00:00

Here at Early Excellence, we specialise in early childhood education. We offer expert advice and guidance through training, consultancy and classroom design. With the Early Excellence podcast, we aim to inspire and support you as well as challenge your thinking. So, if that's what you're looking for, you've come to the right place.

00:25

Hello everybody, Andy Burt here. Welcome along to episode 108 of the Early Excellence podcast. In this week's episode, we're joined by Dr. Francis Giampappa, who is the Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Bristol. We talk about all kinds of things, really interesting conversation. We talk about Francis' work. We talk about the link between educational research and effective practice within the EYFS.

00:52

And we talk about a lot of really interesting things that Francis has been involved in just fairly recently around research for practice within the EYFS, that clear link between educational research and how actually early years teachers and practitioners can become involved in that research in an ongoing way. So, yeah, really interesting stuff. So here you go. Here's my early excellence podcast chat with Dr. Francis Jimpappa.

01:24

Hello, how are you? Hi Andy, thank you very much for inviting me to speak today. I'm very well and I'm very much looking forward to having a chat about research or practice with you today. Good, good. Could we start with a bit of an introduction? So could you tell us kind of in a nutshell about kind of what you do as part of your role as a doctor in...

01:51

or senior lecture in education. Can you tell us about your role and your work, your career so far, your key interests in terms of research? Can you give us a bit of an insight into that to start off with? Absolutely. I'd be delighted to. I mean, I've been in Bristol at the school for a while and my research really sits within the intersections of identities, language and education. So

02:19

I ask questions around the role of language in the reproduction of educational inequalities. So a lot of my work to date has been around understanding how schools can actually harness the multilingual knowledges of children and families into supporting their learning. So that is really kind of the work that I started doing. And

02:45

And that also led me into doing a lot of school-based research. So I work often alongside teachers, researching in school settings, spending a lot of time with them. And my interest grew around understanding teachers' professional identities and how that is informed by their own personal and professional trajectory. So that's...

03:12

is kind of how I've slowly sort of moved into some of the things that I'm doing within the research or practice toolkit. So this interest in teachers as researchers and how that impacts our own practice, how they build reflective practice and critical attention to what they do in their classrooms, I think is really key. I'm very passionate about using

03:42

different methods to research. I would say I'm a participatory ethnographer. I use arts-based methods. I work collaboratively with school settings to co-produce research, and I think that's really key. We all come from different backgrounds, different professional experiences, different knowledges that can inform the way that we research together.

04:11

Entry into early years. A lot of my research has been primary early years, but my entry into early years when I came to Bristol was around 2009, where I've been working since then in partnership with local authority nurseries in Bristol, kind of developing and supporting teacher-led research in different ways. On a personal note, perhaps your listeners might be interested on a personal kind of note.

04:41

of how we all, I suppose, do what we do. I mean, my own kind of personal background, I'm the daughter of Italian immigrants who went to Canada in the mid-50s. That's where I was born. We then moved to Australia, hence the accent. I grew up in Australia in the mid-70s and then went back to Canada to do my PhD. But that experience of growing up,

05:10

as a child was a language other than English. And I always say my first language was not English. English was a language I learned in school. I think those experiences of education for me and my parents being very focused on education and wanting to ensure that I kept my language, which they thought was English, but also developed my...

05:39

my language at home, which was Italian, that was hugely important. I think that led me down to the sorts of things that I do professionally as a researcher, as someone engaged with schools, working on governing boards. I mean, my passion around early education and the importance of understanding who our families are when they come to us.

06:08

in the settings and the ways in which we can harness all the wonderful kind of linguistic and cultural resources that are represented within a setting to support children's learning is absolutely key. So I think we all have our own personal trajectories and experiences of education that lead us down a particular path.

06:35

So I wanted to share that because I think that's really important in the ways that I've focused on the research that I have. Yeah, that's really interesting, you know, that background and kind of when you think about your experiences growing up and your experiences of traveling or living in different countries and learning different languages, it all shapes us, doesn't it? Absolutely. It all shapes who we become, you know, what we are interested in, what we are fascinated in.

