Sustained shared thinking Actually something that we all (hopefully) do everyday as we play alongside the children we care for. Sustained shared thinking are: "those wonderful times that you get when you are totally absorbed with a child, whether in conversation or in an activity, with a genuine interest on both parts to find out more” Brodie, K. (2013). Observation, Assessment And Planning In The Early Years-Bringing It All Together: Bringing it all together. 1

Definition “an episode in which two or more individuals work together in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept,evaluate activities, extend a narrative e.t.c Both parties must contribute to the thinking and it must develop and extend” Siraj Blatchford et al (2002) researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) Dfes.

EPPE research ( Effective provision of Pre-School Education) EPPE recognises the strong influence of home. The quality of learning improves when children's thinking is encouraged in both the home and early years setting.

Activity 1 In groups of 4 share ideas of the ways in which your setting works to develop the home learning environment How do you use information from home about children's interests within your setting?

Break-down SUSTAINED - it must carry on for a while but this could be varying lengths of time; this therefore requires flexible planning and contingencies for ensuring that other children are safe and provided for. SHARED - both child and adult must be contributing, there are various ways to encourage the dialogue and find out the child's ideas. THINKING - there are six critical thinking skills identified that are developed through sustained shared thinking

Critical thinking skills 1.Enquiry skills - asking and answering appropriate questions, deciding on the next question. 1.Information processing skills - these help the child to 'do something' with the information they receive in answer to their questions; organising it and retaining the most important parts

Critical thinking skills 1.Reasoning skills - forming an opinion based on the information gathered (closely linked to the development of language, social and emotional skills). 1.Evaluation skills - children look at the information they have and decide whether they agree with it or not

Critical thinking skills 1.Problem-solving skills - recognising that a problem is something to be solved rather than a failure and being able to recognise that changes can be made that will affect the end-result. 2.Creative thinking - using the imagination to generate new ideas, looking beyond the obvious

‘Thinking’ Can occur one-to-one between child and adult, or between groups of children, especially where there are older children mixing with younger ones (such as child minders and your own home amongst siblings!)

Embedded in the Characteristics of Effective Learning Adult modelling – wonder aloud about things to demonstrate problem solving for events in your own life, or the day ahead with the children. ‘I have to think hard about what I do this evening. I need to take my dog to the vet because he has a sore foot, take my library books back to the library and buy some food for dinner tonight. But I just won’t have time to do all of these things.’

Embedded in the CEL Freely chosen play activities – these provide the best platform for extending children's thinking as they are motivated and absorbed. So Respecting children’s own decisions and choices by inviting children to elaborate: saying things like ‘I really want to know more about this’ and listening and engaging in the response

Open-ended questions The secret to open ended questions is that they don't put children on the spot to find the 'correct' answer; the children use the knowledge they have to think creatively and come up with a suggestion. I wonder if.....? What could we do......? can you find a way to......? What would happen if.....? Why do you think that happened.....? What did you notice about.....? tell me about.....?

An Audit tool designed to measure the quality of Sustained Shared Thinking The scales provide a means to analyse the quality of interactions, which may only be a few minutes long. Uses 5 scales : - 1) Building trust, confidence and independence 2) Social and emotional well-being 3) Supporting and extending language and communication 4) Supporting learning and critical thinking 5) Assessing learning and language Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Well-being Scale (SSTEW Scale)

Conclusion Sustained shared thinking is strongly associated with high-quality teaching and learning for young children. Children who engage in sustained shared conversations are more likely to do well in school and life