

(NDNA), said: “We absolutely agree 

that the government must give the 

childcare sector an urgent funding 

boost to reduce the burden on both 

parents and providers. 

“For years we have been warning of 

the spiralling costs of childcare and 

Government underfunding of their 

funded childcare places is a significant 

factor. As the largest customer, the 

Government must pay the actual 

cost of delivering high quality early 

years education and care, not keep 

giving providers a shortfall. This leaves 

nurseries struggling to make ends meet 

and parents picking up that shortfall. 

“We know parents are really grappling 

with the rapidly rising costs of living 

especially energy and food bills – this 

is also true for providers who are 

also facing increasing wage bills and 

business rates. 

“We need to see urgent support to the 

early years sector with funding that 

meets the cost of providing the high 

quality care and education that all our 

children need and deserve.” 

Read the full TUC press release here. 

“We are not babysitters”: Neil 

Leitch, EYA 

Chief executive of the Early Years 

Alliance, Neil Leitch, has highlighted 

the “disgraceful misconception” of what 

a nursery job demands, referring to 

an article in the Daily Telegraph which 

reported that nursery workers ‘watch’ 

children. 

He told attendees at its annual national 

conference on 9th June: “Now I have 

met a lot of early years professionals 

in my time, and I have seen them 

educate children, I’ve seen them care 

for them, support them and their 

families, liaise with countless agencies, 

act as therapists, health visitors, social 

workers, you name it. Never have I 

met a single one who simply ‘watches’ 

children.” 

The early years leader has vowed to 

fight the government’s plan to change 

nurseries’ staff-to-child ratio which 

would increase the number of twoyear-olds 

each nursery worker cares 

from four to five children. 

He is doing this “because early years 

professionals, no matter how well 

experienced and how well-qualified, 

only have two hands and two eyes. 

“And so, the more children per adult 

you have in a setting, the higher 

the risk of something unthinkable 

happening.” 

The Chief Executive said relaxing 

early years ratios is not the solution 

to problems caused by years of 

underfunding. 

Lamenting over the fact that nurseries 

have the “same battles, over and over 

again”, he said newspaper headlines 

report on high childcare costs but still 

nothing changes. 

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation 

and Development (OECD) 

has found the UK has the lowest early 

years investment of any economicallydeveloped 

country and some of the 

highest childcare costs in the world 

but still the government “pretends that 

there’s no link between investment and 

cost!” 

“I’d suggest if ministers want to take 

lessons from other countries on early 

years practice, how about looking 

at how they value and respect their 

staff…how about looking at how much 

they choose to invest in early years 

provision?” 

The full story, as reported by 

daynurseries, can be found here. 

4 July 2022 | parenta.com 

parenta.com | July 2022 5

A round-up of some news stories that 

have caught our eye over the month 

Source and image credits to: 

Daynurseries.co.uk, Early Years Educator, Daily Record, 

Nursery World and Pacey 

New early years educator 

coaching launched 

May 25th, 2022, was an auspicious 

moment for EnRich Coaching for 

Educators who hosted their official launch 

in the beautiful Cafe at City Coast Centre 

in Brighton & Hove. 

Pam McFarlane, founder of EnRich 

Coaching for Educators, opened the 

evening by introducing the team, all of 

whom are educators and accredited 

coaches. 

Staff shortages force nurseries to 

turn away new children and rely 

on agency staff 

A survey showed 77% of nursery staff are 

dealing with workforce shortages in their 

nursery. 

Staff in ‘outstanding’ London 

nursery greet children in their 

home language to promote sense 

of belonging 

Ofsted inspectors have praised staff at 

a London nursery for “skilfully greeting 

children in their home language”. 

Childcare costs stop one third of 

British under 25s having children 

Almost a quarter of couples in London, 

Liverpool and Birmingham say they can’t 

afford to start a family. 

Queen’s Birthday Honours 

recognises childcare providers 

The chief executive of Kids Planet and 

founder of Hopscotch Day Nurseries have 

been recognised in the Queen’s Birthday 

Honours for services to education and 

childcare. 

Most children are getting less 

than the recommended amount of 

physical activity 

Survey shows only 19% of children 

between one and five are getting the 

recommended amount of exercise 

needed to grow up healthy. 

Click here to send in 

your stories to 

hello@parenta.com 

Lanarkshire superheroes raise 

money with sponsored walk 

Children from Stonelaw Preschool 

teamed up to support their nursery 

with donations from a sponsored walk, 

raising over £500. 

Number of children eligible for 

free school meals increases 

amid rise in poverty 

According to data from the DfE, the 

percentage of children qualifying for free 

school meals has risen from 20.8% to 

22.5%. 

Government to ‘make it easier to 

be a childminder’ 

The Prime Minister mentioned plans to 

look into changes for the early years 

and childcare sector, including ‘making it 

easier’ to be a childminder. 



We’re always on the lookout 

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parents to support their child – from the beginning” 

explores how to help parents marvel in the early 

years as they lay the foundations that will have 

such great impact through all the years to come. 

Well done Kathryn! 

A massive thank you to all of our guest authors for 

writing for us. You can find all of the past articles 

from our guest authors on our website: 

www.parenta.com/parentablog/guest-authors 


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How to build a play trail 

As the summer holidays approach, we 

might feel a sense of dread at the thought 

of needing to entertain our children, or at 

least keep them occupied. Whether you’re 

hands on and looking for inspiration or 

overwhelmed and need to start simple, 

a play trail might be just the ticket to a 

summer of fun! 

What’s the incentive? 

With nearly all play trails, children will 

need an incentive, a common goal or 

task. Children love searching for hidden 

things, collecting clues or finding pieces to 

a puzzle. You could even factor in a prize 

at the end, or get them to design their own 

winner’s crown. 

The trail doesn’t necessarily need to have 

much structure, the incentive could purely 

be to connect with others! A friend who 

lives in Australia showed me a picture 

which she had taken mid lock-down. It 

was a bunch of wooden spoon people, 

all carefully decorated and gathered in 

and around the park that she lived next to. 

Everyday new wooden spoon people were 

added as the children got involved and 

included their ’person’ to the crowd. I love 

this concept, and what a wonderful way 

of helping children feel connected to their 

community. 

For online courses, free resources or 

information about my current playful 

projects check out www.thebestmedicine. 

co.uk 

When I say ‘play trail’ you might think of a 

playground or obstacle course, filled with 

equipment that gets the children moving, 

leaping, balancing and swinging. These 

kind of play trails are brilliant, but may 

not be easy to access or age-appropriate 

for your child. In this article, I’ll outline 

ways to build a play trail from things you 

can find around the house, and give you 

some key pointers to think about to ensure 

enjoyment for all! 

Where to start 

If you’ve ever taken your children to a 

museum or gardens, you’ll be familiar 

with the preface of a play trail. Whether 

its educational, imaginative or promotes 

physical exercise, the play trail is a 

fantastic way to engage and excite 

children with their surroundings. So how 

might you do this at home, in your setting 

or community? 

I suggest you start where you are; what 

physical space do you have inside and 

out? Is there a park or public space where 

you could set up your trail? What resources 

do you have in front of you? Could you use 

something from the kitchen cupboard or 

recycling? 

Organising a play trail doesn’t need to be 

expensive or cost you too much time, if 

you’re caring for older children, get them 

involved in the generation of ideas and 

the construction. If they’re younger, keep it 

simple by confining the trail to one or two 

rooms. The trail doesn’t need to stretch for 

miles, it could simply be around the house 

or garden. Start small, leave the grander 

plans for later. 

Who’s playing? 

It’s important to first assess the ability of 

the children you’re caring for, and tailor 

it to their needs and learning. Children 

will lose interest if the trail is overly 

complicated or full of jargon, so keep it 

simple. Adding sensory elements is a 

great way of engaging younger children 

and children with disabilities. Walking 

barefoot or rolling on interesting textures 

like cornflakes or bubble wrap, adding 

tastes and smells, or using sound are all 

brilliant ways of making the trail inclusive 

and multi-faceted. 

Choose a theme 

Instead of rushing ahead with a theme, 

find something you know the children will 

enjoy. What are they interested in at the 

moment? Dragons, magic, fairies, fish, 

volcanoes, tractors, insects, mermaids, 

time travel, space, dinosaurs? Build these 

interests into the trail, that way you know 

you’ll have their attention. 

I recently designed a play trail for a 

local garden; with thousands of children 

passing through their gates, they needed 

something universal that every child 

could engage with and enjoy. I chose 

the theme of honey bees; assigning the 

children as bees and giving them the 

task of collecting pollen and nectar from 

the flowers at points which were spread 

around the garden. I then gave them tasks 

that aligned to the theme, with worker bee 

challenges, waggle dancing and queen 

bee photo opportunities. 

Another great way to find a theme is to 

structure the trail around a book or story 

that the child knows and loves. You can 

also take characters or elements of the 

story and build them into your trail. 

Katie White 

Katie Rose White is a Laughter Facilitator 

and founder of The Best Medicine. 

She works predominantly with carers, 

teachers and healthcare professionals - 

teaching playful strategies for boosting 

mood, strengthening resilience and 

improving well-being. She provides 

practical workshops, interactive talks 

and training days - fusing therapeutic 

laughter techniques, playful games 

and activities, and mindfulness-based 

practices. The techniques are not only 

designed to equip participants with tools 

for managing their stress, but can also 

be used and adapted to the needs of the 

people that they are supporting. 

thebestmedicine@outlook.com 

www.twitter.com/bestmedicine1 

http://www.facebook.com/ 

thebestmedicinecornwall 



Egg-cellent advice: 

when play becomes work 

I do not know how he came to acquire the nickname Egg but ever since he came along that’s what my youngest son has been called. 

