So It Goes: a play about speaking about the unspeakable, without saying anything

In all my posts I try to say something funny about communication and link everything to classic tunes from the 1960s and 70s. However, I’m not one to make jokes about people dying or the grief that is felt by those left behind. And just for once I’m going to use the post to shamelessly advertise someone else’s work.

So It Goes is a play that has just finished a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe. I haven’t seen it yet, but hope that it comes to London. Then I can experience for myself how Hannah Moss manages to communicate how she felt/feels about her dad, Mike Moss, dying of cancer when Hannah was 17. For many years Hannah had been unable to talk about how she felt, and says that she never actually said ‘goodbye’ to her dad. Now aged 25, Hannah has created a play with no words, which by all accounts explains beautifully how she felt, how she now feels, and explores the grieving process.

Mike Moss was a primary school teacher with a passion for science. I met him briefly on my final teaching practice, and remember him wearing shorts all day (it was summer). He was totally enthused by sharing science with children, and gave me the best piece of advice: ‘The best way to set young children thinking in a scientific way is for the teacher to think out loud, ‘I wonder what would happen if we…’ This implies that the outcome of an action (e.g. firing a jet of water from a hosepipe at a toy boat in a paddling pool) is uncertain, until we actually do it together. Then the adult and children can talk about what actually happened.

This piece of advice transformed my teaching. Up to that point I had been telling young children why things happened. They were either too young to understand what I was talking about, or couldn’t see the point. By saying, ‘I wonder what will happen if we…’ either as a planned experiment or when children are playing spontaneously, you are also suggesting to the children that you, the adult, are going to stick around and explore with them. Then you can ask the genuine question, ‘I wonder why that happened?’ Then you wait and listen for the children’s explanations.

I have Mike Moss to thank for this small piece of advice, which in a few sentences made me a better teacher. As I was to learn over many years working with children, you can’t always put into words what you mean: possibly because you don’t have the vocabulary to express what you mean or how you feel. Sue Thomas and Katja O’Neill of Sign 4 Learning are helping children to express their feelings and manage their emotions by linking key vocabulary items with signs from British Sign Language (BSL). For example, I have heard adults tell groups of young children that their behaviour makes the adult feel ‘sad’. This might include, ‘I feel sad because you are keeping me waiting to tell this story.’ This is actually totally incorrect. You might feel sad when someone dies or your girlfriend dumps you or your parents break up… in other words when you feel a terrible loss. But hopefully you won’t feel like that when your Reception class are hot and bothered and can’t keep still on the carpet because a fly has entered the room and is buzzing round on the window.

It’s so much better to be able to use accurate words with children, like ‘disappointed’ or ‘frustrated’, and for children to do the same. This is what very young children, who have been involved in Signs 4 Feelings & Behaviour can now do. Through stories and discussion, linked to key vocabulary and using the BSL signs that go with it, adults are able to help children explore their emotions and more accurately describe how they feel.

The Beatles on the roof: where’s Mike?

I have several friends who worked with Mike, and they all have a ‘Mike Moss story’ to tell (all of them affectionate and in some way inspiring). One involved The Beatles. Mike was from Liverpool, and apparently went to the same school as Paul McCartney. This nugget of information got around Year 6, and inspired some of the children to make up a play about how Mike had been invited to join The Beatles, but turned them down because he wanted to be an inspirational science teacher.

Mike may not have joined The Beatles, but in his own way became a legend. And I wonder what will happen when I finally get to see Hannah’s play. Will I react like the Evening Standard reviewer, (‘I told myself I wouldn’t cry – and held firm until the final five minutes’.)

Let’s see what happens. Thanks Hannah. I read that the whole process of creating the play has had a huge impact on you. I also read that it has had a huge impact on your audiences.

For more information about So It Goes visit http://www.ontheruntheatre.co.uk/

Take care out there

Michael

I shall never forget teaching my class of eight and nine-year-olds, and particularly Sofia, who saved me single-handedly from being judged ‘unsatisfactory’ by an Ofsted school inspector.