07:05

we're driven to do. It all absolutely shapes us. I'm interested in, you know, that you were talking about research and your research in schools and in particular also within early years departments within schools, so within the EYFS and also separately within nurseries. And I'm interested about that relationship between EYFS practice and research because for me,

07:34

It's an it is a funny one, I think my in terms of my background, I mentioned this when when I met you up in Newcastle, I think we met up in Newcastle, what couple of months ago, so it was October. The conference that long ago. Yeah, really? Yeah. Gosh, time flies. That that in terms of my background as an earliest teacher, I was lucky enough to become involved in research in that.

08:03

There was a lady, a wonderful lady called Professor Pat Broadhead, who had been working with schools and settings within my own local authority in York. As a teacher, a young teacher, who was just in my, I was at the time just in my first year of teaching, she basically came and knocked on my door and said, would I like to be involved in the research project? And I of course said yes. You know, and it led into this sort of working together on research.

08:33

that then helped me, partly in terms of my understanding, because at that point I'd done a PGCE, so I'd done one year of training and then I was in the classroom. And so I'd not really got this huge depth of understanding. I knew what I was doing, but I'm not this huge depth. Whereas actually that research that we did together was not just research for me, it was CPD. You know, it was professional development. It was understanding, it was thinking things through. It was...

09:01

giving me time as a young teacher to think through actually what did I hold dear in terms of principles, I suppose, for my practice and so on, all of those sorts of things. I often say to people when it comes to research, that actually you are doing research. When you're working as an early years teacher, you're actually researching anyway. You already are to a certain extent in the...

09:27

so much of it is about understanding the children who are there in front of you, observing, reflecting, considering, discussing as a team. It's kind of, yeah, it's sort of research anyway, isn't it? I mean, do you find that? Well, I think you raise a really important point. I think in people's

09:56

looking at a child, observing, asking questions, reflecting, trying out new things. I think that to me is research or practice, right? It's part of research or practice. I think we do a disservice, I think, if we're not sharing and working together and thinking that research is something that...

10:26

only people at universities do. I think we've moved much further along in really thinking about how we engage and bring the different professional knowledges that we have and our own personal experiences as I was talking about into, I think unpacking or thinking through an educational challenge. I've got a child who is, you know,

10:55

need support around reading or understanding, you know, acts in a particular way. What are the ways in which we can, we can try and interrogate this, investigate this. There's a wonderful quote that I like very much from a Behrer quote that I used from 2013 from a document that talks about

11:22

how research rich environments are seen as powerful of developing self-improving schools and developing teacher professionalism. And I think we already know that when educators engage and conduct research, they're able to base their decision-making on setting specific evidence, things that they know they can critically evaluate externally produced research.

11:52

understand national guidance about what works, what doesn't work, build confidence and empower people to open up dialogues with different stakeholders. So it's not about just consuming and producing data because schools are very good at doing that. Teachers are very good at observing, producing data, understanding data.

12:21

It creates a particular narrative. I think you want to feel empowered to understand what are we being told we need to do? What, how best can we support our children and families? What are the ways in which we can use not just externally based research, but research that we do? How do we align research and practice in our everyday?

12:48

That's why the idea of research or practice is really, really powerful. People have different names for it. I think the key is that we need to feel that we have the knowledge and the tools to be able to make decisions that are really based on evidence that we've

13:18

drawn on from the research that we do in our settings. And I think that- Yes, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, I think interestingly, often when early years teachers talk about research, it's often research that other people have done. So it's sort of, you know, it's what's out there in terms of maybe something that they've read or it might be research that has become part of say the EYFS framework or whatever it might be.

13:45

It's something that's brought to them from an external source, if you like. Whereas, whilst there is a place for that, absolutely, there's definitely a place for that. And we should be well-read. We should understand what research has gone before us and so on. I think there's definitely a place for actually conducting our own research, being involved in that ourselves and being empowered by that and finding out more and more, you know, and feeling so that you're not...

