The purpose of this assignment is to explore and discuss how children learn and develop between the ages of 7 to 11 years. It is important to recognise that some pupils need extra support to enable them to develop certain skills and attributes. Therefore, all schools offer interventions to aid pupils to achieve their full potential holistically. Interventions can be put in place to support any aspect of a child’s development to ensure that the potential for holistic development is maximised. This assignment will mainly focus on a boy called Jake, who is 11 years old. To ensure anonymity, the child’s name has been changed for the purpose of this assignment. Within the assignment, an intervention called ‘Lego® Therapy’ will be discussed and critically analysed in terms of how it can help to develop Jake’s social and emotional skills within the Health and Well-being area of learning and experience (AoLE). Lego® Therapy is a programme which has evolved after numerous attempts from the authors of ‘LEGO®-Based Therapy’ who have tried to provide an effective intervention for the social developmental needs of children who have autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and other conditions affecting social development (LeGoff et al. 2014, p.9). 

Jake as aforementioned is 11 years old and is in year 6. He is in a mixed class of 27 pupils who are between the ages of 8 to 11 years. Jake has additional learning needs (ALN) which includes dyslexia, this means that he struggles to write, spell and read words, Jake lacks self-confidence and also finds it difficult to socialise with his peers. Jake attends numerous intervention groups which includes relationship group, reading eggs, nannas knitting and letters and sounds. These interventions are to help Jake with his social and emotional, language and literacy and fine motor skills. He struggles to maintain eye contact and sometimes cannot control his emotions and tends to get upset easily as he finds it difficult to express himself verbally at times. He lacks motivation to do some activities/tasks and generally has a short concentration span. Jake comes from a low-income family and does not live with his parents but lives with a relative. Jake does not have a very balanced diet and is overweight as a result. Jake enjoys playing on his Xbox at home and riding his bike but finds it difficult to build and maintain friendships due to his lack of social skills. In school, Jake spends a lot of time alone however, he enjoys participating in gardening activities in the school allotment during playtimes but tends to isolate himself from the other pupils. 

All schools have a duty of care to their pupils and should treat each pupil equally and embrace the diversity of the needs of all pupils. As the needs of the pupils will vary, it is important that schools promote inclusion and equality to ensure that all pupils feel that their individual needs are being met whilst being part of an inclusive environment. The Welsh Government (2016, p.9) recognises that effective inclusion is essential in education and that ‘all children should be involved in making decisions, where possible right from the start of their education’. The school that Jake attends ensures that all decisions that are made regarding intervention groups or anything that will affect Jake are made ensuring that Jake is fully aware of what or why these changes may be happening. The school also recognises that Jake is at an age where he is fully aware of what is happening in terms of the intervention groups that he attends, therefore Jake has the opportunity to have his own input about what he thinks and feels about any changes or issues that affect him. 

There are many theories regarding how children learn and develop. The three main schools of thought are constructivist, behaviourist and humanistic. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a cognitive constructivist who believed that children learn in four stages which are linked to the child’s cognitive development. Based on Piaget’s theory, Jake would be in the ‘concrete operational’ stage which is for the approximate age of 7-11 years. At this stage, ‘children should begin to think logically about actual (concrete) events, but have difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts’ (Grigg, 2015, p.138). Although Jake would fit into the ‘concrete operational’ stage according to Piaget’s theory, Jake has difficulty thinking logically about actual events and understanding hypothetical concepts. This therefore is a limitation of Piaget’s theory as it demonstrates that not all children develop at the same time within each area of their development. Morin (2020) who was previously a teacher and an early intervention specialist, agrees that there are some milestones that children should be achieving at around certain ages however, she does recognise that not all children will develop at the same pace. As Jake is 11 years old, he would be in the 11-15 years category according to Morin however, in this category similarly to Piaget it states that children ‘start thinking more logically’ and that they ‘value friends’ and others’ opinions more and more’. Jake would more likely be in the 7-8 years category as it states that children between these ages ‘try to express feeling with words but may resort to aggression when upset’. (Morin, 2020). Jake finds it very difficult to verbally express how he feels at times and does not have the social skills to build or maintain friendships which therefore means that he would more likely be in the 7-8 years category rather than the one Morin states he should be in for his age. 

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), who was a social constructivist did not agree with Piaget’s stages of development as he believed that ‘humans develop knowledge, skills and beliefs as a result of social interactions rather than something that happens from within.’ (Grigg, 2015, p.139). In relation to what Vygotsky believed, Jake may lack in knowledge and his skills in areas due to the lack of his social interaction with his peers and others. Vygotsky had his own theory which was called the zone of proximal development (ZPD), this theory was based upon the gap between what a child can do alone and then what they are able to do with the help of a more knowledgeable other (MKO). The MKO could be another child or an adult. Vygotsky’s theory could potentially help Jake to develop his social and emotional skills through an intervention such as Lego® Therapy. If he worked with peers who were slightly more skilled and knowledgeable, this could help him to build relationships and potentially friendships with others whilst learning other skills such as cooperation, empathy and turn taking. This theory could then be used to help Jake to progress in other areas of his learning after he has been able to develop the skills needed to work with others. It is important to give Jake and other pupils tasks and activities that are not too easy for them which will result in boredom. However, it is also important to ensure that the tasks and activities given to pupils are not too hard, as they will become frustrated which could result in no new knowledge or skills being developed. 