In our school, each class was named after a tree, and mine was ‘Hazel Class’. I loved the children in this class. True, there were some characters (children with challenging behaviour), and little pickles (children who were troubled because they came from complex or dysfunctional families), but in general we were a happy group and could have lots of fun together without worrying too much about behaviour issues. It was the kind of class who if you asked them what they would like to do, would pipe up, ‘Can you read us a story, or tell us something funny about when you were a boy our age?’ The children’s favourite book was my favourite too: Feelings by Aliki.

This children’s picture book is a deceptively simple exploration of emotions that helps children and adults get behind words like shy, angry and sad. The children’s favourite page was about the death of Whiskers the mouse, and an exploration of the stages of grief that the children who owned him went through as they came to terms with their loss (denial, extreme sadness, anger and finally acceptance and being able to look back on a life of happiness and fun shared with Whiskers).

Feelings by Aliki: helping children name and explore their feelings

It was high summer and we were on the last day of an inspection of our school. Before my art lesson I was feeling confident and relaxed and ready for an inspector to drop in at any moment to observe the children having fun painting and learning about how the Ancient Greeks decorated vases with orange and black paint. An inspector came in the room, and I felt a little annoyed when Daniel (a child who was both a character and a pickle) shouted out, ‘Welcome to Hazel Class. We are all nuts in here!’ The inspector didn’t laugh, but he sat in the corner and observed chaos unfold as I discovered to my horror that one of my colleagues had borrowed 15 of my paintbrushes during the break, leaving me with no option but to tell the children to share brushes. The words ‘recipe’ and ‘disaster’ sprang into my mind, and I was horrified to discover at lunchtime from our head teacher that my lesson had been judged to be ‘unsatisfactory’.

How did I feel? No page of Aliki’s book accurately described any of my emotions. Is there a word that describes total loss of confidence, humiliation and shame, all rolled into one? It was the last morning of the inspectors’ visits to classes and there was no way I was going to escape from being slammed for being badly prepared.

After lunch the class could sense that Mr. Jones wasn’t his usual self. Jamie tried a joke. ‘Mr. Jones, you look like you have just eaten a pillow. Is that why you are a bit down in the mouth?’ Normally Mr. Jones loved jokes, but this afternoon he looked sad. Had his mouse died? ‘It’s alright children’, said Mr Jones, and gave a big sigh, ‘It’s time for literacy, so let’s get ready to listen to Sofia give her talk.’ Each child had been set the task of preparing a short talk about their favourite subject to share with the class. We had heard about snakes, volcanoes, Chelsea Football Club, horses and ‘how to cook potato chips without setting the house on fire’ (from a girl whose big sister had almost set the house on fire when cooking potato chips). Usually I spent a lot of time coaching the children for their talks, but what with the inspection and everything, I hadn’t had time to get Sofia ready, and had my fingers crossed that everything would be fine for her. It’s true, I hadn’t planned this lesson at all, but none of us were prepared for what happened next.

First I need to describe Sofia. Her family are from Portugal. Mum was a consultant cardiologist and dad was an oceanographer, who was away from home a lot, studying oceans. Sofia and her little sister Rafaela were fluent in Portuguese, and though they were fluent in English, they had strong accents and you could clearly tell that they were not native English speakers. Sofia was the kind of child who was loved by everyone. She was very bright and funny, always laughing and very sensitive to other children’s needs. She loved singing and performing, but was terrible at handwriting and was always falling over and hurting herself. Her grandmother, who the children called ‘Vovo’ and who spoke not a word of English, had been staying with the family for three months, but had recently returned to her village outside Lisbon. Myself and my Teaching Assistant Sue Watson (there to support Daniel and all of the other pickles and characters in the class) were very sorry to see the last of Sofia’s Vovo, because every Friday Vovo would bring in those delicious Portuguese egg tarts for Sue and I to have with our coffee. Sofia was not just sad that Vovo had gone. It was almost as if a lot of the sparkle had gone out of her life. All the children noticed that Sofia wasn’t laughing as much as usual, which made them feel quite worried about her.

Sofia had asked me to provide a video recorder for her talk, and brought along a video tape for us to watch, so the children were all very excited and keen to find out what their favourite friend was going to talk about. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and the inspector asked if he could observe the lesson. I tried to hide my feelings of revulsion, anxiety and trepidation, but they must have been plain for all to see.

