As practitioners, you also need to be aware of how children’s brains develop, the different parts of the brain and how they link to each other. The Department for Education have created a module on brain development: Early years child development training: Brain development and how children learn.
Kate Silverton’s book ‘There’s No Such Thing as Naughty’ simplifies how you might see the brain and its different parts. “I liken it in the brain to a Baobab Tree, known across Africa as a tree of wisdom. The roots of the tree are our nervous system, and at the bottom of the tree is the little lizard. And this represents, in reality, our brainstem, cerebellum and diencephalon. This is where the roots and origins of anxiety are. And this is where our nervous system really drives behaviour. So that's a little lizard. And we can think of him as very skittish, and he might go into fight, flight, freeze, or he might sort of play dead. That's essentially what this part of the brain drives us to do if we're under threat. And that's the part that drives our baby's behaviour. And while we're in the womb, our children's brains develop in sequence. So all the parts are there from birth, but they sort of mature at a different rate.
“The next bit I think of as a baboon sitting on its branch, and this is our emotional limbic system. And this is where we see our toddlers beating their chests. ‘No, I won't do that.’ And all of the really big emotions get processed here. So we can imagine this little baboon having a massive tantrum in Tesco on the floor. But what we really want to do is develop the prefrontal cortex, which is what I call the wise owl. She's the bit that, when the baboon’s bounding and the lizard’s feeling fizzy, she's the bit that swoops down, scoops them up in the warmth of her wings and says, ‘Guys, it's okay, we've got this.’ And this is what we, in reality, what the neuropsychiatrist Dan Siegel calls vertical integration, this is how we achieve good mental health. Our children's brains don't finish their development until they're in their twenties. The part of the brain that regulates big behaviour, that wise owl, that's the part that's still developing.”
When planning for your children, use accurate assessments, observations, and knowledge of each child’s developmental age rather than planning according to their chronological age. Ensure that your expectations for each child in their learning and development are realistic but are still aspirational. Be mindful of how children’s brains develop and the benefits of play-based learning when planning the day, routines, learning activities, environment, interactions, support and challenge. For some children, their development and learning will be different from their peers. Practitioners should focus on celebrating what these children can accomplish, rather than emphasising their limitations. We also need to recognise children’s starting points, build on their interests and celebrate what they can do. You need to build on what they can do rather than jumping ten steps because other children their chronological age are at that point.