14:14

just delivering something because somebody else says so, but you're doing it because actually I found this, this is what I have found works for me, for my children, this is the impact of that, etc. And I think that, as you say, I think that's very empowering. Absolutely, and it's confidence building and it's reassuring that what you're doing is, you know, the decisions you're making is right, is informed.

14:45

Absolutely. Research isn't just these big projects that people do at university or they come into schools and then do research and then leave. That type of model, I think, doesn't work so much. I think working alongside schools, alongside settings,

15:14

Even what I would say coproducing research, so going in and understanding what are the questions that you really want to ask? What, what's the rationale? Um, what, what are the key issues that we could investigate together? And what are the ways in which we can do that? And that, and I think partnering in that way, shaping a project in that way, I think is a lot more powerful.

15:41

It has a lot more resonance with partners in schools. It has more relevance. And people feel that they're also driving the agenda. They feel they're also informed and able to provide an understanding of things that actually as a researcher, I may not have knowledge about.

16:10

So it's a really more collaborative way of kind of doing research that I think is really important. But I agree, people can be doing their own research in their own settings. At a very small scale level, these don't need to be these massive projects, but yes, that's really absolutely key. Yes, yeah.

16:36

And one of the things that you spoke about when we met at the conference in Newcastle, you spoke about the research tool that you've developed. You talked about that as part of the conference and I found it really interesting because what I felt that you were doing is you were helping people to make sense of how you go about carrying out research within a setting. And so straight away I thought, well, actually, you know, this is...

17:05

really interesting stuff that I think is important to share as part of the podcast. And so, tell us about the research tool. Tell us about the background to it. Tell us about also what it looks like and how you put it together and the principles behind it, if you wouldn't mind. Sure, I'd be happy to. I mean, the Research or Practice Toolkit, the aim is to really support early years teachers to access and evaluate research, conduct research in their own settings.

17:35

and embed research within their everyday practice. Research or practice for us, we define it as research informed and research active teaching. And we started the journey, let's say of the research or practice toolkit really, early on in 2021 during pandemic days. And we've kind of gone through a process of trialing the tool in its various stages.

18:04

We had started with a set of resources that we packaged a particular way and different teachers across kind of Bristol in a setting across in Gloucestershire had also trialed it. And what we ended up with was in our last project which ran from 2022 to 23 was working with

18:32

teachers in Bristol, Berkshire and Gloucestershire, who were working through the toolkit course. So the toolkit itself is made up of six units that people can work through. It's self-study, self-directed, it encourages interaction, reflection, and moves people beyond different kind of units. It starts with a unit that

19:02

unpacks an understanding of different approaches to research, the kinds of questions different approaches can address and their limitations. We move to how to critically engage with research and literature, how to find appropriate literatures, how to even read them, so you're scanning different tips of what to do. We have also a unit that

19:32

introduces people to a range of qualitative research methods. So it's very much focused on a qualitative approach to research. People get to try out, you know, doing interviews, for example, using an app, a free app that we suggest to use. So there are different kind of activities that people do. They get to read.

20:01

Exits of research, I get to watch films, I get to reflect. The latter part of the unit, you do work on research ethics, you develop a simple method of analyzing the data that you've produced from some of the activities that you do on the toolkit. And the whole point is kind of guiding people to then develop.

20:28

their own small-scale projects. So the last unit, for example, teaches people, supports people rather to design an achievable research project that addresses a particular question that they have that relates to the setting. Now the toolkit itself in the way that it's designed in this version is really encouraging people to work together in a small group.

20:58

in a partnership, were the things that we were really hoping to understand when we did the last project was to look at, well, how does this tool support people to create research learning communities? Will people come together and talk through some of their challenges, some of the things that they've discovered?