I run The Sensory Projects www.TheSensoryProjects.co.uk (which should now really be called The Sensory Projects and Sons!) My work 

focuses on people with profound disabilities and sensory differences, but my son’s advice will apply to your work too. 

In this series of articles we are going to share his insights with you, if you are keen for more there is an ever growing collection on my 

Facebook profile: come and make friends. www.Facebook.com/JoannaGraceTSP 

This is article 9 out of a series of 10! To view the others click here. 

I cannot remember where I first heard 

it but the phrase “Active toys make 

passive children, passive toys make 

active children” rang true with me. Until 

recently the toys were all stored in six 

boxes downstairs on a kind of bookshelf 

arrangement, and the bedroom was kept 

for clothes and bedding. Since Egg’s arrival 

we have shifted the rooms around and the 

boys are sharing one big room. I swear 

the toys are multiplying, I don’t know how! 

But we still have relatively few toys when 

compared to our peers. This is not because 

we cannot afford them (they’re all finds 

from charity shops anyway) or because we 

are mean and do not want our children to 

have fun. It’s quite simply because we do 

not play with them. Pop by, you’re far more 

likely to find us playing with a cardboard 

box, or the two metres of guttering pipe 

which was my older boy’s first birthday 

present (still as played with six years on as 

it was the year he got it). 

Having lots of toys can be stressful to a 

child, it’s like an adult in an office with too 

much work to do in their in-tray, as Egg 

explains: 

(But before he does, allow me to get off 

my chest, that we did not move house. 

I packed the entirety of our house 

into boxes with a baby on my hip in 

anticipation of a move only weeks away. 7 

months down the line it all fell through and 

we are very much staying put!) 

*Note this post mentions people becoming 

overwhelmed by sensory experiences, if 

you are struggling with behaviour in your 

setting and think it might have a sensory 

cause consider studying “Exploring the 

Impact of the Senses on Behaviour” with 

The Sensory Projects online college www. 

TheSensoryProjects.co.uk/online-college 

We might be moving house. Ordinarily my 

toys are kept in different small boxes, each 

with just a few toys in it. Mummy offers me 

the toys from one box for a day, or a week. 

Because we are moving she has dumped 

them all into one box. It has no lid, so I can 

get to all my toys. Great! 

But often it ends up like this. I pick up the 

toy, other toys pull on my attention, I pick 

up another toy. Play becomes like work 

and I have too much on my plate. I am 

overwhelmed. I cannot pick them all up. I 

cannot focus. Play is no longer fun. 

When I only had six toys or even one, I 

played more. Research shows the less 

toys children have the more they play with 

them. 

My mummy grew up on a boat, where 

there wasn’t space for lots of toys, and my 

grandma would bag up half her toys and 

hide them for months, then take away the 

toys that were out and swap them around. 

She still remembers how exciting it was to 

re-meet her toys. 

In our new house, as I grow, my toys will 

be back in their separate boxes and I will 

be able to get to them myself. They will 

not all be out. My favourites will stay all 

the time but others will come and go in 

a rotate-a-toy dance. Mummy is looking 

forward to this! 

(These words first appeared on Jo’s 

Facebook profile you are welcome to 

send her a friend request to watch out 

for more insight www.Facebook.com/ 

JoannaGraceTSP) 

Joanna provides online and in person 

training relating to sensory engagement 

and sensory differences, look up www. 

TheSensoryProjects.co.uk/online-college 

for more information. 

To view a list of her books visit www. 

TheSensoryProjects.co.uk/books. 

Follow Jo on social media to pick 

up new sensory insights, you’ll find 

her at: Twitter, www.Facebook.com/ 

JoannaGraceTSP and www.Linkedin/In/ 

JoannaGraceTheSensoryProjects. 

Joanna Grace 

Joanna Grace is an international 

Sensory Engagement and Inclusion 

Specialist, trainer, author, TEDx speaker 

and founder of The Sensory Projects. 

Consistently rated as “outstanding” by 

Ofsted, Joanna has taught in 

mainstream and special school settings, 

connecting with pupils of all ages and 

abilities. To inform her work, Joanna 

draws on her own experience from her 

private and professional life as well as 

taking in all the information she can 

from the research archives. Joanna’s 

private life includes family members 

with disabilities and neurodiverse 

conditions and time spent as a 

registered foster carer for children with 

profound disabilities. 

Joanna has published four practitioner 

books: “Multiple Multisensory Rooms: 

Myth Busting the Magic”, “Sensory 

Stories for Children and Teens”, 

“Sensory-Being for Sensory Beings” 

and “Sharing Sensory Stories and 

Conversations with People with 

Dementia”. and two inclusive sensory 

story children’s books: “Voyage to 

Arghan” and “Ernest and I”. There is 

new book coming out soon called 

”The Subtle Spectrum” and her 

son has recently become the UK’s 

youngest published author with his 

book, “My Mummy is Autistic” which 

was foreworded by Chris Packham. 

Joanna followed with her own book 

“The Subtle Spectrum” which explores 

the landscape of post diagnosis adult 

identified autism. 

Joanna is a big fan of social media and 

is always happy to connect with people 

via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. 



We all know how important our policies, 

procedures and protocols are, but do 

we know how important it is to get these 

documents right, rather than write them, 

print them, display them and store them 

just because we ‘have to’?! 

Policies, procedures and protocols 

encompass everything our setting has to 

offer, what we propose to do, our action 

plans and the health and safety aspects of 

our setting. 

The importance of these documents is not 

to be taken lightly by any stretch of the 

imagination, but we must adopt the same 

critical reflection of our policies etc. as 

we do all other parts of our practice, and 

ensure that we are writing these policies 

for the right reasons, that they include 

the right information and that they are 

readable and relevant. 

Policies and procedures are only as good 

as the people writing, reading and putting 

them into action – if you are a setting that 

has umpteen policies for a whole host of 

different areas of practice and provision 

because you feel like you have to have 

The three Ps 

them, then you are likely to be making 

considerably more work for yourself and 

your staff team. 

We all know that there are certain policies 

and procedures you must ensure you 

have within your setting as a legal 

requirement of our registrations and 

curriculum, but it’s important that we 

as practitioners have the confidence, 

knowledge and experience to differentiate 

between whether a policy is a necessity or 

if it could just be a professional discussion 

cascaded down throughout your staff 

team. 

We are very good at over-complicating, 

over-analysing and making more work for 

ourselves than is necessary for us to run 

effective and efficient settings. 

The policies and procedures we put in 

place provide a roadmap for the day-today 

running of the setting and provide 

materials to support decision-making. 

They are vital components of an 

efficient, well-informed and co-operative 

workplace atmosphere and work towards 

developing, building and maintaining the 

ethos of the setting. 

With this in mind, we must not overwhelm 

ourselves and our staff teams with 

hundreds upon hundreds of policies and 

procedures for every tiny aspect of the 

setting, this is totally unnecessary and 

often causes more stress for everyone 

involved. 

In an ever-changing sector, with new 

guidance, legislation and sector changes 

commonplace, this can sometimes require 

us to amend or create new policies 

to summarise new information and 

implement new procedures – times like 

these are the perfect times to reflect upon 

our current policies and how well they are 

working in practice and if they are even 

necessary to keep if they are no longer 

serving a purpose. 

We should be critical and regularly review 

our policies and when new documents 

or amendments are required and ask 

ourselves whether the new information 

or procedures can be condensed into an 

existing policy? Can it be cross-referenced 

through another policy for ease and to 

avoid duplicating complex information? 

The aim of these documents is to make the 

running of the setting easier to understand 

for everyone involved, and so even the 

way the documents are presented, written 

and ordered are important to consider. 

For example, there have been countless 

updates to the coronavirus guidance, 

legislation and advice in recent months 

and so this is a policy that will have been 

frequently reviewed and amended, but ask 

yourselves is it necessary for this to now 

be a stand-alone document or is there 

an opportunity for it be cross-referenced 

and inseminated into your illness/sickness 

policy for ease? 

During the review process it is essential 

that you completely re-read and critically 

reflect upon not only the quantity and 

necessity of each of your policies, but 

also critically reflect upon the content to 

ensure that the purpose of the policy and 

the content is still relevant to your setting, 

your current actions and procedures and 

current legislation and guidance. 

Similarly, if these documents only 

make sense to the leader/manager or 

whomever is writing them, then they are 

not fit for purpose. 

These documents should be readable and 

easy to understand for everyone whose 

actions they affect, this includes the entire 

staff team and the parent/carers who 

access the setting and provision for their 

children. 

Whilst these documents are professional, 

legal and essential documents, they 

should still aim to be concise, readable 

and avoid using jargon or language that 

is difficult to understand – if it is essential 

to use specific wording and terms and 

phrases relevant to the sector or setting, 

these should always be supported by a 

clear definition or explanation to ensure 

that they are readable for all. 

Most importantly, when reviewing 

or writing new policies, we must ask 

ourselves what the purpose of the policy 

is and if it is entirely necessary to have in 

place as a full policy. 

Policies and procedures are essentially 

methods of communicating the day 

to day operational plan of the setting 

and expectations in specific scenarios/ 

situations, and so we must not insist 

that these be the only ways in which 

we communicate new information to 

practitioners and parents alike – let’s be 

confident in our knowledge of our setting 

and the people that work within it. Let’s be 

confident that we can also communicate 

such information through a range of 

different media, rather than re-write, 

amend or create a brand new policy to 

explain and outline a simple concept and 

consider other ways we can communicate 

this information to all involved. 

