TANGLIN TRUST SCHOOL — INFANT SCHOOL
PLT Meeting — Auto-Generated Transcript
Recording Date: Tuesday 20 January 2026
Duration: 00:58:42
Location: Infant School Staff Hub, Room IS-12

NOTE: This transcript was auto-generated and has not been reviewed for accuracy.

[00:00:00] [recording begins]

[00:00:03] SARAH KINGSLEY: Right, is that — okay, the red light's on. Good. Um, welcome everyone. Thanks for being here on time, I know Tuesdays are always a bit of a scramble after dismissal. So, the aim of this first meeting is — and I want to be really clear about this upfront — is not to redesign our planning. That's not what we're doing here. What we're trying to do is surface what we already believe about teaching ecosystems in the infant years and then compare those beliefs against what the evidence actually suggests. So it's a, it's kind of a diagnostic meeting if you like. Priya is taking minutes, um, she'll share a summary before Friday. Priya, you're happy with that?

[00:00:41] PRIYA NAIR: Yep, all good. I've got the laptop up.

[00:00:43] SARAH KINGSLEY: Great. So just to, just to frame this for anyone who — well, you all know this but for the recording — we're opening a six-meeting inquiry cycle focused on strengthening evidence-based instruction in the ecosystems thread of our infant school science curriculum. The thread spans nursery through Year 2 and it sits within the EYFS Understanding the World, The Natural World strand and the National Curriculum KS1 Living Things and Their Habitats, Plants, Animals Including Humans, and Seasonal Changes strands. So it's, it's quite a big umbrella actually when you lay it all out like that.

[00:01:22] LAURA SIMPSON: Can I — sorry, can I just flag something at the outset?

[00:01:24] SARAH KINGSLEY: Of course.

[00:01:25] LAURA SIMPSON: So ecosystems is a word we rarely use with nursery and reception children. Like, we just don't. We use living things, habitats, gardens, the pond. And I think the question of vocabulary is going to come up repeatedly through this whole cycle and I just want to name that now rather than, you know, three meetings in when someone says well why aren't reception children using the word ecosystem and I'm like, well because they're four.

[00:01:52] [laughter]

[00:01:54] MARCUS WONG: Yeah, agreed. Totally agreed. In nursery we work from direct experience first, you know, the butterfly garden, the compost bin, the tortoise enclosure — oh, has anyone fed Gerald today by the way?

[00:02:05] RACHEL FENWICK: Ben did it at lunch.

[00:02:06] MARCUS WONG: Okay good. Um, but yeah the word ecosystem is not helpful at three and four. It's just, it's not. What matters at that age is that children notice things change, that some things need other things to live. That's the, that's the conceptual territory we're in. The label can come later.

[00:02:24] SARAH KINGSLEY: And I think that's exactly the kind of belief we need to interrogate — not because it's wrong, I actually think you're probably right Marcus — but because we should check what the evidence says about when and how children aquire — acquire, sorry — that kind of relational vocabulary.

[00:02:40] RACHEL FENWICK: Can I come in here? So from a coordination point of view my concern is actually about progression. Because if nursery and reception children never encounter the idea of interdependence — and I'm not saying they need the word interdependence, but the idea — then Year 1 teachers end up doing what I'd call remedial work when they introduce food chains and habitats formally. And I've seen that, I've seen that pattern play out over and over. Ben, you probably see it more than anyone.

[00:03:11] BEN MORROW: Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly the pattern I see. So in Year 1 I often have children who can name, I don't know, twelve minibeasts, right? They can tell you that's a woodlouse, that's a centipede, that's a slug. They've done the minibeast hunt in reception, they've used the magifying — magnifying glasses, they've looked under the logs. But they cannot tell me why the woodlice live under the logs rather than on the playground tarmac. They know the animals. They don't know the system. They don't know why things are where they are. And that's, to me that's the gap.

[00:03:48] DAVID HOLT: And Year 2 shows the same gap but it's further down the line. So when we introduce microhabitats in the autumn term — and that's a, you know, that's a statutory requirement in the national curriculum — a lot of children fall back on the animal likes it there. That's their default explanation. The woodlouse likes it under the log. Rather than reasoning from conditions, you know, moisture, shelter, food source. And likes it is, I mean it's anthropomorthic — anthropomorphic reasoning, isn't it, which is actually a misconception we should be actively working against rather than

[00:04:22] RACHEL FENWICK: Rather than reinforcing, yeah.

[00:04:23] DAVID HOLT: Right. Rather than just letting it sit there unchallenged.

[00:04:27] SARAH KINGSLEY: So there's a really clear thread emerging here isn't there, which is about the gap between identification — naming — and understanding relationships and conditions. And that gap seems to persist right through the key stage. Eleanor, you've been quiet, which usually means you're thinking. Do you want to offer a research frame?

[00:04:46] ELEANOR TANG: [laughs] Yes, you know me too well. So, um, I've been doing some reading in preperation — preparation for this cycle and I think there are a couple of key documents we should all be looking at. The Wellcome Trust's primary science review — which is, I think it's the 2017 one that was updated, I'll check the date — and the EEF's Improving Primary Science guidance report. Both of those converge on three implications that I think are directly relevant for our age group. So the first is direct, repeated observation of real organisims — organisms, sorry — real organisms. Not pictures of organisms on an interactive whiteboard, not a YouTube video of a pond, but actual repeated hands-on observation over time. The second is deliberate teaching of what they call tier-two vocabulary across the years. So that's words like depend, survive, conditions, shelter — words that aren't exclusive to science but that carry particular meaning in a science context. And the third is explicit modelling of simple causal reasoning. So not just what do you see but why do you think that happens, what would change if we took this away. I can circulate both documents ahead of meeting two if that would be useful.