21:26

You know, you have those kind of light bulb moments where as you're reading through, and we'd had this with some of the teachers that went through that reflected on some of the practices that they were, they were doing in their settings and kind of relating it to what they were reading in the toolkit or watching in the film. So that was really interesting to see happen. The toolkit is built so people can have those discussions. It's like a discussion area.

21:56

So anyone who signs up to it as a group would be able to work and see comments in the discussion board. And that is really empowering as well. I mean, you know, the teachers that used it were really excited about different aspects of it as they were working through it. They were able to kind of, like I said, have those moments of critical reflection.

22:22

So it moves beyond people's kind of what they're already doing, reflective practice, engaging in those professional conversation, but also creating a critical view on things, really kind of going in more depth and more detail. So it was really kind of broadening people's understandings of research so that

22:51

teachers, educators can use that evidence more impactfully and more confidently, as I said before. We've kind of slowly developed what we have today from different pieces of funding that we got. We've worked so well with the different partnerships that we've had in settings.

23:18

Where we're at at the moment is kind of pushing forward in getting schools and across the country, not just England, but across the UK, which is what I'm doing at the moment, is really engaging people in kind of user testing the toolkit in its current version. So that's kind of my role. And I'm really interested in sort of...

23:48

I enjoy kind of meeting people and talking to people and understanding their settings, what they already do, and how this is, I think, amplifying and supporting the fantastic early years work that's out there. Yeah, definitely. Across, across. I was going to say, what you were saying then about the idea of, you know, you're reading something and then finding.

24:17

that actually, you know, somebody has already researched something that you are finding as part of your practice. I think that's one of those brilliant moments. You know, it's like a light bulb moment. And certainly I can remember from myself in terms of my own practice, I didn't particularly read that widely. You know, I hadn't read widely in terms of child research, sorry, kind of early child development research and so on.

24:44

I hadn't really, I wasn't in the early stages of my career, wasn't really aware of different approaches, you know, from Montessori, or whether we're talking about Steiner or whatever it might be, I wasn't really aware of these different approaches. And it was almost like sort of opening a kind of, I don't know, a sort of a Pandora's box, I suppose, for myself, that I started to be interested in child development. I started to notice children doing certain things, the patterns of their play,

25:13

schematic play and so on. And then started sort of, further on from that, started to read up on it and to find that other people were finding the same things, or had found the impact of open-ended materials, or of giving the children more time, or whatever it might be. For me, that's really empowering. I think it means that actually you're on the right track, doesn't it? You know, you feel that actually, I must be, I'm absolutely on the right track with this. You know, you can meet these

25:41

paragraphs of research, you say, God, that's definitely me. That's my setting. That's it. So yeah, I completely get what you're saying there. I think it's really empowering. The other thing that struck me from what you were saying is that I hadn't realized that the toolkit also brought people together from different settings. And that, for me, is brilliant, because I think if there's one thing that I know about early as teachers is that I think more than any other class in school,

26:11

meant more than any other class teacher or people with different roles in school, I think we feel or have the potential to feel more isolated. That actually, you know, we are often the only early years teacher in the school. Often, you know, we'll be the only early years lead within the school. There isn't somebody else there quite often, particularly in a one-form entry school. There isn't somebody else there who's doing the same role with the same age range

26:42

what you know, I've noticed this, you know, what do you think? Or have you know, what did you find that I'm, did you find what I'm finding? Whereas what you're saying that connection between people, people being able to kind of share notes a little bit and share their observations. I think that's brilliant. That's, that's about research being used to support the team as well, isn't it? And feel better about what they're doing and feel supported.

27:09

Yeah, you raise a good point, Andy, because there's lots of different, and this I've learned through my travels, talking to people, working alongside people, that we have lots of different types of settings. So as you're saying, you might have an early years connected to a primary setting. And so there might just be a small number of.

27:37

early years practitioners who are working together. Some of the settings that we've worked with are local authority nursery schools, so they kind of, I suppose, stand independently in that way. They're not directly attached to a primary school, but there's all sorts of different kind of

28:04

working relationships of how early users embedded within a particular setting. And yes, the toolkit was really important in bringing people together in those conversations. So not only in the tool itself, because people in the last project had a chance over several months to work on the tool at their own pace, we also created.