As long as we have the policies and 

procedures in place that we are legally 

required to and allow us to operate 

safely, keep the children safe and that 

these are shared and understood by both 

the staff team and the parents/carers 

of the setting alike, then we are already 

on our way to creating a concise, yet 

informative and efficient policy system and 

this will ensure a smooth and effortless 

day to day running and management 

of the setting, with everyone fully aware 

and understanding of the policies and 

procedures in practice. 

Chloe Webster 

Chloe Webster is an OFSTED Outstanding 

childminder at Pebbles Childcare, 

Worthing West Sussex. With over 10 

years experience in the sector, Chloe 

has written for a number of Early Years 

magazines and journals. 

Chloe works for Bridgit Brown at Pebbles 

Childcare and together they were 

awarded Nursery World’s ‘Childminding 

Business of The Year’ in 2018 and pride 

themselves on their child-led, natural, 

outdoor pedagogy and are advocates 

of the home-based childcare profession 

and work tirelessly to champion HBC 

across the sector. 

chloelouisewebster@hotmail.com 



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What does 

leadership look 

like… when 

others think 

Mona Sakr 

they know best? 

A few months ago, I had a great time 

presenting at the Parenta webinar on 

leading effective professional development 

across teams. There were some fantastic 

questions at the end of the presentation 

and one in particular that really stayed 

with me: What do you do when, as a 

settings, you come into contact with an 

experienced member of staff who always 

thinks that they know better than you? 

This is such a familiar situation to so many 

leaders. It can particularly resonate with 

younger leaders who may have fewer 

years in the job but find themselves 

leading others with many more years of 

experience. 

In this article, we look at how to flip 

the narrative in a situation like this and 

support even the most resistant members 

of staff. The article looks at three principles 

to apply in a situation like this: 

• A culture of curiosity: ‘Let’s try it and 

see’ 

• Demonstrate respect for others’ 

experiences 

• Grow your leadership by giving it 

away 

A culture of curiosity: 

‘Let’s try it and see’ 

Imagine you are a baby room leader 

deeply committed to creating a rich 

pedagogical environment in the baby 

room, including through extending the 

language that is used in the environment. 

In a team meeting at the beginning of 

the week, you suggest that staff in the 

baby room try to use more adventurous 

language with the babies day to day. 

You suggest swapping the words ‘nice’ 

or ‘good’ with more exciting choices like 

‘fabulous’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘magnificent’. 

Now let’s imagine that an experienced 

member of the team on hearing about 

this idea shows resistance. They scoff at 

the idea saying it is silly and unnecessary. 

They might say: “babies don’t need this; 

they just need us to care for them”. They 

might even fall back on their years of 

experience with babies to make the point: 

“I’ve worked with babies for years and this 

is just not something we need to worry 

about.” 

When we encounter someone’s resistance 

about learning new things, sometimes 

we wrongly assume that they are simply 

not interested in learning anything 

new. But research on motivation within 

organisations suggests that this is rarely 

the case. Edgar Schein’s important work on 

organisational leadership demonstrates 

that most employees are motivated by a 

range of needs including intellectual needs 

– the desire to learn and innate curiosity. 

Leaders need to tap into this intellectual 

curiosity even when it seems to be hiding. 

The simplest thing we can do in a moment 

like the one described above, is try to 

tap into our shared innate curiosity. We 

might say something like: “you might 

be right, but can we try and see what 

happens?” Through the phrase “let’s try it 

and see what happens”, we are showing 

a commitment to a culture of curiosity and 

learning. It’s a perfect go-to phrase when 

you encounter resistance to new ideas. 

Demonstrate respect 

for others’ experiences 

You will have noticed that in the 

example above, the response starts 

with a validation of the staff member’s 

experience: “you might be right”. This 

is a simple way of acknowledging that 

experience does count for something. 

Often resistance can come about when 

staff feel that their investment in the job 

has gone ignored or under-valued. It is 

challenging as an individual to feel that 

no one cares about your years of hard 

work. By going out of your way to show 

that experience is appreciated and valued, 

some of the resistance can begin to shift. 

Here are some ways to show that you care 

about others’ experiences and that you 

want to learn from them day-to-day: 

• “Linda, I bet you’ve got some amazing 

ideas about X. Based on all your 

experiences, what do you think we 

should do?” 

• “Saira, have you come across 

anything that might help us with Y?” 

• “Antonio, I’m struggling a bit with Z 

and I’d really like to get your help with 

this. Do you have any thoughts or 

ideas?” 

Resistance can be a coping mechanism 

among more experienced staff. But 

similarly, younger or less experienced 

leaders can feel under pressure to 

dominate. The more resistance we 

experience from others, the more likely 

we are to want to push through with a 

strong, assertive leadership style where 

ideas can’t be questioned. This actually 

then exacerbates the resistance of other 

members of staff. 

The phrases above are powerful because 

they push us away from a traditional 

hierarchy where there is one leader and 

everyone else needs to follow and instead, 

they create a sharing culture, where 

everyone’s experiences and expertise can 

emerge. This will prompt a more relaxed 

and comfortable culture, where everyone 

feels valued and respected, and the 

resistance of more experienced members 

of the team may start to lift. 

Grow your leadership 

by giving it away 

You can take the point above one 

step further by pro-actively looking for 

opportunities to put the resistant member 

of staff in the driving seat. This isn’t 

about relinquishing your leadership but 

about developing a more collaborative, 

distributed leadership style where 

everyone can flourish. 

You could ask the staff member to lead 

on a particular initiative, so that they have 

a chance to bring their expertise and 

experience into the spotlight and see what 

happens as a result: “Stacey, I bet you’ve 

got so many ideas about how to make the 

outdoor space more appealing and more 

accessible – do you think this is something 

you could lead on?” 

By opening up these opportunities to lead, 

you are reconnecting with the intellectual 

needs of staff members – the need to 

grow and learn as professionals. They 

might not always take you up on the offer 

to lead on something new, but just having 

the offer out there can help to break down 

a culture of resistance and replace it with 

something more playful, curious and 

collaborative. 

References 

Schein, E. H. (2015) Organizational Culture 

and Leadership. 5th Edition. Hoboken, NJ: 

Wiley. 

Dr Mona Sakr is a Senior Lecturer in 

Education and Early Childhood. As a 

researcher in Early Years (EY) provision, 

she has published extensively on 

creative, digital and playful pedagogies 

including the books “Digital Play in 

Early Childhood: What’s the Problem?” 

(Sage) and “Creativity and Making in 

Early Childhood: Challenging Practitioner 

Perspectives” (Bloomsbury). 

Mona’s current research is an 

exploration of pedagogical, 

organisational and community 

leadership in EY and how leadership can 

be more effectively developed across 

EY. Current funded research includes a 

Nuffield Foundation project looking at 

online leadership development across 

the EY sector, a BELMAS project looking 

at leadership in the baby room of 

nurseries and a BERA project examining 

ethnicity in the early years workforce. 

Forthcoming books (include an 

introduction to social leadership in early 

childhood education and care (written 

with June O’Sullivan, CEO of London Early 

Years Foundation), and an edited volume 

on EY pedagogical leadership around 

the globe. 

Email: m.sakr@mdx.ac.uk 

Twitter: @DrMonaSakr 



Children’s Art Week 

It’s back! Children’s Art Week is here 

to inspire and help children and young 

people to take part in practical activities 

with artists and art educators. The week 

is organised and run by Engage - the 

National Association for Gallery Education, 

although up and down the country, 

everyone is encouraged to organise their 

own artistic and creative activities, support 

local art galleries and generally wonder at 

the art around them. It is supported by the 

Arts Council England and other national 

arts organisations around the UK. 

This year, the week runs from June 29 to 

July 19 – so not one, but three weeks in 

total, so plenty of time to get your creative 

juices flowing and participate in some 

fantastic artistic endeavours. 

In recent years, Engage have set themes 

such as: 

The natural world 

Connecting across the generations 

Literacy and creative writing 

However, in 2022, Engage is focusing on 

the health and well-being impact offered 

by artists and galleries and the positive 

effect on people’s general health and 

well-being that getting involved in, and/ 

or appreciating the visual arts can have. 

Having been in lockdown in the last 2 

years, many of us took up creative pursuits 

such as baking, gardening or art, so this 

is a great time to showcase some of your 

work. And although it’s called Children’s 

Art Week, there’s no reason on earth 

why you shouldn’t involve all ages in your 

creative plans. 

Engage would also like everyone to share 

their work by email or on their social 

media channels which you can find on the 

Engage website here. 

Who can get involved? 

The short answer to this is anyone! 

Typically, it is schools, galleries, museums 

and community groups who take part in 

the week by putting together events and 

experiences for children and families, 

although there is no limit to anything 

and age is not a barrier either. If you are 

an artist, why not share your wealth of 

experience with the younger generation, 

and everyone will benefit. 

What can you do? 

If you can think of something creative, 

informative or inspiring in the visual arts 

field, then you can do it. Generally, there 

are 3 main ways that people can get 

involved in the arts, by either: 

Creating art 

Learning about art, or 

Appreciating art 

We’ve listed some different ideas below for 

getting involved in all three. 

