Ofsted’s recent research review for the early years makes it clear that practitioners should be actively trying to develop children’s executive functions - the set of cognitive processes that we use to control or adapt our behaviour.

What the review doesn’t make clear is exactly what inspectors will be looking for when they go into a setting. How are they expecting practitioners to measure, assess and teach these elusive workings of the mind? 

The existing research behind executive function is fascinating and can help us reflect on situations and understand more about how children’s brains work. Yet it does not explain how to teach. It is the why, but not the what, or the how, of the classroom - and we need all three.

The wonderful thing about psychology is that it attempts to explore what we cannot see. Psychologists are experts in inferring from carefully constructed studies and theorising from their observations. They then set to work to dismantle their theory, challenging it from every angle until it has been stress-tested in every way.

For teachers and leaders, this presents a challenge - the knowledge and understanding we can gather from psychologists and the way they attempt to explore the human mind is incredible. But, by its very nature, it can be nebulous and intangible.

This is true of many psychological ideas we are adopting in education, including things like cognitive load theory and growth mindset. But it is perhaps even more true for the concept of executive functioning.  

Executive functions, so the theory goes, are constructed of three parts: working memory (essentially, the brain’s capacity to hold ideas in mind and use them), inhibition (the ability to inhibit impulses and display self-control) and shifting (the ability to make cognitive shifts in attention and focus). 

These are hugely complex processes and although we can perhaps observe behaviours and actions in children that we can ascribe to executive functions, we can never be totally sure that this is what we are seeing. 

And even if we are sure, why does it matter? For early years practitioners and leaders, helping children learn to wait (to delay their actions and impulsive behaviour) is an entirely normal and regular part of daily life. We know some children are better at it than others, while some need more structure than others to achieve it. 

Knowing that difficulty in waiting or self-control may be a consequence of poorer executive functioning is, I’d argue, not really relevant in the day-to-day reality of the classroom.

Executive functions themselves are very difficult to measure accurately - resources like the Early Years Toolkit have been developed - but these are more valuable as tools for researchers and specialists, rather than the everyday practitioner.

And even if we could perfectly measure the executive functions of children, the question then would have to be: what should we do with that information? 

The research suggests that executive function is hard to train in a way that generalises; there is no intervention or programme in existence that will help children to improve across all the aspects of executive function. 

Studies, such as a 2013 systematic review by Charles Hulme and Monica Melby-Lervag, conclude that even if games and programmes (such as Cogmed, an online programme designed to improve executive functions, including working memory) make a difference, they do so in an isolated way. Playing the game helps improve performance on that game, but the improved ability does not appear to transfer to other aspects of thinking and behaviour. 

This is another way of saying that to get better at waiting, children need to be helped to wait in a variety of situations and with good grace and a sense of humour. To get better at noticing and being flexible in the way they are thinking, children need to have lots of opportunities to do that. 

The everyday routines of the early years classroom - with its emphasis on play, direct and personal engagement with the children, a focus on developing talk and communication, and building on the children’s interests and observations - are what support the child to develop in these areas. 

There is some tentative suggestion that shared reading, with a focus on the children participating, can help develop executive functioning. But, in reality, we are a long way from knowing exactly what might make a difference in the classroom. Understanding that executive functions exist may help us to be more empathetic as practitioners when a child is tired or hungry, and to notice when things go badly astray. For now, though, that is as far as it goes. 

Knowing what executive functions are (and are not) within an explanatory framework would be helpful. But practically, in the classroom, we need to respond to the manifestations of executive function - the ways children behave - and not, as Ofsted suggests, to executive function itself. 

Megan Dixon is a doctoral student and associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University