“I want to talk about my feelings,” Sofia began. “When our lovely Vovo went back to her home we were all very sad and we all cried when we said goodbye to her at the airport. She is very old and I heard Papa say to Mama that maybe one day we would never see Vovo again. Then me and Rafaela wake up every morning and we pretend that Vovo was still in our house and Rafaela she pretend to make Vovo a cup of tea and take it to her empty bedroom. One day Rafaela said she was cross with Vovo for leaving us, and she didn’t care if she never came back. Then me and Rafaela shouted at each other and I made her cry. Mama said we are all very sad, but that we all have to live our lives like normal. Now we like to look at photos of Vovo and talk about the fun times she had with us. You know, we can still speak with Vovo on the phone, and one day we will go to her house in her village. So our feelings is just like in the Whiskers story.

“Sometimes Mama sits and looks out of the window for a long time. And I ask to her, ‘Mama, are you sad?’ She tells to me, ‘No, Mama is not sad, but she feels Saudade.’

“Now I want to speak to you about Saudade. We feel Saudade for Papa when he is on the sea and we don’t see him for a long time. Mama feels Saudade for Vovo. Mama says everyone feels Saudade sometimes, but only us peoples from Portugal have a word that tells it. So you feels sad, but as well you feel what Mama says is longing for someone who you loves, or maybe who you did love once but now they is gone and will never come back. Mama says to read to you what she think about Saudade and what it mean. ‘Saudade brings sad and happy feelings all together – sadness for the loss, and happiness for having experienced the feeling.’

“And now I want to show to everyone a video of people singing Fado songs about being Saudade in Vovo’s village. Fado is our best music.”

Cristina Branco singing in her living room before she became a Portuguese Fado superstar

What Sofia showed us was a bit like the wonderful Christina Branco clip, with coffee cups and wine glasses everywhere, and toddlers wandering around. Then Daniel shouted out, ‘Mr. Jones, have you got any tissues, because Mrs. Watson is crying over here!’ At which point the inspector leapt up and passed Sue a tissue. I couldn’t help noticing that he helped himself to one, blew his nose loudly and muttered something about the high pollen count.

After the inspectors had gone, all the staff had a meeting with the Head and he told us that our inspection had gone very well. As everyone was leaving, the Head called me into his office, to explain why the inspector had gone back to see me. Apparently he could see that the art lesson in the morning had been a disaster, and our Head convinced him to go back to see me lead a successful lesson (hopefully). The inspector described what he witnessed as being ‘a highly memorable experience. It’s rare to see children of this age able to express their emotions so powerfully, in an atmosphere of calm and acceptance. This is an example of the very best practice in supporting children to become emotionally literate.’

These events, children and powerful emotions came flooding back to me recently when I was invited to visit a nursery school in Luton, to see for myself how very young children are encouraged to name and explore their feelings. Sue Thomas and Katja O’Neill have developed an approach that combines selected signs from British Sign Language (BSL) and speaking, to give children the vocabulary they need to express how they feel. Adults talking with children often use the word sad to represent all sorts of feelings; e.g. ‘Becky is feeling sad because someone else is wearing the princess dress today’, or ‘You are making me sad because you keep interrupting me telling the story.’ Neither of these uses of the word sad accurately reflect how the child or adult feels, but I suppose we use this simple word in the belief that young children won’t be able to use or understand vocabulary that is more sophisticated.

However, Katja and Sue have shown that children as young as two years can understand and describe others’ feelings and express their own emotions by using words such as unhappy, disappointed, disastrous and even frustrated. Using puppet characters called Max and Milly and a series of stories especially written for young children, adults introduce key words and signs from BSL. They use these signs as they talk with children throughout the day, and particularly in situations when feelings run high (which can be quite often when you have groups of children!) There is a danger that we only concentrate on highlighting feelings that are negative, giving the impression that only ‘difficult’ emotions are worth talking about, so adults and children are encouraged to identify, talk about and learn the signs for positive feelings like excited, which is not the same as feeling happy. There are also phrases and signs that help children reach a common understanding of how to behave in nursery, including understanding and using ‘behaviour management’ words and signs like calm down, share and take turns. I was amazed when I asked a little boy how Max the puppet might be feeling (I had made Max look a bit sad-looking). ‘Upset and miserable’ was his reply, with appropriate signs. ‘Bloody hell!’ would have been my response, but luckily I restrained myself as I didn’t know the associated signs.

