Transcript

Rachel Hogarth Smith

The Listening Project – that was the start point for a lot of the practitioners’ development, because there was a focus on the very many ways human beings can communicate with one another that aren’t just about speaking. We took the definition of listening to be actually everything you notice about another person, and rather than just directly hearing what they’re saying.

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Oh, look at that paper in the sky.

Rachel Hogarth Smith

It created a working atmosphere where practitioners were really reflecting on what they saw the children doing, but reflecting on how they responded to that, as well. And that’s what the staff used as their own action plans for the work that they were focusing on that year. And we have taken that model for all of our school development plans ever since.

Looking back, we’ve got a much deeper understanding than we had when we were sort of first started with the Listening Project. And I would have said that we had a deep understanding then. But actually, that’s just grown. And we’ve unpicked it further and to try to sort of take it to a deeper level to understand what it is we’re doing with children when they’re here.