Creating art 

This is where you let your children, staff, 

families and friends unleash their creative 

side and get involved in practically making 

some visual art. You can do it inside, on 

the walls of your setting, outside on the 

pavement, in the park or at the beach, and 

probably a host of places in between too. 

Obviously, there are hundreds of things 

you could draw or paint in your setting and 

thousands of arts and crafts sites on the 

internet such as https://www.tate.org.uk/ 

kids/make to help with other ideas too, 

but why not try to do something different 

this year? Think about the different strands 

there are of visual arts such as: 

Painting and drawing 

Sculpture and modelling 

Printing (block printing, screen printing 

and yes, of course, potato- and handprinting 

count too!) 

Film and video 

Textiles 

Fashion, costume design and masks 

Now think about different media you could 

use such as: 

Paints (acrylic, enamel, watercolour, 

oil) 

Crayons and pastels 

Charcoal 

Pencil, pens, gel pens 

Textiles, wool and ribbons 

Wild art materials such as leaves/ 

twigs/stones 

Paper and card e.g. origami 

Collage or mixed media 

Decoupage 

Photography 

Digital art 

Recycled materials and upcycling 

furniture 

Face paints 

Make sure you use things that are safe for 

children and wear protective clothing, but 

experimenting with new ideas is exciting 

and the children will love it. 

Learning about art 

This is about expanding your knowledge 

of art and art techniques. You could listen 

to a lecture or watch a programme about 

your favourite artist or a new art discovery. 

You could invest in learning or teaching 

your children a new skill such as knitting, 

jewellery-making, embroidery or silkscreen 

printing? How about sculpting or 

making a cardboard box Totem pole? 

And it doesn’t have to be expensive. You 

could use recycled bottle tops, paint them 

different colours and thread them on string 

or ribbon to make necklaces or bracelets. 

If you’d like to know more about art, 

https://artincontext.org/ is a wonderful 

place to start although a little more grown 

up. 

Another idea for learning about art is 

to invite a local artist into your setting to 

discuss their work and ask them to share 

their story with your children. 

Appreciating art 

Appreciating art is all about really noticing 

the art around you, recognising its beauty 

and creativity and discussing it with others. 

When was the last time you visited a 

gallery or a museum as a setting, and 

really looked at the artworks and objects 

in there? This is also a good way to help 

children’s vocabulary because you can 

show them pictures and images of famous 

art works and teach them words related 

to colours, textures, emotions and feelings 

to, showing children a picture of the Mona 

Lisa and asking them whether they think 

she looks happy or sad for example, will 

give you some interesting responses, 

whilst building cultural capital as well. 

Appreciating art also means not only 

looking at new (or new to you) artwork 

and artists, but also considering the art in 

everyday things. For example, have you 

ever considered the map of the London 

Tube network a piece of art? Maybe 

not, but if you visit the London Transport 

Museum website or building, and look at 

the many different designs of maps they 

have there, you might change your opinion 

about this iconic but everyday item. 

Or consider the design ideas that go into 

designing our food and packaging labels. 

Art is everywhere and we are surrounded 

by visual images that have been created 

by traditional artists, designers and 

graphic artists every time we get on the 

bus, open a magazine or browse the 

shelves of our local shop. Encourage the 

children to really ‘open their eyes’ and 

appreciate the rich culture that surrounds 

them. 

If you want some more ideas, look here 

to find a list of some of the best kids art 

websites and there is a good toolkit here 

from Somerset Artworks. 

And of course, we’d love to see your final 

pieces so remember to send us your 

images and stories to hello@parenta.com. 



Supporting parents with 

SEN children 

Most settings will already be catering for 

some children with special educational 

needs (SEN) to help them access your 

services and curriculum. However, are 

you also finding ways to support their 

parents? Being a parent of a child with SEN 

can be lonely and confusing as they try to 

understand their children more fully, and 

then get them the help they need. Read on 

to find how you can help them by making 

some small changes, which can have a 

big impact. 

SEN children and their 

parents are unique 

Everyone is different, and children with 

special needs cannot be grouped into one 

homogenous group. Often, what works 

well for one person - (such as having 

a non-stimulating environment due to 

sensory overload), - is the opposite of 

what’s needed for others, who may need 

a more uplifting, colourful and visually 

engaging environment. Some people need 

a quiet space, others crave attention and 

may have trouble regulating their volume 

or energy. The phrase “one size fits all” 

does definitely NOT apply when you are 

discussing children with special needs. 

The same is true of their parents. There 

is not one ‘type’ of parent whose child 

has special needs, and it is not down to 

a ‘parenting fault’ or challenge either, 

although this is often a misconception and 

myth that many parents face. 

Understand parents’ 

point of view 

One of the first things you can do, is to 

develop an empathy for parents. If you 

have ever stood in a supermarket whilst 

your toddler has a tantrum, and felt the 

‘judging eyes’ upon you as you try to calm 

them down, you will know what we mean. 

Now imagine that you are standing in the 

same supermarket, but your toddler is 

now age 10 and having the same tantrum. 

You know that it is because they have 

become overwhelmed by something that 

is out of their control, and this is their only 

way of emotionally releasing their fears/ 

anxiety/stress. But for other observers, this 

fact is ‘hidden’, and instead of getting the 

sympathy and understanding you need, 

you feel the weight of their judgement as 

they silently (or not!) condemn you and 

your parenting. 

Listen to what parents 

say 

Listening to parents is key. They will 

understand their situation and their child; 

they have found what works for them, and 

things that don’t. Parents will hopefully 

have tried numerous different approaches, 

learning through trial and error, experience 

and hopefully some professional input 

too. So it is important to listen to what 

they say, and try to accommodate things 

if you can. If they say that their child is 

upset by certain textures, sounds or tastes, 

then disseminate this information to your 

staff and make sure they are aware. 

A lot of children with SEN find physical 

contact difficult. They may find it difficult to 

look people in the eye or they may have 

sensory needs which mean they can’t 

bear certain materials close to their skin or 

particular smells. 

Many neurotypical people often find these 

needs difficult to understand and instead, 

think that the person is being deliberately 

difficult or ‘naughty’. However, almost all 

of us visibly tense at the sound of nails 

scraping down a blackboard. The noise 

seems to go through us, vibrating our 

very bones and we quickly cover our ears 

and call for it to stop. This is how many 

people with sensory needs feel about 

some of the sounds, touch, tastes and 

smells that many of us love. It is not a 

question of one person being ‘right’ and 

the other person be ‘wrong’ – it’s just 

that we are all different. If we approach 

the situation with more understanding, 

patience and tolerance, then we will go a 

long way to helping support the parents of 

SEN children, because they will feel more 

validated and understood. 

Meet the children’s 

individual needs and 

share what works 

It is the duty of settings to try to meet the 

needs of SEN children. Depending on the 

need, this is not always possible and so 

specialist provisions for children with some 

severe disabilities or learning difficulties 

exist. However, many children with SEN 

can cope in mainstream establishments 

so long as their needs are considered, and 

adaptations made. 

Having a SENCo draw up a list of needs 

and a provision map will mean that 

you can document the provisions and 

adaptations you are providing for that 

child. Many SENCos will also draw up and 

individual child profile and share it with 

staff. These give details of what the child 

needs and what works well. Remember 

to update these as children grow and 

develop and help parents and councils 

maintain up-to-date EHCPs. In early years, 

children are growing and developing at 

an amazing rate, and what they need will 

develop with them helping parents get the 

provision their children need, especially as 

children transition to school or between 

school key stages. 

Train your staff 

Another simple way to help parents with 

SEN children is to train your staff on how 

best to deal with that child. You could do 

this as part of your annual CPD work or 

have key people undertake specific special 

needs training. There are some free and/ 

or inexpensive CPD courses that staff can 

take ranging from a short one- or twohour 

online course, to more in-depth, Level 

2 courses. Parenta offer a number of CPD 

courses which may be of interest which 

you can access here and include Asperger 

Syndrome, Autism Awareness and 

Disability Awareness to name but a few. 

Offer support and be an 

advocate 

Many children in early years may only be 

starting to show signs of having special 

needs as they join your setting, so it may 

be a shared journey of discovery for 

both the setting and the parents as you 

investigate some of the issues you witness 

in the nursery. You can help parents by 

offering information and advice about 

different conditions, and point them in 

the direction of support groups or other 

advocacy organisations. 

Other ways to help 

Encourage children to get involved in 

everything in your setting 

Keep reviewing your own policies and 

procedures 

Consider if you can offer extended 

hours or respite services 

Supporting parents with SEN children 

will not only help them, but it will help 

the children too, as their home life is an 

important aspect which will contribute to 

their success in your setting. 

Further information 

https://www.kids.org.uk/ 

https://www.understood.org/ 

https://www.family-action.org.uk/whatwe-do/children-families/send/send-info/ 



Supporting 

sensoryseeking 

children 

in your setting 

Do you have children in your setting who 

come across as rough or a little wild? If 

you do, these children could be showing 

signs of sensory-seeking behaviour. Whilst 

children generally enjoy physical activity, 

some may have a great deal of excess 

energy. 

Sensory-seeking children will want to 

move! Their need for sensory input means 

that they may find it difficult being still for 

long. 

The following questionnaire may indicate a 

child’s sensory-seeking needs: 

Does the child: 

1 Wriggle, fidget or squirm a lot of the time? 

2 Find it difficult being still whilst sitting down for an activity/meal? 

3 Seek constant motion, sometimes colliding with other children/objects? 

4 Often seek climbing activities that may be risky? 

5 

Often seek jumping/spinning activities regardless of other children 

around them? 