Click on the logo to find out more about this fascinating project

The project has really taken off across the UK and internationally. Next time I see Sue and Katja I’m going to ask them if they are working on a Portuguese version that will help people in that country articulate ‘the feeling of loss – a permanent, irreparable loss and its consequent lifelong damage’ as described by Wikipedia in their definition for Saudade.

Here’s Ana Moura haunting us all with a modern Fado song. I’ve no idea what the words mean, but Ana manages to induce a sense of Saudade in me whenever I hear her.

Ana Moura: Amor Afoito. Is this stunning song about the Saudade of every man’s longing to be in Ana’s backing band?

Take care out there

Michael

Bullfrog Blues by Canned Heat (often performed as an encore by Rory Gallagher).

I’ve never woken up thinking about bullfrogs, but I do spend time thinking about some of the experiences I have had teaching other people’s children over the past 30 or so years. Teaching is a very demanding job, but of all the jobs in the whole world it’s probably the one where you can have most influence on children’s lives. And having 30 children thrust together for five days a week, as they grow and try out new things, can sometimes lead to a particular kind of heady intensity developing between them. Teachers know this and develop strategies for helping children get on together. However there are some things that you just can’t bargain for.

I’m thinking in particular of a very fraught emotional experience I became entangled in as a Year 4 teacher. This is my favourite year group to teach, as the children begin to cast off early childhood and start to look towards being the oldest children in primary school. The child involved was a girl called Katie, who can only be described as ‘very sweet and kind and hard-working’ (and I really do mean that in the nicest possible way.) One day I had a visit from Katie’s parents, who were looking very anxious and uncomfortable: “Mr Jones, please can you have a word with Katie for us? She hasn’t been sleeping well, has become quite moody and is off her food. To be quite frank her problems all seem to have started when George arrived in your class. Because of George, Katie has completely fallen out with Rebecca: which is terrible, because the girls have known each other since they were babies and Rebecca’s mum and dad are our best friends. Is there any chance that George could be moved to another class, or even sent to another school?”

This came as a bit of a shock, as I had always thought of Katie’s parents as being very tolerant and liberal. However I had noticed that little Katie, who was normally very enthusiastic about class work, had been spending a lot of time looking in George’s direction during lessons. She had even drawn a picture of George on the inside cover of her maths book and written ‘Katie loves George’. I decided to have a gentle chat with Katie and try and get to the bottom of what was going on between her George and Rebecca, (who incidentally had also drawn a picture of George, though hers was stuck on the fridge at home, which seemed more appropriate to me.)

I had my little chat with Katie during lunchtime. “I’ve noticed that you and Rebecca haven’t been getting on very well recently…” That was enough to open the floodgates:

“I hate Rebecca. Sometimes I feel like whacking her round the face, especially when she goes near George. And I just can’t bear her touching him. It’s terrible. I don’t know why I feel like this. I felt so bad when George stayed at Rebecca’s house at half-term, and he even slept in her bedroom! When I’m not with George I think about him all the time, and worry that he might be lonely and need me. I’ve never felt like this before. Is there something wrong with me, Mr Jones?”

Well what would you have said to an eight-year-old girl in the grip such powerful emotions? Would you have handled it like I did?

“Katie, I think you are in love with George. It’s quite normal. Lots of teenagers and grownups feel like this about each other. I’m sure that George loves you too. What you are feeling towards Rebecca is called jealousy. We sometimes feel like this when we think that the person we love likes someone else, or when we think someone else is trying to take our loved one away from us. But can you try and share George with Rebecca? After all, she is your best friend and she needs to feel love too. I’m sure that George would be very pleased to know that he has two girls who like him as much as you both do. And if you both stroke him and care for him together then I’m sure he will be very happy. After all, I’ve read that guinea pigs like to have more than one person caring for them.”

