Many Year 1 pupils will be returning to a slightly more familiar school experience this September than is usual for this age group.

Owing to the loss of several months of child-led learning in Reception resulting from the coronavirus lockdown, many schools are opting not to shift some of their five- and six-year-olds to a classroom experience more aligned with the rest of primary school - as would normally be the case - and are instead offering a continuation of early years foundation stage approaches to learning.

That’s quite a leap for some schools, so we caught up with Helen Hendry and Phil Nicholson, who have conducted some research that might help.

The jump to EYFS from Year 1 can be a big one. In your experience, do you tend to get an abrupt shift from play-based learning to more formal learning?

Yes. In many schools in England, the transition from the EYFS framework to the national curriculum reduces opportunities for children to direct aspects of their own learning in favour of a predominantly teacher-directed approach. This shift often means that play-based approaches to learning rarely feature beyond Reception. Along with changes to routines, adult support and the learning environment, it means that the transition to Year 1 can represent a challenge for many children.

How do schools usually look to smooth that transition?

Often, the onus is on Reception teachers to adapt their practice in order to smooth children’s transition to Year 1. However, this process, which is sometimes referred to as “schoolification”, can have a detrimental impact on children’s learning and development. Recognising this, a selection of schools were already starting to reverse the trend before coronavirus struck. There are now a number of examples of schools adapting their Year 1 provision instead.

Does a failure to address the transition impact some children worse than others?

A certain level of discontinuity in the transition from Reception to Year 1 is inevitable, and in some instances may even be desirable. Children naturally pursue new experiences and some enjoy the challenge of a more formalised approach.

Yet it is essential that this discontinuity does not go beyond a level that each individual child’s ability can negotiate. If the transition to Year 1 is overly abrupt, and does not consolidate and further develop core EYFS principles, children’s social, emotional and academic development can be negatively impacted. This can, in turn, affect children’s developmental and achievement trajectories.

Certain groups - such as summer-born children, children from disadvantaged backgrounds, children with SEND and children who speak English as an additional language - are all disproportionately more likely to experience a negative transition from Reception to Year 1.

You worked on a project that tried to find a solution to this issue. Could you explain what it involved?

During a separate transition research project, we were made aware that staff at a two-form entry school in a disadvantaged city-centre area were thinking of changing the way they approached the transition to Year 1. They were concerned that a significant number of Reception children were going to struggle with the transition into a traditional Year 1 class.

The school separated the Year 1 cohort according to the good level of development (GLD) indicator.

Children who met GLD at the end of EYFS went into a “traditional” Year 1 class. Children who did not meet a GLD went into an EYFS “continuation” class. A Reception teacher moved into Year 1 alongside the continuation class while the traditional class had an experienced Year 1 teacher.

Both groups used the ordinary Year 1 classrooms and followed the same themes. The continuation class used a play-based pedagogy adapted to work towards Year 1 curriculum objectives. Additional teaching assistant support was also allocated to the continuation class.

How did you assess this shift in the school’s approach?

Between September 2019 and February 2020, we carried out six days of classroom observations. We interviewed the Year 1 class teachers, the headteacher, the EYFS lead and the key stage 1 lead at the beginning and end of the project.

And what did you find?

Grouping all the children who hadn’t met the EYFS GLD in one class did not work. It led to a concentration of social and behavioural issues in that class and to higher, perhaps unreasonably so, formal expectations of children in the parallel traditional Year 1 class. Staff agreed that class grouping should have taken into consideration pupils’ social and cognitive needs, as well as their academic attainment level.

The consensus among the staff was that a play-based approach with mixed-ability classes would have offered fewer social challenges, positive peer role models for behaviour and learning, and the opportunity to support and challenge children’s learning.

In the continuation class, the school relied on moving an EYFS teacher into Year 1, but the teacher couldn’t continue in this role because of personal circumstances.

This presented real challenges for the replacement Year 1 teacher, who was unfamiliar with a play-based approach.

The staff agreed that another future improvement would be to give additional time for the EYFS lead to teach alongside Year 1 teachers. This would help to embed a play-based pedagogy and to develop a shared understanding of fundamental EYFS principles. They felt that opportunities to plan together were not sufficient.

Also, the Year 1 classroom environment was problematic. Limited space and play resources increased social tensions in the class and meant that there were not enough opportunities for children to access the environment independently.

Learning through play requires a balance of strategic adult intervention and support, but the Year 1 teacher struggled to manage this without having a full-time teaching assistant available. After initial attempts at providing child-initiated opportunities, the continuation class teacher adopted more teacher-led lessons, with limited integration of play-based activities.

Just before the pandemic broke out (at the end of our research), the school had started to mix the two classes back together again for some parts of each day because of the difficulties experienced after separating them based on GLD.

Continuing with the EYFS in Year 1 can be beneficial for many children but it requires careful preparation and ongoing support.

It sounds like it was a lot more complicated than many would have imagined. What would be your key takeaways for schools attempting a more EYFS-led Year 1 provision this year?

Our main points for schools would be:

• Mixed-ability classes are crucial: use all elements of the EYFS profile and children’s developmental needs, not just GLD, to group children.
• Include EYFS experts at all stages. Build in time to create a shared understanding of effective pedagogy for learning through play using team teaching.
• Expect teething problems. Plan ongoing opportunities to debrief and reconfigure the provision with staff and the senior leadership team.
• Create a stimulating environment. This could involve sharing resources with EYFS, choosing a classroom with more space or more access outside, removing some furniture or planning opportunities to use EYFS facilities.
• Plan enough adult support to facilitate play-based learning.

Helen Hendry is a lecturer in education at the Open University School of Education, Childhood and Youth. Phil Nicholson is a PhD student at Bishop Grosseteste University researching the transition from Reception to Year 1

This article originally appeared in the 4 September 2020 issue