The best designed early years physical environment, with carefully selected loose parts, is not worth that much if the emotional environment isn’t right.

The emotional environment of a setting can be most simply judged by a few criteria: do the children feel safe, secure, respected and like they belong there? Do the adults feel relaxed, confident in their role, and able to have the presence of mind to interact meaningfully and mindfully with the children?

Perhaps most importantly: are the children and adults happy to be there? 

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We need to give due consideration to these questions. Just as we might move a shelf to a different wall, add or take away some resources, or rearrange other physical objects to better fit the needs of the children, we should also be open to new approaches and techniques that help improve the emotional environment.

The tyranny of the schedule

As a team, and individually, this requires us to be honest, reflect and at times be willing to try new things in our practice.

Whatever task we might be doing, young children are experts at sensing if we are stressed, annoyed, relaxed, genuinely interested, frustrated, calm, distracted or anything else we might be feeling when interacting, or not, with them.

This, of course, has an enormous impact on children individually and as a group. Settled and confident adults tend to find themselves with settled and confident children. Stressed and distracted adults, however, can expect to pass that on, too.

It is our responsibility as the adults of setting the right emotional tone to a room.

There are a lot of things that needlessly stress adults and “clutter” up the emotional environments of many settings, but this article will only focus on one topic, the daily schedule.

Loosen the ties

Yes, young children thrive on routine and familiarity, but I’ve worked in too many places that treat the daily schedule as a cruel and impatient taskmaster. If the schedule on the wall states “10:15: Outside Play Time”, many adults rush the children through getting ready as if it were a once-a-day train that we might miss!

Not only does nobody involved enjoy this stress, but we also miss out on opportunities for younger children to learn to get on jackets, shoes or water-proofs themselves - “doing it for them” because it’s faster ensures we will always be burdened with these tasks.

When I’ve worked in situations like this, my patience went way down, my stress way up and I know the quality of my interactions with the children suffered quite a bit. I would go home every day feeling miserable and upset with myself because I knew I wasn’t giving these children what they needed.

Lack of play

I’ve noticed a sort of an unspoken sense of pride amongst some practitioners: look how quickly and efficiently I can get the kids through lunch, or ready to go outside or anything else. While I appreciate working with organised and capable coworkers, I am not sure speed and efficiency should be valued over the quality of our interactions.

Parents (who might know much about early childhood development) might like the look of a schedule of 30-45 minute intervals, titled things like Literacy or Work Time, thinking this is what will get their children ready for school. But this sort of schedule does not allow children enough time to truly get engaged in anything.

Children need time to suss out their play options before getting into something. A rule of thumb I agree with says children need at the very least an hour of free play at a time to truly get into some engaging play and to see it through to a satisfying end.

Settings I admire, like Discovery Early Learning Center in the US, have changed their environment, schedule and approach over time as they’ve learned to trust in following the pace of the children. These days they simply let the children play all day. The pictures from their Facebook page show children absolutely brimming with engagement, curiosity, well-being, persistence, confidence and everything else a quality early years setting should strive for.

The fight back

If you are currently in a setting with an over-scheduled day, consider minimising the transitions and chopped up parts of the day.

If some transitions are truly unavoidable, is it always the end of the world if you get off-schedule a bit now and again?

Do you worry what your co-workers will think if you can’t herd the kids to the next thing as they do? If so, is it possible to talk to them about it?

If you’re worried you won’t get good observations in a certain area of development, could you perhaps get some mentorship on how to further see all of the learning inherent in children’s play?

Herding cats

If you are lucky enough to be in a setting that values long stretches of play time, are there still any “sticking points” in the day that might be worth discussing with your team?

Young children’s brains are at a distinct and sensitive stage. What education should look like for them should not be confused with us “playing” mini-Primary teachers and getting them to sit still because that will be expected of them in a few years.

Over-scheduled and hurried days do not give children the time and space they require to engage, persist, experiment, think critically or deeply engage in their play. When we streamline the daily schedule and minimise the transitions, we can use our patience and energy for more meaningful and mindful interactions instead of burning through it quickly trying to keep a group of young children in line and on schedule.

A lot of us like to joke our job is like “herding cats,” but when are we going to realise that cats aren’t meant to be herded? Just like a spring cleaning and decluttering of a room, if something in the schedule is not helping the relationships and emotional environment of a setting, maybe it needs to be changed or even chucked out.

David Cahn is an early years practitioner in a busy inner-city Leeds primary school and children’s centre. He is self-publishing Umar, a children’s book for 2-4 year olds that will be out by July 2019.

Further reading

• Have you tried Helicopter Stories? 
• Why the key person is so integral to EYFS
• Why writing should not be tied to a desk