6 Enjoy/make loud noises or talk non-stop? 

7 Touch everything/put non-edible things in their mouths? 

8 Find it difficult to stand still whilst getting dressed? 

Scoring 3 or 4 means a child will need a lot 

of outlets for their energy. 

When a child has sensory-seeking needs, 

it is more challenging for them to keep 

still without fidgeting and squirming. But 

the good news is that if sensory-seeking 

children are given plenty of opportunities 

to get the sensory input they are craving, 

this will help with their overall sensory 

needs. 

Never 

1 

What sensoryseeking 

may look 

like 

Example A 

James is 4 and finds it very difficult to 

sit down and listen to stories with other 

children. During story-time he is always 

fidgety and sometimes gets up and 

wanders off. 

Sometimes 

2 

Usually 

3 

Always 

4 

muscles and joints with some heavy 

work activities, such as pulling, pushing 

or crawling. These are all tiring on the 

muscles and joints and can help in 

calming James down towards story time. 

Date/ 

Time 

28/06/22 

Snack 

time. 

Example B 

Sara is 3 and often puts non-edible items 

in her mouth and on occasion will bite 

other children. 

How can Sara be 

supported? 

Again, Sara may be responding to an 

unbearable ‘itch’, seeking oral feedback 

to help ‘scratch’ that itch. Children who 

are oral-seeking like the feel and texture 

of things in their mouth. They may well 

be biting because they are seeking that 

sensory input through their jaw which 

gives them a calming feeling. 

Try the following: 

Offer sensory chew toys such as a chew 

noodle. 

What was 

going on 

when it 

happened? 

Coming inside 

after Forest 

School. 

Last word 

What 

triggered 

the 

response? 

Child reluctant 

to come 

inside for 

snack. 

What did the 

response look 

like? 

Wriggling away, 

crying. 

Offer crunchy food such as apple or 

carrots. Crunchy snacks and having access 

to a chew (e.g., having one on a necklace) 

can be helpful preventative measures. 

Redirect to these options when the child 

bites or chews on inappropriate things 

rather than disciplining and always praise 

for using the appropriate item. 

Triggers and 

tracking for sensory 

responses 

It is always useful to know what triggers a 

sensory response. Use the following chart 

to keep an eye on triggers, responses 

and what worked best for the child. 

Observation is key. Stop and assess! 

Ask questions. Is the response due to a 

different environment or a new demand? 

Is it a repetitive response? What are the 

triggers to the response? 

It is always good to get a professional 

opinion if you are worried. 

Triggers and 

Tracking Chart (with 

example) 

What happened after/as a result 

of the response? 

Tracking food to see if there is a familiar 

theme to textures etc. that the child 

may be avoiding. 

Use of schedule and timer countdowns 

when going inside to manage child’s 

expectation. 

Use of wobble cushion on the chair for 

snack time. 

It is important to realise that whole group sensory activities can be hugely beneficial to 

help with low alert levels (a room full of sleepy looking or unfocused children with lots of 

yawns, wriggles etc.) or with a sudden rise in the noise level that is difficult to contain. Low 

alert levels can be raised with movement breaks, and high alert levels can be lowered 

through other types of physical activity, e.g., heavy work activities or deep pressure. 

Helen Garnett 

Helen Garnett is a mother of 4, and a 

committed and experienced early years 

consultant. She has a wealth of experience 

in teaching, both in the primary and early 

years sectors. She co-founded a preschool 

in 2005 where she developed a 

keen interest in early intervention, leading 

her into international work for the early 

years sector. Helen cares passionately 

about young children and connection. 

As a result, she wrote her first book, 

“Developing Empathy in the Early Years: 

a guide for practitioners” for which she 

won the Professional Books category 

at the 2018 Nursery World Awards, and 

“Building a Resilient Workforce in the Early 

Years”, published by Early Years Alliance 

in June 2019. She also writes articles for 

early years magazines, such as Nursery 

World, Early Years Teacher Organisation, 

QA Education, Teach Early Years, and Early 

Years Educator. 

Helen is the co-founder and Education 

Director at Arc Pathway, an early years 

platform for teachers and parents. 

Helen can be contacted via LinkedIn. 

How can James be 

supported? 

First, it is important to remember 

that sensory needs are a form of 

communication and have been likened to 

an unbearable ‘itch’ that will only go when 

it is ‘scratched’. If James does not get the 

movement he is seeking, he will seek it 

out in other ways. Frustration can creep in 

because James will have a strong feeling 

that he needs to do something, but he 

doesn’t know what that is. 

Try the following: 

Give James time to enjoy some active 

movement before story-time, such as 

running, jumping, spinning and swinging. 

Follow this up with some more calming 

activities, where he can engage his 

Observing and supporting individual or group alertness and physical activity in the room 

can remove a lot of stress, both from a child’s and adult’s point of view. The key point to 

remember is that sensory-seeking behaviour can often appear ‘naughty’ when in fact it 

is an ‘itch’ that needs ‘scratching’. When adults find out what is ‘itching’ the child, they can 

then support the child in alternative and beneficial ways to relieve that itch. In this way, the 

child can interact, take part and enjoy their learning alongside their peers. 

It’s a win-win situation! 



Understanding 

children’s 

emotions 

A child’s emotions are a very real part of 

everyday life, just like for all of us. They 

will be experienced positively through 

the happiness, love, and joy that they 

feel. Through the negative emotions 

of fear, anger or jealousy or through 

neutral emotions of apathy, acceptance 

or indifference. It is only with some 

understanding of their emotions that 

you will be able to support children to 

understand and manage their emotions 

for themselves. And only then can 

you consider how this influences their 

behaviours and what you can do to 

support their healthy growth. 

The way a child reacts to any given 

situation is dependent on many different 

things. Including the gene pool they have 

been born into and the environment 

they are in. It will depend on their 

developmental stage and developing 

character, whether they are naturally 

anxious, prone to anger or susceptible to 

hurt feelings. It will be affected by current 

family stressors and life circumstances, 

such as moving home, family break ups, 

new jobs or the birth of a sibling. It can 

also simply hinge on the fact that they are 

feeling unwell, tired, frustrated or even 

simply hungry. 

Children are developing a complex set 

of social and emotional skills that they 

need to understand, influence and 

communicate through the emotions 

that they are experiencing. But to do 

this they need to be allowed to feel their 

emotions, unafraid of them. They need 

to learn how to recognise emotions in 

themselves and others and they need to 

develop techniques to regulate their strong 

emotions, to know how to cooperate and 

socially interact. Trouble comes however, 

when these emotions and skills are not 

managed or when unrealistic expectations 

are in place. 

Simply said, emotions are a natural, 

healthy and necessary part of growing up 

that we want our children to experience, 

at the right time and to the right extent. 

Negative emotions are a very real part of 

this and children also need to understand 

how to deal with these; their own as well 

as when their peers are experiencing them 

too. However, when negative emotions 

continue unchecked, they can become 

more deeply ingrained and emotional 

predispositions or personality traits can 

establish. If this is happening in a child, 

you might see an ingrained temperament 

such as a tendency to whine, to be quick 

to cry or quickly resorting to aggressive 

responses. 

These behaviours and the selfperpetuating 

thinking and feeling cycles 

that establish, may be confused by a 

diagnosis of ADHD and the like, with 

medications all too quickly prescribed. With 

symptoms ranging from feeling fearful or 

self-conscious, to experiencing nervous 

anxiety or feeling worthless and unloved 

unless they can attain a level of perfection, 

we need to intervene. By understanding 

how behavioural and emotional health 

problems develop in our children, we can 

better address the issue at a time when 

we can actively help them to manage it. 

Whenever we experience a particularly 

emotional event, thought chemicals are 

released into the body to inform us of 

our response to it. As we experience the 

world or even think about it, the neurons 

in our brain release these chemicals to 

trigger reactions in the body that we feel 

as emotions, anything from a slight flutter 

felt in the tummy, to a debilitating physical 

reaction. 

Happy and empowering thoughts produce 

chemicals to make us feel happy and 

empowered, whilst negative, sad or angry 

thoughts produce chemicals that make 

us feel sad, angry or depressed. When 

in a healthy balance, these processes 

inform our responses and empower our 

reactions, however, trouble soon comes 

when they are unmatched to our need for 

them. 

Take fear for example - that feeling of a 

racing heart and rapid breathing as the 

body is flooded with oxygen, preparing 

its fight or flight response to the danger 

it perceives. A healthy reaction when 

that perception of fear is accurate, but 

heightened levels of fear or anxiety long 

before an active response is needed is not 

a healthy state to be in. Think back to the 

last time you had to wait weeks for a test 

result. Or were eagerly awaiting a holiday 

but needed to board a plane when you 

are petrified of flying. 

If a child is consistently experiencing the 

world in a particularly emotional way, 

pre-dispositions to those emotions can 

develop. And to make matters worse, 

children do not have a well-established 

sense of time; they cannot understand 

why the good times spent in the park need 

to end and they struggle to imagine a time 

when they will not feel this bad. 

A predisposition to negative thoughts 

does not develop because of one 

negative emotional incident. However, 

over time, processes in the body establish 

a chemical continuity and an emotional 

predisposition is created, intensifying over 

the days, weeks, months or even years 

that it is left to reinforce. These patterns 

are laying down from their earliest 

experiences and are informing all future 

responses. Predisposed to tears, they 

are likely to react to most situations with 

an emotional response. To override this 

takes a great deal of active mindfulness 

and a huge effort of will to act differently, 

however, unless patterns of behaviour are 

consciously changed, these will continue 

to intensify. 

