Stage 1: Looking at what we know
We have been working with experts including early years practitioner, academics and key stakeholders (see our people page) to develop our understanding from both practice and literature. We have completed a realist review, and this has included searching for information around Mindfulness Based Interventions, early years practice, executive functions, speech and language development from both published literature and information from a wide range of everyday sources such as blog articles and a range of media outlets. We have interviewed practitioners to find out about how the children respond to mindfulness practices in their settings and what practitioners identify as the benefits for children, staff and parents.
The team have looked carefully at this information to see what works for whom, when, why and in what circumstances.
What we are learning is enabling us to co-create with our experts a number of intervention ideas to trial in the summer term. As we co-create these mindfulness-based literacy interventions, we are thinking about how to ensure they are flexible enough to holistically support and adapt children between the ages of 2 and 5 years, in nursery and reception class settings. This will help to inform the projects next stage.
Stage 2: Trialling
We are going to trial the activities with two early years settings in Norfolk. Children, practitioners and parents/carers will be interviewed, and assessments in language learning, emotional and wellbeing assessments will be carried out by practitioners.
This will help us to inform and refine our research data and over arching theories.
Stage 3: Reviewing what we have learnt
During the trial we are gathering insights from children, practitioners and parents/carers. Once the trial is completed, we will review the mindfulness-based literacy interventions and the insights to further refine the activities and consider how we can best support setting leaders and practitioners to successfully implement mindfulness-based literacy activities.
During this stage we shall be recruiting nurseries and reception classes across East Anglia and The Midlands and providing some training to leaders and practitioner to support effective delivery in the autumn term.
Stage 4: Little Minds programme in action
The revised mindfulness-based literacy intervention will be put into action across the setting. We shall carry out observations, interview children, practitioners and parents/carers to gather their thoughts and evaluate the data. This will be analysed to further develop our learning, we shall reflect with our experts to understand what has worked for whom; when, why and in what circumstances.
We will share what we have learnt with the children, practitioner and parents/carers in each setting and other people interested in how mindfulness-based literacy interventions can support literacy learning during the early years foundation stages of children’s lives.