Well Katie cried a bit and I tried to quell the lump rising in my throat, as this little girl, who was normally so placid, struggled with her very powerful feelings. Up to that point I hadn’t fully appreciated that animals can provoke such intense emotions in the people who care for them. Luckily for us all, our school educational psychologist lent me probably the greatest book you will find to explore emotions with children: Feelings, by Aliki. (Click here for more information about this excellent book). This proved to be an invaluable resource, as unfortunately guinea pigs are vulnerable to illness, and the page about Whiskers the Mouse helped us prepare emotionally for the terrible day when we would find out how it feels to be bereaved. Luckily this didn’t happen in Katie’s time.

The legendary Rory Gallagher and his band in their prime, performing Bullfrog Blues live for the German TV show Rockpalats

This story illustrates the important part that animals can play in children’s lives. It’s no coincidence that most picture books for young children are either about European farm animals or African wild animals. I often think that to help all children in the UK really get ready for literacy we need to teach them about animals and the noises that they make. If you add in motorised transport then you have almost the entire canon of reading material in early years.

How much children know about animals, and how much they want to talk about them, was brought home to me when I was supporting an early years setting, in my role as consultant for the Every Child a Talker (ECaT) project. Many of the children in the day nursery were from Poland, and in the very early stages of learning English. Our challenge was to involve the children in activities that were deeply absorbing, and to engage them in conversations that would be meaningful, in order to maximise their English learning. You can read in detail about what we did by clicking here.

Our guiding principle was that children will talk most about what they know already. If they are confident in their prior knowledge then they will be confident to talk about what they know, and to join in with activities involving these subjects; e.g. farm animals. I chose to base our activities around Cock-A-Moo-Moo by Juliet Dallas-Conte: a great picture book about a rooster who wakes up in the morning and forgets how to shout Cock-a-doodle-doo. He visits all the animals in turn, but can only make the noises that they make. As well as being a parable about having a language difficulty, it helps children to think about how important it is to know lots of languages. It’s one of my favourite stories. (Unfortunately it was to get me into a whole lot of trouble in another nursery school, but that’s a completely different story…)

We got the children really involved by the adults learning 10 farm animal names in Polish, and using these, with their English equivalents and corresponding MAKATON signs, throughout the story and activities. What I hadn’t bargained for is that not only do people from other countries speak different languages, but so do the animals!! So even though I had learned the Polish for rooster, the story didn’t really make much sense until one of the children told me what noise Polish roosters make…and pigs, and cows and sheep and donkeys. This created a lot of laughter as we compared animal noises.

One bonus of this activity, which by the way was very successful and became part of the setting’s daily practice, was that I learned some Polish from the children. I have it on good authority from Marek that Niebezpieczne lis means dangerous fox. It sounded so exciting to me that I have remembered the phrase to this day. (This surely demonstrates the importance of involving children and adults in exciting activities that make sense, and using exciting language at the same time.)

Here’s a quiz for you to try. Can you identify which country the following rooster sounds come from? Answers are at the bottom of the post (courtesy of Derek Abbott at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide. I’m not entirely sure why he has put together this vital information for adults working with young children, but I’m glad he has. Click here to learn how to make animals obey you in different languages too!)

1. kykyliky
2. kukeleku
3. cock-a-doodle-doo
4. kukko kiekuu
5. cocorico
6. kikeriki
7. kikiriku/ kikiriki
8. coo-koo-ri-koo
9. kukuriku
10. chicchirichí
11. ko-ke-kok-ko-o
12. cucurucu
13. kukareku
14. quiquiriquí/kikiriki
15. kuckeliku
16. kuk-kurri-kuuu/ u uru uuu (pron: oo-oore-oo)
17. kuklooku
18. kukuryku

By the way, Katie and Rebecca were fine in the end: once Katie understood that it was OK to have such strong feelings. She never whacked Rebecca. They both cared for George together and took him home at weekends. We never found out whether George woke up with them girls on his mind, though I wouldn’t be surprised, as he always made gui-gui * noises whenever he saw them. (*He was South American, after all. French guinea pigs say oui-oui.)

And here’s Canned Heat, the creators and purveyors of excellent boogies, and whose Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite gave us Bullfrog Blues. Ribit Ribit.

The little red rooster told the little brown hen/Meet me at the barn at half past ten/Come on let’s boogie. Canned Heat at Woodstock (and if you look closely you can see Janis Joplin and Grace Slick having a chat at the side of the stage!)