You can help your children to develop all 

of these skills through guided support, 

managed behavioural techniques and by 

effectively modelling healthy responses. 

You can teach them techniques such as 

self-soothing and calming as you speak 

to them in gentle tones, helping them to 

remember happier times. And remember, 

we all know how overwhelming emotions 

can feel at times, so help your children 

through this rather than letting your own 

emotions join them for the ride. 

This is the first of five articles from The 

Secure Child. Next time we will look at 

supporting children as they feel their 

emotions. But in the meantime, bring 

focus back to nurturing all of children’s 

growth and development with a Nurturing 

Childhoods Accreditation. A new approach 

to CPD that is tailored to the needs of 

your setting and the children and families 

you work with. With its complete set of 

materials and guidance, it complements 

the resources available for your parents 

and is underpinned by professional 

standards and industry leading research. 

As together we surround children with a 

unified understanding of who they are 

and what they need. And really begin 

developing the potential of all children in 

their early years. 

Kathryn Peckham 

As Founder of Nurturing Childhoods, 

Dr Kathryn Peckham is a passionate 

advocate for children’s access to rich and 

meaningful experiences throughout their 

foundational early years. Delivering online 

courses, training and seminars she 

works with families and settings to identify 

and celebrate the impact of effective 

childhood experiences as preparation for 

all of life’s learning. An active campaigner 

for children she consults on projects, 

conducts research for government bodies 

and contributes to papers launched in 

parliament. Through her consultancy 

and research she guides local councils, 

practitioners, teachers and parents all 

over the world in enhancing children’s 

experiences through the experiences 

they offer. A highly acclaimed author and 

member of parliamentary groups, Kathryn 

also teaches a Masters at the Centre for 

Research in Early Years. 

For more information and practical 

guidance on developing the features of 

lifelong learning, Kathryn has published 

a book: “Developing School Readiness, 

Creating Lifelong Learners”. 

Get in contact at www.kathrynpeckham. 

co.uk or email info@kathrynpeckham. 

co.uk. 



Early years music 

education training: do 

we need it? part 2 

Bautista et al (2022) considered the ways 

that settings currently use to meet their 

music needs: paying outside specialists 

to come in regularly; and, rarely, paying 

to train staff in music provision. Teacher 

training often only provided a few 

compulsory hours music education 

training or was offered as an option. Only 

around half of the staff at any nursery 

in the literature consulted had had any 

experience in playing an instrument, 

dancing or singing – and in settings with 

lower qualifications, that fell to less than 

half. 

Researchers found that outside specialists 

limited the quality of musical instruction 

because it was not integrated into the 

children’s holistic learning experience, as 

music specialists were not involved in the 

day-to-day planning, so were not familiar 

with the children. Although some settings 

brought in skilled performing musicians, 

they were not usually familiar with 

teaching pedagogy. 

As a result of these half-measures, this 

poor training provision has ultimately 

created a situation of unprepared and 

self-conscious educators who are unable 

to access the positive benefits of music for 

their children. 

Researchers consulted publications from 

several countries including America, 

England, China, South Africa, Japan, 

Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland 

and Namibia. Topics that early years 

educators identified for deeper training 

included: understanding music curriculum 

design, developing instrumental and 

singing skills, integrating music within the 

curriculum, designing and implementing 

music appreciation activities, learning 

basic music theory, and developing 

ways to foster children’s creativity and 

self-expression, as well as introducing 

improvisation and composition in early 

years. 

Researchers then suggested a few ways 

that this type of training could be achieved. 

As highly motivated people, early years 

specialists enjoyed practical microteaching 

activities, whether live or video, 

with opportunities to implement innovative 

ideas. Mentoring was suggested, as 

musical novices planning music education 

curricula alongside accomplished 

musicians exposed trainees to different 

teaching methodologies. 

Professional development was preferred 

to be held during work hours, including 

music seminars, workshops and 

conferences, but were perceived to be 

less effective as they were not early 

years specific. Online music education 

resources were valued because early 

years specialists could access them at 

their convenience, and an interest-based 

community was valued for the opportunity 

to discuss and compare experience. 

Internationally, the lack of funding support 

was noted to be the biggest barrier to 

accessing most professional development. 

To address these needs, change 

needs to come from the top, which is 

an opportunity for music councils and 

unions to develop strategies together. 

In terms of teacher training, universities 

and colleges could facilitate change by 

increasing their music education provision 

more regularly. Partnerships with settings 

could be used to practice these skills, 

and partnerships with specialist music 

training centres could offer online/video 

training, demonstrating a variety of 

methods. Setting managers could create 

non-judgemental opportunities to develop 

these skills and collaborate. With flexible 

working schedules and protected time 

for collaboration, these forms of informal 

learning are more cost effective and 

sustainable long-term. 

Governments could facilitate change 

through conferences and professional 

development, either in person or online, 

that could provide further information 

on the latest field developments. By 

developing online learning communities 

with discussion forums and chats, this 

knowledge-sharing platform would 

reinforce personal development and peer 

learning, again, in a sustainable way. 

In the meantime, every day early years 

specialists can improve their own musical 

skills gradually and creatively with children 

using materials currently available. 

Below we continue with our of sample 

songs from the free mini e-book Come 

and Sing 1 (Turnbull, 2015) - https:// 

books.apple.com/gb/book/musicaliti/ 

id1057514353. 

As a reminder, the book Learning with 

Music (Turnbull, 2017) - https://www. 

routledge.com/Learning-with-Music- 

Games-and-Activities-for-the-Early-Years/ 

Turnbull/p/book/9781138192591 - includes 

substantially more detail. 

Level 4: Frosty Weather 

Frosty weather 

Snowy weather 

When the wind blows we 

All stick together 

This song introduces a fifth pitch (la*) to 

do*, re*, mi* and so*, this time from high 

to low, and the original two rhythms, the 

steady beat (crotchet/quarter note) and 

twice as fast (quaver/eighth note). 

Level 5: Love Somebody 

Love somebody, yes I do 



Love somebody, but I won’t say who 




Love somebody, and it’s you, you, you 

This song uses five pitches, do*, re*, mi*, 

so* and la*, and the three rhythms from 

previous songs, the steady beat (crotchet/ 

quarter note), twice as fast (quaver/eighth 

note) and twice as slow (minim/half note). 

We’ll all have tea 

This well-known favourite introduces a 

sixth pitch (fa*) to do*, re*, mi*, so* and 

la*, and the three rhythms as before, the 

steady beat (crotchet/quarter note), twice 

as fast (quaver/eighth note) and twice as 

slow (minim/half note). 

Level 7: Skip To My Lou 

Skip, skip, skip to my Lou 



Skip to my Lou, my darling 

Another well-known song, while it also 

has six pitches do*, re*, mi*, fa*, so* and 

la*,and three rhythms, it is a new rhythm: 

the steady beat (crotchet/quarter note), 

twice as fast (quaver/eighth note) and four 

times as fast (semiquaver/sixteenth note). 

Looking at all the songs chosen, wellknown 

songs have more going on 

musically than lesser-known songs, 

which makes them more interesting. 

It is entirely natural to prefer complex 

songs, as the brain finds complexity more 

interesting, but lesser-known songs are 

just as valuable because of the things 

they teach us. While it is true that some 

children can sing a greater range than 

the songs listed above, teaching notes 

gradually gives people the ability to break 

down complex tunes. This skill allows both 

children and educators to understand the 

songs musically, join in successfully, and 

ultimately, access all the positive benefits 

of music. 

* Kodály pitch: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti. 

(Rhythms in British and American terms.) 

References: 

Bautista, A., Yeung, J., Mclaren, M. L., & 

Ilari, B. (2022). Music in early childhood 

teacher education: Raising awareness of a 

worrisome reality and proposing strategies 

to move forward. Arts Education Policy 

Review, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632 

913.2022.2043969 

Frances Turnbull 

Musician, researcher and author, 

Frances Turnbull, is a self-taught guitarist 

who has played contemporary and 

community music from the age of 12. She 

delivers music sessions to the early years 

and KS1. Trained in the music education 

techniques of Kodály (specialist singing), 

Dalcroze (specialist movement) and Orff 

(specialist percussion instruments), she 

has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology 

(Open University) and a Master’s degree 

in Education (University of Cambridge). 

She runs a local community choir, the 

Bolton Warblers, and delivers the Sound 

Sense initiative “A choir in every care 

home” within local care and residential 

homes, supporting health and wellbeing 

through her community interest 

company. 

She has represented the early years 

music community at the House of 

Commons, advocating for recognition 

for early years music educators, and her 

table of progressive music skills for under 

7s features in her curriculum books. 

Frances is the author of “Learning with 

Music: Games and activities for the early 

years”, published by Routledge, August 

2017. 

Level 6: Polly Put The 

Kettle On 

Polly put the kettle on 



Turnbull, F. (2015). Come and Sing 1 (1st 

ed.). Musicaliti Publishers. 

Turnbull, F. (2017). Learning with Music: 

Games and Activities for the Early Years (1 

edition). Routledge. 

www.musicaliti.co.uk 



Supporting apprentices 

with peer-on-peer 

abuse issues 

much less likely to think these things 

happened, particularly contact forms of 

harmful sexual behaviour and girls were 

shown to be adversely disproportionately 

affected. 

So clearly there is a problem and many of 

our young people (girls in particular) may 

be suffering or have suffered from this kind 

of abuse. So how can we support people 

in our setting who may have suffered any 

of these safeguarding issues? 

