conker

This post neatly continues my thinking in the previous post about ways to understand children better. Let me start with a short story: I was visiting a Reception class yesterday in a local primary school as part of my Primary PGCE tutor role, supporting a trainee teacher in their placement practice. Whilst I was there, one boy, aged four of five, dressed in his Spiderman welly boots, his blue unzipped coat and a too-big bobble hat, spoke enthusiastically with me about what he was going to do during his lunchtime break in the outdoor area. I suggested that he zip his coat up before going out. “I can do it myself!” he proudly told me, whilst showing me his skill in this.

At the end of the day, whilst we were all preparing to leave, he came over, held his hand out and said ‘This is for you.’ And there, left in my hand, was a conker.

I don’t know what happened to make him offer me this lovely little gift. But it made me once again think about those small - often overlooked - ways that we can learn about children as individuals. What are their interests? How do they form relationships? What is important to them? And, in this example …what do they keep in their pockets, their trays, their school bags!? Children’s collections tell us something. They can give us possible ways in to understanding. Possible lines of thinking.

Let us not dismiss the little things that can offer us routes to big understanding.