Spaces That Support Growth is a professional development webinar designed to support early years educators in understanding the important role the environment plays in children’s holistic development, wellbeing, belonging and learning through play.
The session will encourage educators to move beyond thinking about the environment simply in terms of layout, resources or planned activities and instead consider the experiences they want to make possible for children. Participants will develop a deeper understanding of how intentional environments can spark curiosity, support independence and agency, nurture connection and belonging, promote inclusion, and respond to children’s individual needs and emerging interests.
By the end of the webinar, participants will be able to reflect more intentionally on their own learning environments, recognise how environmental choices can influence children’s experiences and development, and identify practical changes that can enhance play, exploration, relationships and learning. The session will support educators in connecting their environmental practice with Aistear: the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework (2024) and in using ongoing observation and reflection to create environments that evolve alongside the children who use them.
Summary
The webinar will begin by exploring holistic child development and considering a key question: How do we want children to feel and experience their time in our setting? Participants will reflect on how environments can help children feel safe, calm, welcome, included, connected, confident, capable and curious.
The session will then explore practical aspects of creating responsive early years environments, including sparking curiosity through open-ended resources and provocations, supporting child agency and independence, creating opportunities for active and calm experiences, responding to emerging interests, promoting inclusion and accessibility, and designing spaces that support meaningful connection between children and educators.
Participants will consider the environment through the lens of holistic development and explore how environmental choices can support different areas of children’s growth. Connections will be made throughout to Aistear (2024), particularly its themes of Wellbeing, Identity and Belonging, Communicating, and Exploring and Thinking, as well as play, agency, inclusion and responsive learning environments.
Observation and reflective practice will form a key part of the session. Educators will explore a simple ongoing cycle of Observe → Reflect → Change → Observe Again, using what children do, communicate and show through their play to inform intentional changes to the environment. Interactive reflection questions, participant contributions and practical examples will be used throughout to connect the learning directly to educators’ own settings.