The issue of safeguarding is fundamental 

to everything we do in education, whether 

for our early years children or our older 

apprentices who may only be just out of 

school, and still legally classed as children 

themselves (under 18s). If you have been 

reading the magazine for a while, you will 

know that we regularly revisit safeguarding 

issues and each year, when Keeping 

Children Safe in Education is updated, we 

advise settings to revisit their policies and 

procedures to ensure they keep within 

their statutory duty. 

The proposed new changes for this 

September have recently been published 

and you can view them here and an 

easy-to-read article from TES about them 

here. This month we have also written a 

Handy Guide about what settings need 

to know about peer-on-peer abuse 

(shortly to change to child-on-child abuse), 

online abuse, and issues around healthy 

relationships and consent that were 

introduced last year. You an access this 

detailed guide here. 

Whilst understanding the changes that 

affect settings in terms of policies and 

procedures, we also need to be aware 

of the impact that these safeguarding 

issues can have on our employees and 

young people in our setting, particularly 

if they have been victims themselves or 

have supported other people who have. 

In these cases, we need to be aware of 

the problems that our trainees and young 

people can face, and the problems that 

victims experience in coming forward. 

The long-term consequences 

of abuse 

Abuse is a terrible thing, it can affect 

someone’s self-esteem, cause extreme 

mental health issues and has a huge 

impact on the life chances that people 

have, if not treated with compassion, 

patience and understanding. Adverse 

Childhood Experiences (or ACEs) are 

potentially traumatic adverse events that 

occur in childhood. All the kinds of abuse 

we are aware of in safeguarding training 

count as ACEs but there are other things 

too such as parental divorce, substance 

misuse or having parents/care givers in 

prison which can add to the burden of 

toxic stress. Children who grow up with 

this kind of toxic stress often have difficulty 

forming healthy and stable relationships, 

they may have attachment disorders 

which can disrupt their relationships into 

adulthood, and they may even pass this 

on to their own children. 

Peer-on-peer abuse can also lead to 

traumatic experiences which can have 

lasting consequences. People who 

experience peer-on-peer abuse and 

bullying may conclude that they cannot 

trust other people, or they may crave 

attention from relationships which are 

unhealthy, controlling or abusive, purely 

because they feel that negative attention is 

better than no attention at all. 

If people have suffered from unwanted 

sexual contact or sexual harassment, then 

this can affect their self-esteem, mental 

health and their ability to form strong and 

healthy intimate relationships. 

According to a recent Ofsted report on 

sexual harassment in schools, “Children 

and young people told us that sexual 

harassment occurs so frequently that it has 

become ‘commonplace”. 

In a survey of 900 girls at school and 

college, the percentage of girls who said 

they had experienced some kind of sexual 

harassment and assault by peers was: 

• sexual assault of any kind (79%) 

• feeling pressured to do sexual things 

that they did not want to (68%) 

• unwanted touching (64%) 

These findings are strongly supported 

by existing research into harmful sexual 

behaviour between peers which were 

classed as happening “a lot” . Boys were 

The problems of disclosure 

Clearly, most people do not advertise 

a traumatic history on their application 

form and one of the main issues that 

people face, is knowing where to get help 

from. This is where settings can help by 

having an open and supportive culture, 

encouraging people to talk about any 

issues that may affect their work, and 

having policies in place that support 

people if they do come forward with a 

non-judgemental attitude. In the next 

magazine, we will talk about the tricky 

subject of disclosures in more detail. 

Information, advice and an 

empathetic culture 

Nowadays, there is lot of support around 

for people who have been victims of 

abuse or ACEs, and it is no longer the 

taboo subject it was. Campaigns such as 

the “Me Too” campaign, which spread 

originally through social media (the ‘news’ 

channel of young people), have helped 

young people not only speak up against 

things like sexual harassment and abuse, 

but they have also helped them rebuild 

their lives and their confidence. 

Employees and trainees should be made 

aware that all disclosures will be taken 

seriously, and employers have a duty to 

safeguard young people if they are still 

being affected by these issues. They will 

have a statutory duty to have procedures 

and protocols in place to offer immediate 

help, support and referrals to outside 

agencies or the police if needed. There are 

Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) in 

each setting and employees and trainees 

should know who they are. 

Many employers are also able to offer 

mental health first aid, and/or put young 

people in touch with support organisations 

for victims of abuse so there is help out 

there for anyone who needs it. 

If you have been affected by abuse, 

then help is available on any of the 

websites listed below or by calling the 

police on 121 or in an emergency, on 

999. 

Childline number: 0800 1111 

Further sources of 

information and advice: 

MeToomvmt.org/ 

www.childline.org.uk/ 

www.youngminds.org.uk/young-person/ 

coping-with-life/bullying/ 

safeline.org.uk/ 

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/ 

guides-to-support-and-services/abuse/ 

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/ 

children-and-young-people/protectingchildren/ 

www.womensaid.org.uk/informationsupport/ 

www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-abusehow-to-get-help 

www.nationalbullyinghelpline.co.uk/ 

cyberbullying.html 

www.childrenssociety.org.uk/information/ 

young-people 

rapecrisis.org.uk/ 



Plastic Free 

July 

As you sit down reading this article, take 

a moment to look around you and do a 

quick visual and mental survey. How many 

plastic items can you see? 

Perhaps there are some drinks bottles 

or some toys, carrier bags or take-away 

coffee cups? Now take a moment to think 

about other rooms too – what plastic 

items would be in your bathroom? Or 

the kitchen, the garden or your setting 

generally? 

When you come to think about it, our lives 

have become almost dependent on plastic 

in some form or another. We use plastic in 

food packaging, toiletries, toothbrushes, 

broom handles, drawers, storage boxes, 

shelves, ornaments, decorations, money! 

The list is endless. And what’s more, we 

use plastic in many items that we don’t 

even realise – like sanitary products, 

disposable nappies and even tea bags! 

In the 1950s, plastics were hailed as a 

‘saviour’ because they were so cheap, 

hard-wearing and long-lasting. But we 

have come to realise that those attributes 

are now not the golden lining we were 

promised as we struggle to cope with the 

ever-increasing mountain of waste plastic 

we now produce. 

The problem 

Some plastics can be recycled and made 

into other useful objects, but this does 

not apply to all plastics, or we should say, 

most plastics. Some cannot be recycled, 

and they are not easily bio-degradable so 

a plastic bottle can take up to 450 years to 

break down. Much of the plastic we use 

ends up in our oceans where wildlife can 

mistake it for food and ingest it. Plastics 

also break down into microplastics (pieces 

less than 5mm small) and can find their 

way into the human food chain too. 

Have a look these 10 disturbing facts 

from the Plastic Free July and Earth Day 

websites about plastic waste: 

1. Approximately 91% of plastic is not 

recycled 

2. Humans use about 1.2 million plastic 

bottles per minute 

3. Roughly half of our global annual 

plastic production is for a single-use 

products 

4. Virtually every piece of plastic ever 

made still exists in some shape or 

form (with the exception of the small 

amount that has been incinerated) 

5. Five trillion plastic bags are produced 

worldwide annually. It can take up to 

1,000 years for a bag to disintegrate 

completely 

6. There is more microplastic in the 

ocean than there are stars in the Milky 

Way 

7. At least 14 million tons of plastic end 

up in our oceans every year 

8. Many countries lack the infrastructure 

to prevent plastic pollution such as: 

sanitary landfills; incineration facilities; 

recycling capacity and circular 

economy infrastructure; proper 

management and disposal of waste 

systems 

9. Over 1 million marine organisms 

are killed each year due to plastic 

pollution in the ocean 

10. There are five massive patches of 

plastic in the oceans around the 

world. These huge concentrations of 

plastic debris cover large swaths of 

the ocean. One patch in particular, 

known as the “Great Pacific Garbage 

Patch” covers 20 million square 

kilometres of water which is bigger 

than the combined area of the United 

States’ five largest states 

It’s clear that something needs to be done. 

What is Plastic Free 

July? 

Plastic Free July® is a key initiative of the 

Plastic Free Foundation and was started 

by Rebecca Prince-Ruiz and a small local 

government team in Western Australia. 

It’s now a global movement that helps 

millions of people begin to tackle plastic 

pollution. One of the Foundation’s core 

beliefs is “small changes add up to a big 

difference”, because if everyone does one 

small thing, we could have a massive 

impact across the world. 

The Plastic Free Foundation published 

an impact study about the impact that 

Plastic Free July was having and found that 

participants had: 

• reduced their household waste and 

recycling by 15kg per person per year 

• reduced 2.1 billion tonnes of waste 

and recycling including 300 million 

kgs of plastic consumption 

• refused over 301 million everyday 

plastic items 

• reduced the overall use of plastics 

in bottled water, fruit and vegetable 

packaging, and plastic straws 

So the campaign is working, but more still 

needs to be done. 

How you can get 

involved in your 

setting 

The first thing to do if you want to join 

in with Plastic Free July is to make a 

commitment within your setting. You can 

take the quiz on the Plastic Free Website 

and make a pledge to reduce your own 

plastic footprint, advertise this to parents 

and carers, and encourage them to do the 

same. 

The second step is to audit the plastics you 

are using and start with those. 

The 5 Rs 

We all know about the “Reduce, Reuse and 

Recycle” Rs which are commonplace terms, 

used nowadays to help us cut waste, but 

when it comes to plastics, there are 2 more, 

which stand for “Refuse” and “Remove”. 