28:31

points of contact as well. So we would all come together in workshops, also in one-on-one support sessions. That was part of the project at the time. So yes, they're able to see each other's comments, but they were also able to come together because that was, as I said, part of what we were trying to understand in terms of, you know, does the toolkit really impact?

28:57

the creation of these kind of research learning communities. Are people coming together to discuss research? When they do, how is that supporting each other? How is that supporting the practice in the different settings? Because as you know, people come together and they're sharing and saying, well, I've had that happen in my setting, or I've had this happen, and we looked at it together in this way. So there's lots of, as we know, collaboration is absolutely key.

29:27

reflection, collaboration, that creation of knowledge that takes place when people come together, does impact and develop new pedagogical practices. You know, it becomes part of the core of what we do, which is supporting and teaching children.

29:50

So understanding, as you said, your experiences of coming across general developmental research, there's all sorts of different types of research that you can engage with and discuss within your setting is absolutely key. And I know there's lots of threats to having this happen. Let's be realistic. I understand the threats. I understand where we are in early years.

30:20

the threats to people's time, the underfunding, the recruitment and retention crisis that we have, the policy agendas that have led to some of the issues that we have. But when I go into schools, when I speak to people, there's just so much enthusiasm, so much professionalism.

30:47

so much passion for what people do because at the heart of it all are the children and the families and people are working with very challenging, working in very challenging contexts, working with communities that have a number of different challenges and I think it's just amazing what everyone tries to do, everyone, not just the people working in schools but the people supporting schools.

31:16

And we saw when we met at the conference in Newcastle, we saw the number of people that support teachers and settings from local authorities, from all sorts of different networks and organizations that have a passion to do the work that really raises.

31:46

a lot of our listeners will be really interested to find out what people have been researching, but also what they've found out so far. In terms of the research projects, either that may have already come to a conclusion or maybe that are ongoing, what are the key things that people have tapped into? What have people been finding out? What have they noticed? What have the conversations been like? What have the discussions been like? Can you tell us about the research that's ongoing? Sure.

32:16

So when we did this in 2022, we worked with a handful of teachers. So it was very small scale in that respect. But when the teachers completed, we're kind of coming to the end of the toolkit. We supported them to develop small scale projects. And there were a number of different projects that people did. One teacher was looking at.

32:42

For example, how does asking the question, what do you see support and encourage children to articulate their reason and problem solving activities? She was using observations, interviews. She was really fascinated by how we could use the questioning across different lessons.

33:11

supported her to kind of think about other ways in which we can change our practice. How are the children kind of developing their reasoning, their thinking? How can we develop our practice? Another teacher in a different setting was looking at developing the garden area, the outdoor space, and she started thinking about, well, are our own beliefs

33:40

as educators about the garden area, different to that of the children? And do we need to understand and engage the children in developing their own outdoor space? So rather than having adult-led, this was very much a child-led. She used observation, they mapped the outdoor space, she did interviews, the children developed.

34:10

collages and drawings of the garden areas, they used photographs, they talked about what they would want to see the garden develop as in small groups. So that was really powerful. And I think she also had gotten some funding to be able to do that. So that actually happened. She put that into effect. So that was, I mean, to me, that was so kind of important in

34:39

raising children's voices, developing that agency. One of the other ones was looking at the OPPL assessment that had been embedded within the setting and trying to understand the quality and impact it was having on teaching and learning. So that teacher...

35:04

did interviews actually with all the teachers in the school and you know finding an understanding of how that was being embedded, what the values were attached to that, what was really striking for that person was the way in which there was variation. You know, you go in thinking you might know what's going to come out of an interview but actually takes you down a very different path.