Take care out there

Michael

1 Danish; 2 Dutch; 3 English; 4 Finnish;5 French; 6 German; 7 Greek; 8 Hebrew;

9 Hungarian; 10 Italian; 11 Japanese; 12 Portuguese; 13 Russian; 14 Spanish; 15 Swedish; 16 Turkish; 17 Urdu; 18 Polish

We got our first telly in 1966 and somehow I missed the World Cup final. But I did manage to see Disney’s screwball comedy film ‘The Monkey’s Uncle.’ What a film! It made a massive impression on little Michael Jones. What really stuck in my mind was the opening credit sequence, which featured the Beach Boys and Annette Funicello performing the title song. The tune instantly stuck in my head (Though I couldn’t understand how when Brian Wilson sang his lips moved out of synch with the soundtrack. I now realise it’s possibly the worst example of miming this side of David Bowie singing The Jean Genie on Top of the Pops.*) And the dancing! Incredible stuff! Young men wearing suits, white shirts and ties, dancing just like dads at weddings always do (top of your body goes one way, your legs and feet go the other, while your hips remained fixed).

I think I was a very sensitive child. Little things made very big impressions on me and created powerful associations that remained with me for years. When I was five I was given an illustrated nursery rhyme book. I loved the illustrations, though some of them were quite bizarre. An image of Humpty Dumpty lying on the pavement with his head smashed open and his yolk and white oozing out into the gutter would now be deemed unsuitable. My favourite illustration was for ‘Oranges and Lemons’. I can see the illustration now: a dandy, not unlike Charles I, is walking along the street and has taken his silk handkerchief out of his pocket. Several silver coins have fallen out and some little pixie folk with very cheeky grins on their faces are grabbing the loose change and making off with it.

I had my appendix removed at the end of the 1966 summer holidays and was off school for a month. When I returned, the class had been taught long division. In those days you never revisited a subject, so I just couldn’t grasp how you could divide 289 by 13, and why, if you didn’t put your remainder in exactly the right box the whole sum would be wrong. More was to follow. At the beginning of a history lesson about the Great Fire of London, our class teacher, Mr Hassman, was talking about famous buildings in London. He mentioned St. Clement Danes, St. Martin in the Fields, The Old Bailey etc. Did anyone in the class know why he was introducing us to these famous monuments? I saw my chance to prove that it was only long division that was my weak spot. Up shot my hand.

“Because a dandy is walking along the street and he has taken a silk handkerchief out of his pocket and he has dropped some silver coins and little fairy folk are making off with them!”

More was to follow. After break we had poetry. “Does anyone know any lines of poetry?”

Here was another chance. “Every day that my monkey shines (ooh woo wee ooh)/It feels just like a Valentines/I love the monkey’s uncle/And I wish I was the monkey’s aunt (Yeah, yeah, yeah.)”

After lunch I was asked to see Mother Superior. Was everything alright at home? How was the operation? If anything was bothering me I was just to knock on the door of welfare anytime and I could have a chat with Sister Columba.

More was to follow. The next day I was moved to the special table, with Paul Simpson (“If he chews paper any more, I swear I’ll send him to a doctor!”); Glenn Shields (“He’s from a broken home, you know.”) Christina Rankin (”She has a weak ‘r’: Such an infliction.”) and Tommy O’Connell (“I taught the brother last year. That says it all.”) God only knows what they said about me in the staff room.

So what is this all about? It’s about the flood of associations that instantly filled my mind the other day when by accident I came across The Fendertones on You Tube singing their cover version of Monkey’s Uncle. It’s brilliant, and I never thought I’d hear myself say this: it’s better than The Beach Boys’ original. It reminds me that many children have favourite books and songs. The Tiger Who Came to Tea, with its strange storyline and very distinctive illustrations, remains a firm favourite with young children across the UK. Many Disney films and songs have powerful childhood associations for adults, as do TV theme tunes and even adverts. They instantly bring back to mind periods in our childhoods that have many associations that were built up without us realising it: smells, sights, impressions, friends, weather, toys, the local neighbourhood, family sayings and meals. It’s powerful stuff.

