Thank you Greg Bottrill for helping us unlock imagination and creativity in our little ones, as well as encouraging us to capture these joyful moments! There is a narrative that children’s progress has to be endlessly tracked and monitored and this has led to a huge swathe of spreadsheet-ism and the marketisation of education which in turn has shaped children’s early learning experiences into a ‘rush and push’ for early academics and ‘success’.

I completed Drawing Club CPD before the winter break and I was so excited to implement what I had learnt by getting back into my nursery classroom straight away. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.We are there to facilitate learning not to dictate learning and his book makes this abundantly clear.

Despite the ongoing situation with Covid-19 it is essential that we maintain the security of our systems. Neoliberalism’s control on education is based on the myth that there is no alternative to it’s system. Schemas are those repeated patterns seen in children’s behaviour, and they link directly to the development and strengthening of cognitive structures in the brain.

We need more people like Greg Bottrill and Alistair Bryce-Clegg to champion the effectiveness of play before childhood is swept away from children in favour of sitting at tables and learning by rote, because that's the only real learning that happens in a foundation classroom, right? He shares his Early Years pedagogy through the ′3Ms′ and explains how to apply these in the classroom.

LinkedIn and 3rd parties use essential and non-essential cookies to provide, secure, analyze and improve our Services, and to show you relevant ads (including professional and job ads) on and off LinkedIn. And on an international stage, Drawing Club is making its way across the continents - I wonder where its magic will end up next? I’m out in beautiful Qatar and if you’re one of the Play People in EY or KS1 you’ve got one last chance to come tomorrow to Sherborne Senior School, Rawdat Al Jahhaniya, Doha from 9am-2pm.My own journey began by asking myself questions: Are the children in my care truly playing, truly thriving? My work is trying to show that you can have all the spreadsheets in the world, but you have failed children if you have eroded their identity by not giving them space for a childhood. The World of Good Things awaits, you just need to let go of the idea that children have to perform and complete your tasks to prove they know something, and begin to have faith in childhood and if you can hear the ‘song of play’ coming through the door before you know it you’ll be in the World of Good Things too – it really is an extraordinary place. Also I believe the emphasis was on the word ‘how’ as he then went on to explain further, in terms of mind shifts in perception of ourselves and our role.

I think in time, I have discovered one thing, but I won’t reveal it because it’s something that if you are willing to adventure into play, I’d love you to find it for yourself.As adults, we encouraged the children to think about what the monster might look like, using all of these clues.