35:33

And often you think you know your colleagues, and then there are other things that are coming because they might have been reading something or doing something else. So there were a lot of things that came out of the case studies that the teachers did that were, I think, often opening up other questions. I think that's important. It's not just finding.

35:59

you think you're going to find the answer to your question. Often you're opening up other questions and other discussions are happening and you're trying things, changing your practice in ways that are supporting children's learning and development. So, and I think they also enjoyed it. In the end, they were lots of different things about research that people commented on. You see things.

36:28

differently when you're doing it. There's definitely lots of different things, I think, that people took away from that experience. I have to say there was a real excitement in wanting to do more and wanting to share it with other people in their settings. Can I ask, did people find anything that surprised them?

36:56

Was there anything that they just really weren't expecting? Whether that be in terms of noticing particular children or in terms of perhaps certain things that they thought that they were going to see, but then they didn't, maybe. I suppose they all found different things. They were kind of, as I said, those light bulb moments. Of course, I'm trying to think back to some of these projects.

37:26

But I think, you know, each project was kind of, I suppose, opening up, as I said, other questions for teachers. So working with the children, thinking that we understand how they're going to engage in our activity, oftentimes it raises other things to happen. So maybe, you know,

37:56

the what do you see question, maybe there were different ways of actually framing the what do you see question. Children were engaging in different ways in some of those activities that perhaps she wasn't expecting, which led her to then think about, right, can we embed the what do you see question in other types of lessons and see what comes out of those lessons?

38:23

the OPAL assessment, as I said, he was really surprised at different ways in which staff were engaging with that, their reflections, the ways in which they were trying to embed that process of assessment, how that aligned with perhaps what they already had in their setting.

38:52

There were lots of different ways in which people were kind of...

39:02

God of working through their projects and how they opened up other questions. I mean, you know, the question going back to the question of findings from, you know, the what do you see, they were learning how important it was to use open questions for inclusivity of all different types of children, right, to get a deeper understanding of questioning in the setting.

39:32

and that kind of the need, it showed the need to allow time for children to process questions and formulate answers. So that was then fed back to staff during a CPD session. I mean, the same teachers used the toolkit there to assess, I think, different literatures that were attached to this, how they then deepened their understanding of what.

39:59

was then observed. So it was a cyclical process as we know. So I think the trialing of the projects, the trialing of different things, what that brought up, the questions that then people shared with their colleagues propelled them forward in terms of

40:26

the works that they were doing. I suppose it kind of broadened out. It went beyond the case studies themselves because it broadened out the conversation that they were having in the settings and also potentially across settings. As we know, the contexts are different across cities, across different places.

40:56

You know, set nurseries, some nurseries, for example, in Bristol, working together in clusters as federations, some are standalone, others are working in different configurations. So I think it gives a possibility for people to kind of come together and share findings and talk about things. I think that's key. I think that's absolutely key for us to move our practice forward. Yeah.

41:22

And I also think that's when it becomes really interesting and exciting, you know, when your research may be similar or may be completely different towards somebody else has been researching and you can discuss it and compare it and contrast it and so on. Yeah, also I think inevitably you get to know your own children better because, you know, as part of it you really are watching, you know, you're focusing in.

41:47

aren't you on the practice? You're focusing in on your children and you get to know your children even better through that process. Yeah, no, I think it's interesting though, I was asking about that kind of idea of, you know, were there any surprises? Because I've certainly found in the past when I've been involved in research that every now and again, you get something that does, that where you have to stop because you're not, it wasn't what you thought you were going to get out of the process.

42:16

or it wasn't exactly where it threw you a little bit. We all kind of go into it sometimes with a kind of an idea already formed of where this is going, and then suddenly it kind of goes off in a slightly different direction. Or we get to know the children in a different way through what we're doing. I can remember as part of the research I was involved in, we created what went on to be called the whatever you want it to be place.

42:44

We gave children lots of open-ended materials to create whatever they wanted from this particular space. And it was really interesting because I remember a little boy who at that point, as I say, early on in my career, hadn't really been engaging that much in that much around our learning environment. And was always seemed to be the one that was following.