We are pleased that children have books and songs that are firm favourites, because it is great for their literacy. But do we think of the influence we are having on their lives in general? This is why sharing stories with children; individually and in groups, is so important. Yes, for literacy, but also for building up powerful emotional associations. I was in a café a few years ago, near where I used to teach. A group of teenagers were looking at me and pointing. One of them approached me and said, “Are you Mr Jones? You used to teach me in Year 1. We were laughing about the time you read us Frog and Toad are Friends by Arnold Lobel and you stood on your head, banged your head against the wall and poured a glass of water on Dylan’s head! That was my favourite book for years and I shall never forget that as long as I live!”

One four-year-old I know loves two books more than any others: The Big Red Bus and The Train Journey. His favourite song is the theme tune to Postman Pat. I wonder what associations will come flooding back to him if as an adult he ever sees those books, or hears the theme tune. I just hope he keeps his appendix and learns how to do long division.

* Actually Bowie sang live. I just wanted to mention him because he was magnificent. Google Bowie You Tube Top of the Pops Jean Genie to witness David getting in touch with his feminine side.

I was reminded of this major turning point in my attitude towards school when I heard about two-year-old Billy. Billy was a die-hard CBeebies fan, and at the time Mr Tumble was his favourite character. Like many two-year-olds, he liked to browse the children’s magazine section every time he went shopping in Sainsbury’s, in the hope that the latest CBeebies Weekly was on sale. ‘Browse’ is not really the operative word here. If you’ve ever passed that section of the supermarket you will see tiny tots taking part in shoplifting, as they grab their favourite magazine and make a run for it, or try and sneak it into Mum’s shopping trolley. One day Billy went to Sainsbury’s with his Grandpa (Mum’s Dad). As Grandpa couldn’t possibly refuse little Billy’s wishes, Billy got to take home a copy of the very latest CBeebies Weekly, featuring a four page spread on Mr Tumble, a Mr Tumble free gift and stickers.

Grandpa was feeling very pleased with himself, until he got to his daughter’s front door. “What do you think you’re doing Dad? Billy’s already got two copies of that magazine. He went shopping with his other Granddad yesterday and came back with the same magazine: even though I’d already bought him one the day before!”

This is quite typical of two-year-olds, who gain great comfort from sameness. Young children in day care and pre-schools are particularly pleased when they find that the books and toys that are on offer are the same as the ones that they have at home. For a two-year-old, sameness is reassuring. It’s no wonder that ‘same’ is a word that they learn very quickly. But this type of experience is important for older children too.

I was visiting a setting to give advice about how they could improve their book corner. Staff knew about my interest in helping children who are very quiet and anxious, and pointed out a little girl called Rhiannon. She was causing a lot of concern because the adults had rarely heard her speak, though she was known to chat away with her mum at home time. I was sitting with Rhiannon and two other children in the book corner, and took some books out of my bag. One happened to be The Story of Peppa Pig. Rhiannon smiled a big smile and whispered, “I got that book at home. My Grandma buyed it for me.” This led to a big discussion among the children about Peppa Pig, and what books everyone had at home. This was a turning point for little Rhiannon, as well as for the setting’s book area.

We set up a project where children were encouraged to bring in their favourite book from home. There was always great excitement when the children discovered that there was a copy of their book already in the setting. Staff tried to find their favourite books from their childhoods, and brought these in to share with the children. They made a display of children’s and adults’ favourites, and invited the parents to join in too. This was phase one of our ‘book corner makeover’, and we were all particularly pleased with the links we had made between the children’s home interests and what was available in the setting. Finding Ladybird’s The Zoo had been the start of my being able to relax at school, and seeing The Story of Peppa Pig had done the same for little Rhiannon. She remained relatively quiet, but grew in confidence and was much happier about joining in with groups and talking.

Incidentally, The Tiger Who Came to Tea remains by far and away the most popular book from practitioners’ early childhoods, and is still a massive favourite with the current generation of early readers.

To find out more about Book Corner Makeovers, including an interactive book area audit, visit www.talk4meaning.co.uk

Supporting Quiet Children by Maggie Johnson & Michael Jones is available from Lawrence Educational at www.lawrenceeducational.co.uk