Writing about how to get this right could fill lots of articles and many books. The ethos of a setting is at the heart of creating a culture of reflective practice. My view is that these are ‘skills for life’ valuable for us as professionals but also helpful throughout our lives.Įncouraging a culture of reflective practice Many of us have honed these over the last few years. Developing our own routines for reflection, independently and with others, is more important than ever. In this new educational era, we face a great deal of uncertainty. As reflective practitioners we need to learn to be alive to these and to capture them. I feel these fit into ‘informal reflective’ practice and they’re important to note. In lots of cases these were fleeting thoughts. I lost count of the number of chats I had with people about what they’d learnt during lockdown and how that might change what they did once settings opened to more children. Making the case for informal reflective practiceĪnother thing that lockdown underlined is the value of informal reflective practice.įor many, being at home and away from children was a real loss, but it also offered a chance for us to step back and think about what we might want to change ‘when we got back’. These would be inclusive, allowing all staff to have a voice in reflective practice. If a setting has staff who are shielding or needing to isolate, they could use Zoom, WhatsApp or Google Meet for meetings. Visual and audio communication can be easier to share and feel more accessible to busy staff, and can require less explanation.Īs we’ve all realised, technology can help us to stay connected. You could use video, perhaps with a voiceover to support your reflection. We saw this first hand at Tapestry where the number of videos and postings increased dramatically as practitioners devised new ways to support children’s learning at home.Īs educators become more confident about technology, it can be used as a tool to benefit reflective practice too. Lockdown forced many of us to embrace the use of technology more fully. Whether your reflection is about your individual practice or about teaching and learning in the setting as a whole, it’s good to talk! Not only will this help you to remember what you are thinking, it will also create a timeline so you can record this reflective journey, big or small. This could be in a notebook or using an online tool. What can you see/hear? How do you feel? How might you be contributing, what influence are you having on the area you are thinking about? Use your observations as a starting point. Instead, think about ‘active reflection’, something that can be part of your day-to-day practice. I don’t know any practitioners that can do that easily! Sometimes reflective practice can sound like we need to tuck ourselves away in silence before we can even start. Is it easier to put into storage those resources that are just too hard to clean daily? Think about quick wins that would solve some immediate problems.įor example, what if you can’t think of a way for children to access all your resources safely. There will be areas where you feel things could be improved. Make sure you acknowledge the really good things, share with your colleagues and congratulate others. It’s so easy to slip into the treadmill of ‘what next?’ and a never-ending to do list. Remember to celebrate all the things that have worked well. How are we going to do this? (You could include external CPD, in-house training, who will do what, when you will return to this area of reflection to see how things are going?).What can we keep/adapt to meet these needs?.Who/what else do we need to think about?.Who benefits from doing it this way? (Children, staff, families?).What area of our practice/environment are we going to focus on?.Here are some helpful ‘taking stock’ questions: Reflection starts with a simple ‘taking stock’: the process of stepping back, thinking about what we have been doing, what has gone well, and what could be better. Here are some practical ideas that you might want to implement. It may not feel like it, but much of this planning has probably included a large dose of reflective practice. I am sure that many practitioners have been busy thinking about a whole host of things - how roles and routines have changed how resources are used and rotated keeping staff safe and supported. These changes require reflection so that we can all focus on what is working, adapt what isn’t and continue to grow and improve teaching and learning experiences for children. Over the last few years we’ve all had to cope with new ways of working, adapting to a great deal of new guidance and operating in very different ways to those we are used to. Here are some tips to help you on your way… In this new educational era, we face a great deal of uncertainty, so reflective practice is needed now more than ever, says Dr Helen Edwards.
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