43:08

He didn't really lead. He was the one that was following and he would kind of watch what other children were doing and then he would do something similar. That was sort of that, you know, he was very much at that point. When we created this space, this open-ended space, he became what we called the master player within this space. And it was the strangest thing for me at this point in my career that I could see the difference that the learning environment had made to him. That I had at this point thought, well, that's just where he's at.

43:38

no, that's just him. Whereas actually, changing the learning environment, changing the context changed him in terms of how he felt about himself and also his position within the group. He became the leader, which was really interesting, I think. Presumably, different people will see similar things, I guess, as part of their research. They see these moments where they think, crikey, I hadn't expected that to happen. And those are wonderful moments as a researcher. Those are the moments.

44:08

that you really sort of sit up and think, oh wow, you know, this is, how do you make sense of this? How is this happening? What informs, you know, how wonderful that that young child probably felt so confident in that moment, feeling kind of really supported and feeling confident. Yeah, those moments are really interesting to me.

44:36

And that's why I love working in school settings. I love working alongside with teachers, with educators, with the whole setting to really kind of understand whatever the question is that we're trying to explore and the new knowledge we're creating together that then can be embedded in the practice of within a setting. And I think that's really.

45:05

really key. I'm really very much in awe of the work that people do in the everyday because, as I've said before, beyond all the challenges, people are everyday supporting those children in their settings to develop, to think, to be emotionally.

45:32

supported to develop in very important ways, even with whatever challenges are being experienced. I think that's really important. In a sense, the toolkit gives people a chance to have the space to critically reflect and embed things in practice and to come together and share. I think that's perhaps not

46:00

you know, not happening perhaps as much because of all the challenges that we've had in the early sector. But it's not for want of trying, as they say, or desire. I think people are trying to come together and develop their practice in all sorts of different ways.

46:30

terms of the research will practice and also in terms of kind of yourself as well in terms of the different things that you've got going on because I know you've got lots of different things happening what's next really so what's what's next in terms of the research will practice first of all and that and the toolkit well um so at present what I'm doing is actually going around um the UK I can say you're on tour

46:59

I'm speaking to different people. I'm speaking to groups of educators. I'm working through local authorities, different kind of groups. I'm doing workshops with these groups to talk about research and research or practice.

47:23

Trying to understand the value of the toolkit across different settings and really inviting people to trial a free two-unit taster. So people will have a chance to kind of work through two units of the toolkit and have a chance to kind of work in groups, teams, across settings however way they want.

47:51

and to fill in a short survey at the end. That's hugely important for me because I'd really like to understand a bit more about how to develop the tool further. Would it be something that people would want to be doing as a cluster of schools, how they would want to embed it? Is there something else that needs to be in there?

48:19

So it's really understanding its value and how it might be released to market in a sense. So I'm working for the next month actually, traveling a lot and working with people. But I'm very happy for anyone who is interested in the toolkit to get in touch. I like to be able to go and do a face-to-face workshop.

48:48

in the first instance and then support people. So that's kind of where we're going with the toolkit itself. I'm, as a researcher, very much interested in kind of also developing a much larger kind of UK-wide piece of research where schools, again, could get involved.

49:18

and perhaps part of that might be actually doing the tool alongside trying to understand how people develop as research or practitioners. There's lots of different things that I'm interested in doing, but in the immediate, it's really, I'm very happy to have conversations and run workshops in the time that I have.

49:45

I'm sure people will be really interested. Honestly, I think it's fascinating. I think that link between kind of research and the practice, as I mentioned before, I think is really interesting. I think it actually can change your practice quite dramatically and really get you thinking about your practice. So I'm sure people will get in touch. I'm sure people will be really interested to know more. What we'll do is we'll put Francis has got lots of information about research for practice and about the toolkits and about

50:15

are constantly getting in touch with her and all sorts of things. So we'll put all of that information in the podcast info so that people can just click on links and go straight to the website and find out a bit more and so on. Frances, I'm aware of time and I've taken up a lot of your time. We better let you go. But just very briefly, before we let you go, I know you are also involved in another project following on from the pandemic.