[00:06:03] SARAH KINGSLEY: Please do. I really want meeting two to be grounded in that evidence rather than just our instincts. Because we all have instincts and they're not all aligned, which is fine, that's healthy, but we need a common evidence base. Eleanor, can you also flag anything specific in those documents about misconceptions? Because David's point about anthromorphic — anthropomorphic reasoning feels really important and I suspect there's research on that.

[00:06:28] ELEANOR TANG: Yes, there's quite a lot actually. I'll pull out the relevant sections.

[00:06:31] SARAH KINGSLEY: Brilliant. Priya, can you capture that as an action?

[00:06:33] PRIYA NAIR: Yep, got it. And actually while we're on actions, can I suggest something? I think it would be really useful if each year group brought one short observational artefact from their current ecosystems teaching to meeting two. So that might be a child's drawing, a photo of a learning wall, an audio clip from a guided discussion — whatever you've got. Just something concrete so we can look at evidence of pupil thinking alongside the research evidence that Eleanor's going to circulate. Because otherwise we'll be having a very abstract conversation about what children think and none of us will actually have any children's work in front of us.

[00:07:09] BEN MORROW: That's a great idea actually.

[00:07:11] MARCUS WONG: Yeah I can bring some photos of the nursery garden journals. The children do observational drawings of what they find and some of them are actually, well, they're four year olds so they're creative interpretations, but you can see what they're attending to and what they're ignoring.

[00:07:25] [laughter]

[00:07:27] PRIYA NAIR: Perfect. I'll add that as an action for everyone.

[00:07:30] LAURA SIMPSON: So, can I just — I want to name a tension now because I think it's going to run through the whole cycle and I'd rather we get it on the table early. Evidence-based — and I'm putting that in air quotes even though we're on audio — evidence-based can drift into worksheet-based if we're not careful. And I've seen that happen. I've worked in schools where someone reads the EEF guidance and the takeaway is, right, we need a knowledge organiser and a ten-question quiz and now we're evidence-based. And that is not what infant pedagogy looks like. Our pedagogy has to remain play-led and inquiry-rich. The evidence doesn't say otherwise actually — if you read the EEF guidance carefully it's very clear about the importance of practical hands-on work — but school cultures often drift that way under pressure, especially when there's a monitoring cycle or an inspection looming. And I don't want this PLT to be the vehicle for that drift.

[00:08:24] SARAH KINGSLEY: Noted. And I share that concern Laura, genuinely. So let's, let's make it an explicit principle for the cycle. I'm going to say this clearly for the minutes: evidence-informed does not mean transmision — transmission-based. We will test every proposed change against whether it strengthens or weakens children's active engagement with real living things. If a proposed change means children spend less time in the butterfly garden and more time filling in a worksheet about butterflies, we've gone wrong. Is everyone comfortable with that as a guiding principle?

[00:08:58] [general agreement, multiple speakers]

[00:09:01] DAVID HOLT: Can I just add — I think that's really important and I also think we need to apply it to Year 2 not just EYFS and reception. Because the pressure to formalise, to get things into books, to have something to show a visitor, that pressure is real in Year 2 and I sometimes feel like we sacrifice the outdoor learning and the direct observation because we need to have a double page spread in a science book. And I'm as guilty of that as anyone.

[00:09:28] SARAH KINGSLEY: Really honest reflection David, thank you. And you're right, the principle applies across the key stage. Okay. Right, I think we've had a really productive first conversation actually. Let me just run through the actions. Eleanor, you're circulating the EEF Improving Primary Science guidance and the Wellcome primary science review by Friday the 23rd of January. Each year group lead is bringing one artefact of current pupil thinking on ecosystems or habitats or living things, however you frame it in your year group. Rachel, you're preparing a one-page map of current ecosystems coverage across nursery through Year 2 — is that doable by meeting two?

[00:10:08] RACHEL FENWICK: Yes. I've actually got most of that already from the curriculum audit we did in November so it's more of a reformating — reformatting exercise.

[00:10:15] SARAH KINGSLEY: Great. And Priya, you're circulating these minutes within 48 hours.

[00:10:19] PRIYA NAIR: Will do.

[00:10:20] SARAH KINGSLEY: Okay. Meeting two is Tuesday the 3rd of February, same time, same room, 15:45, IS-12. Thank you everyone, that was a really good start. If anyone wants tea there's still some in the pot.

[00:10:32] [chairs scraping, general conversation]

[00:10:36] MARCUS WONG: [inaudible] ...going to check on Gerald before I

[00:10:38] RACHEL FENWICK: He's fine Marcus, Ben gave him the good lettuce.

[00:10:41] [laughter]

[00:10:44] [recording ends]

--- END OF TRANSCRIPT ---

Generated by: Otter.ai v4.2.1
Confidence score: 87%
Speaker identification confidence: 92%
Flagged terms: aquire [00:02:32], magifying [00:03:24], organisims [00:05:12], anthromorphic [00:06:08], transmision [00:08:48], reformating [00:10:10], anthropomorthic [00:04:16], preperation [00:04:52]