Research School Network: High Quality Talk in Early Years: embedding the SHREC approach A case study

About me and my setting

I am a passionate Early Years practitioner with extensive experience in EYFS education and leadership, alongside a strong commitment to supporting colleagues across the sector. I have worked in Early Years since 2009 and bring a wealth of experience from a range of settings.

I work at Elsworth CofE Primary School in rural Cambridgeshire, teaching a mixed-age Reception/​Year 1 class. Communication and our children’s interests are always at the heart of our curriculum, with continual assessment informing responsive planning and provision. Our learning environment is continually evolving to meet the needs of the children.

Why SHREC?

I enjoy learning about learning, and using research to inform and improve provision. I have thoroughly enjoyed participating in the EEF Great Talking Project and I am now leading the implementation of the SHREC approach within our setting.

We chose to focus on implementing the SHREC approach as our audit highlighted there wasn’t opportunity for talk to be heard, scaffolded or modelled in the setting. We simply didn’t have time to model high quality talk

Our children were unaware of the social conventions of talk: taking turns, looking at the speaker, (not) interrupting when someone else is talking. They were unable to respond to what had previously been said and showed poor communication skills in the reception baseline assessment, particularly in the elements that involve listening.

Preparing to implement the SHREC approach

To enable us to implement this approach, we:

• Rearranged our timetable for talk
• Created an environment that invites collaborative talk
• Trained staff on the approach
• Displayed the approach as a reminder
• Planned around daily opportunities for talk
• Ensured that our year 1’s foundation subjects are taught through talk.

Monitoring the impact of SHREC within our setting

Monitoring the impact was the trickier part, as it is partly subjective. However, we noticed an improvement in children listening and responding to each other and adults. Children are responding to what they have heard with relevant information, therefore showing us that their listening skills are improving.

An unexpected outcome is that I have found Year 1 have deeper learning through talk, as they are able to demonstrate their knowledge effectively by talking about it. We have also noticed that behaviour has significantly improved because of this initiative. Our percentage of children achieving Good Level of Development is 75% from 56%.

Implementation at the heart

The personal impact for me is understanding how to effectively manage change through the implementation process. Great Talking has given me this transferable skill that I can use in future work, too.