50:41

that I think as well is really interesting. Can you just tell us a little bit about that? Sure, sure. So the project is called the Untap Sores Project. It was working with one nursery setting in Bristol. It's Elminster Avenue, Bristol. And it's a collaborative arts-based project, trying to understand people's embodied and effective experiences of the pandemic and the stories.

51:11

coming out of the pandemic. Because as you know, even though we feel like the pandemic has somehow settled, we're still, I think, living through the impact of that. And certainly, in early years, I always say, you know, earlier settings were the first responders to the pandemic. They were supporting all sorts of different families. They were open. They kept going.

51:41

you know, and we can all remember those times of changing guidance and things were just, you know, the bubbles and all of this that was happening. And it certainly had an impact on, I think, communities, relationships in the school. So the project ran basically this past year, and it was working with the whole community. So we wanted to generate stories, people's stories of

52:11

of the pandemic from the families, from the caretakers, the cleaners, the admin staff, the teachers, the support, where everyone who was willing to be involved, we invited to be part of this project. And it was a really moving project because we ran workshops that were led by

52:40

These socially engaged artists that were with our project. There were different workshops that were done with different participants, but they were creating small maps, drawings of their kind of experiences. We created these small cardboard houses and they have exits of people's stories in the windows that are lit up. We have an exhibition.

53:11

We had also a filmmaker and photographer who was a researcher on the project, so he was documenting those stories. We've had a launch of the exhibition and seeing the exhibition itself is quite moving because I think people, when they see some of the exits of their stories, they see

53:39

the drawings, they were done on small postcards and they were drawings of all sorts of people's experiences and then people narrated those postcard drawings. So, the stories that came out and they shared with each other is always very, very moving. So, we've recently presented at a conference in Helsinki where we talked about

54:08

the findings of the project and the importance of also using different types of methods to generate those stories and to work together in a very collaborative, co-produced way and how important that is in supporting the wellbeing of staff in that setting. Because that was always the goal is what are the ways in which we can support the wellbeing and draw out.

54:37

people's strengths to do that and rebuild relationships really because of the impact of the pandemic. We've had a film created that will be launched soon on YouTube, so I can share that too if people are interested. That was professionally created and to me it was always important for the setting to come through.

55:05

And it was really important also in the way that we worked as a research team coming from the university We spent a lot of time talking with The head teacher staff the family link person who to find ways in which You know we entered the setting in a really sensitive way to be able to support people to unpack some of those stories

55:34

as well as sharing our own because we also went through the pandemic. We're not, we weren't immune to it. We also had our experiences. Anyway, so exciting new things in that project. Yeah, you're spinning lots of plates. I am indeed. I am indeed like we all are, I think. Francis, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. It's been really, really interesting to chat through with you all of the research and also the other projects as well.

56:02

Very, very interesting. So yes, thank you so much. Thank you, Andy. It's been a pleasure and thank you to your listeners for engaging and as I said, I'm really happy to communicate with anyone who's interested in the work in the research or practice to get anything else. So thanks again.

56:30

Thank you very much to Frances for joining us for this week's episode of the podcast. It was really interesting to hear all about your work, really interesting to hear about that link between research and EYFS practice and how teachers and practitioners can get involved in your work as part of that researchful practice. Yeah, great stuff. Thank you as well to you people, of course, for listening along too.

56:53

This will be our last podcast episode for the spring term, for this term. And so we're going to have a bit of a break as you will be as well. We're going to have a little bit of a break and we will be back, of course, for the start of the summer term with lots more interviews, lots more for you to listen along to. So have a great break, everybody. Have a really good Easter break. Enjoy your time off. Have a good rest and we will see you for the start of the summer term. All right. Take care, everybody. We'll see you next time. All the best. Bye-bye.