Refuse is about consumer choice where 

people refuse to buy products which are in 

single use plastics, such as water bottles 

and take-away coffee cups, using more 

sustainable options instead such as glass, 

or using reusable ones. 

The big four 

Whilst we rely on plastics for many things, 

there are four main items that are the most 

prolific single-use plastics which could 

easily be reduced or removed altogether, 

with a little more thought and deliberate 

action on behalf of consumers. These are: 

• plastic bags 

• water bottles 

• takeaway coffee cups 

• plastic straws 

Instead, think about ways to reduce them 

by: 

• using reusable shopping bags – make 

sure you always have some in your car 

or in your bag so you have them when 

you need them 

• using a metal or reusable bottle - just 

refill it when you need to 

• buying a reusable cup such as a 

bamboo one and use this in coffee 

shops – most cafes offer a discount to 

people who do 

• keeping some reusable straws with 

you so next time you order a drink that 

needs a straw, you have a sustainable 

solution in your pocket 

Say ‘no’ to 

disposable nappies! 

In early years, one of our biggest sources 

of single use plastic, is disposable nappies 

and disposable baby wipes. These are a 

major source of pollution, although there 

are now many sustainable alternatives 

out there. The London Evening Standard 

newspaper, published an article recently 

(March 2022) on the “Best reusable and 

eco-friendly baby nappies that are better 

for the planet” which you can read here. So, 

this year, why not set yourself a challenge 

and use Plastic Free July to trial different, 

more environmentally friendly options 

for the month and become part of the 

‘pollution solution’? 

More information, 

resources and 

toolkit 

Plastic Free July 

Earth Day Plastic Pollution Primer and 

Action Toolkit 



What do you need? 

Carrot star bites 

Let’s celebrate Children’s Art 

Week from 29th June to 19th July 

Finger Painted Trees 

• Grated carrots 

• Grated cheese 

• Oat flour 

• Eggs 

Instructions 

You can find the full recipe 

on ‘Healthy Little Foodies’ 

here. 

1. In a small mixing bowl, 

mix the grated carrot with 

some water, cover and 

microwave for 3 mins. 

2. Drain the carrots, place 

them on a clean cloth/ 

absorbent paper and 

squeeze out the excess 

liquid. 

3. Place the carrots back in 

the bowl and mix with the 

remaining ingredients. 

4. Prepare a baking sheet 

with parchment paper or a 

silicon baking sheet. 

5. Form star shapes (or any 

shape you wish) of the 

mixture using a cookie 

cutter. The mixture should 

be approximately 0.5cm 

thick. 

6. Bake for approx. 13-15 

mins (until crispy on the 

sides). 

You will need: 

• White card or paper 

• Sharpie or marker pen 

• Paints 

You can find the full craft 

instructions on ‘My Bored 

Toddler’ here. 

Instructions 

1. Using the marker pen, draw a tree 

trunk and branches on the paper. 

2. Dip your fingertips into the paint and 

press onto the paper around the 

branches to create the leaves. 

3. Tip – you can even use different 

colour paints to represent the different 

seasons of the year.

The nightmare of 

skipping! 

A duck that has to fly up (jump) to catch its 

food. 

A frog jumping to catch flies as its tongue 

isn’t long enough. 

A dolphin jumping out of the sea to catch 

fish. 

Heads up! 

Marching soldiers 

Marching is wonderful preparation as this 

is a skip without the hop and allows you 

to bring in the arm movements in a new 

way. Remember that the key to mastering 

physical skills is repetition but in different 

ways to keep children engaged. 

Why is skipping so 

hard! 

Skipping is so hard for little ones to do 

and impossible when they are not ready. 

I have spent years working on skipping 

with little ones and it is always a cause 

of anxiety due to the expectation of the 

parents not understanding that they 

need to develop other skills first before 

they can skip. Imagine the fun when I 

used to prepare children for their ballet 

exams when they had to skip in time to 

the music and remember a sequence of 

skips and claps. That was hard enough so 

imagine the stress when you had to add in 

directions such as going around in a circle 

or diagonal – ‘herding cats’ used to come 

to mind on occasions! 

After all my years of teaching ballet and 

movement I can, hand on heart, confirm 

that skipping is something you can’t teach 

when they are not ready. My advice, 

breathe, take a step back, and accept they 

will be ready when they are ready. 

Did you know skipping is just a transfer 

of weight with a little hop and bilateral 

coordination? A move that looks so simple 

and naturally, takes a huge amount of 

effort from your body. All the muscles and 

senses in your body are working hard to 

keep you upright while they engage to 

move your limbs to hop and move in a 

direction! 

Over the years I have learnt that you need 

to prepare the children to achieve this skill 

and here are some of the things I do to 

perfect the skill of skipping. 

No.1: Preparation of 

the body 

You need to be able to jump before you 

can skip. It sounds weird as you would 

think skipping would be easier than 

jumping. 

Before you begin you will need to assess 

their skills of walking, going up and down 

stairs, moving on their toes, demonstrating 

running pace and being able to stop. 

These activities are developing their core 

stability and muscle control. The muscles 

they are developing help them stay upright 

and not fall over, which is vital for jumping 

skills. You really don’t want them to try to 

jump and just land flat on their face! In 

fact, trying to jump without core strength is 

impossible. 

Try this: Let yourself go completely floppy 

and try to jump – don’t cheat!!! 

No.2: Mastering the 

skill of jumping 

You need to go down before you can go 

up! 

Bend those knees at the beginning and 

end of your jump. When you jump with 

the children make sure you demonstrate 

by bending your knees and landing on 

the front of your foot (tiptoe) bending your 

knees as you land. Your toes are the shock 

absorber for the ankles, knees, and spine. 

Feel the difference between landing on 

your heels compared to the front part of 

your foot. You will hear a difference in 

when you land on your heels compared 

to your toes. Landing on your heels can 

sound like a thump! 

In my sessions, I play a game of who can 

jump the quietest as we do not want to 

wake up the sleeping lions. The children 

love this as you are letting them problemsolve 

and discover the best way of landing 

from jumps. 

Did you know that jumping helps the 

bones harden and grow strong due to the 

downward forces? 

Take a peek at these slow-motion videos 

of dancers and watch how they land 

through the front of the foot, not the heel 

and look at the amount of control and 

strength it takes to jump. 

https://www.youtube.com/ 

watch?v=e4X5z8AQc3s 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyL- 

TfkVDjY 

Some ideas to practice jumping 

Jumping in or over puddles – get muddy! 

Blow bubbles for the children to jump up 

and pop. 

With a little bit of imagination, you can 

have even more fun and become…… 

Encourage children to look forwards or 

upwards. If they look down when jumping 

they could land face-first on the floor. This 

is due to the weight of their heads pulling 

them forwards – I have seen it happen! 

Different types of jumps 

2 to 2 = jumping from 2 feet and landing 

on 2 feet. 

2 to 1 = jumping from 2 feet and landing 

on 1 foot. 

1 to 2 = jumping from 1 foot and landing 

on 2 feet. 

1 to 1 = jumping from 1 foot and landing on 

1 foot. 

No.3: Get set go….. 

When your little ones can demonstrate 

some jumping skills, you are ready for the 

fun of learning to skip. 

Some ideas for building their skills 

1. Practise balancing on one leg like a 

flamingo, how long you can hold it 

for? 

2. Take the flamingo for a walk over an 

obstacle course. I use hula hoops for 

them to step in and out of. 

3. Feeding time! Flamingos have to hop 

as they step in and out of the hula 

hoop to catch their fish. 

Handy hint: Give the children scarves as 

flamingo wings and see who could get 

them the highest to catch their fish. This 

starts to bring in the use of the arms to 

propel them upwards and forwards. 

Co-ordination of the arms and legs can 

be tricky at first but over the years I have 

learnt a neat trick. I use bands/scarves on 

the children’s opposite wrists and ankles. 

Have fun using games of moving with 

band/scarf and no band/scarf first or 

inside a hula hoop – there are so many 

different games you use with the children, 

and it works as this is something real and 

concrete for them to work with. 

All the hard work has paid off and now we 

can skip! 

Remember every child reaches this stage 

at their own pace and let them feel 

successful in their abilities no matter what 

they are able to achieve at that moment 

in time. 

Once they can skip, why not add some 

extra challenges to perfect their skills and 

have fun in the process. 

Skipping challenges 

Gina Bale 

Gina’s background was originally 

ballet, but she has spent the last 27 

years teaching movement and dance 

in mainstream, early years and SEND 

settings as well as dance schools. 

Whilst teaching, Gina found the time to 

has create the ‘Hi-5’ dance programme 

to run alongside the Australian Children’s 

TV series and the Angelina Ballerina 

Dance Academy for Hit Entertainment. 

Her proudest achievement to date is her 

baby Littlemagictrain. She created this 

specifically to help children learn through 

make-believe, music and movement. 

One of the highlights has been seeing 

Littlemagictrain delivered by Butlin’s 

famous Redcoats with the gorgeous 

‘Bonnie Bear’ on the Skyline stage. 

Gina has qualifications of teaching 

movement and dance from the Royal 

Ballet School, Trinity College and Royal 

Academy of Dance. 

1. How many skips does it take 

to cross the room? 

2. Skipping backwards 

3. Skipping holding hands 

4. Skipping around obstacles 

5. Skipping in a circle, diagonal 

6. Create a skipping sequence and add claps 

7. Let them create their own skipping dance and show everyone 



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July 2022 Parenta magazine

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