Paulo Freire (1921-1997) was a social activist who developed a humanistic theory. His theory was based around how he personally viewed education and what he wanted to change in education. The theory was developed to try and ‘change existing practices, rules, traditions and understandings as a way of achieving social justice and equality.’ (Pound, 2014, p.75). Pound, (2014) also points out that in Freire’s theory, he emphasised the importance of giving all children opportunities which promoted equality and aiding children from less fortunate backgrounds to deal with fair and unfair aspects of life. He wanted children to be able to work in an environment which enabled them to cooperate with one another and build upon their social action skills. Freire also believed that it was very important that children are involved in their learning and not just learning from but with the teacher. Although Freire’s theory does seem quite mystical in parts due to his personal opinion, giving all children equal opportunities and enabling them to build upon crucial life skills such as cooperating and socialising with each other are positive aspects of the theory which could be adapted to help further Jake’s social and emotional skills. It is crucial that pupils are actively involved in their own learning as Piaget believed and not just learning from the teacher but making sense of and working things out for themselves.

Progression is defined in the Curriculum for Wales (2020) document as ‘a fundamental aspect upon which school curricula, and therefore assessment arrangements, are designed and planned’. Progression in learning is crucial to ensure that pupils progress along the continuum of the curriculum within each AoLE. The progression should lead pupils to develop the attributes and skills needed to ensure that they are able to contribute to the four purposes of the curriculum which are to become an: ‘ambitious capable learner, enterprising, creative contributor, ethical informed citizen [and a] healthy confident individual.’ (Curriculum for Wales, 2020). By implementing interventions such as Lego® Therapy, it gives pupils the opportunity to develop or enhance their social and emotional skills which will then enable them to contribute to the four purposes of the curriculum. Successful Futures (2015, p.109) states that the descriptions of achievement should be written in a way that enables practitioners to offer more depth in the AoLE’s for pupils ‘who master skills and knowledge earlier and support and intervention for those whose progress is slower’. 

The Curriculum for Wales’ aim is for pupils to progress on a continuum throughout their education from the age of 3 to 16 years. There will be progression steps in place for each AoLE which are broadly linked to ages to guide teachers and practitioners however, as this will be a broader curriculum than the current one in place, it will be advantageous for teachers and practitioners as they will be able to plan lessons and tasks geared towards all abilities in their class which will be within one or two progression steps. 

Within the Health and Well-being Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE), creativity and innovation are seen as integral skills. Curriculum for Wales (2020) states that within this AoLE learners are given ‘the opportunity to develop the confidence and openness to explore ideas, to consider the opinions of others and have the courage to express their own.’ This supports the Lego® Therapy intervention that could potentially be suitable for Jake, as he would have the opportunity to: develop his own confidence by taking on different roles within the group, learn how to work collaboratively with others and to consider the opinions and feelings of his peers. These are all essential skills to develop as part of his social and emotional development. 

‘LEGO® Therapy uses play to develop social competency by creating opportunities to interact.’ (Andras, 2012, p.17). The intervention involves a structured approach to aiding pupils to achieve and develop many skills which include social skills. For this intervention, the pupils who participate either have social skills which need to be developed or have ASD. As the pupils who participate in this intervention have varying needs and abilities, it is crucial to make them feel as motivated and engaged as possible. Therefore, play is a key factor which can be clearly seen throughout and aids the pupils to develop the social and emotional skills that are needed for them to progress with their individual development. Mildred Parten developed six stages of social participation in her famous study (1932). Initially, they were developed for younger children however, they can also be used for older children. The first stage is unoccupied play, the second stage is solitary play, the third stage is onlooker play, the fourth stage is parallel play, the fifth stage is associative play and the sixth stage is cooperative play. During the study, Parten found that as children got older, they engaged in more social forms of play and that younger children engaged in the first three forms of play. (Rymanowicz, 2015). The aim of Lego® Therapy is to get pupils to the fifth and sixth stage of play comfortably, as when they reach this stage of play, it is clear that they have had to develop skills such as cooperation, turn taking, helping others to get to those stages. 

When pupils participate in Lego® Therapy, they firstly have to agree to a set of ground rules within the group. The Practitioner leading the intervention will explain what Lego® Therapy entails and what the pupils be doing throughout the intervention. There are three main roles in Lego® Therapy which all of the pupils in the group will have a chance to have a go at. The roles include an engineer which is the person who reads the instructions and tells the supplier the parts that are needed to create what they are building. The second role is the supplier, who is the person that gives the builder the exact parts that are needed to build the model. The third role is the builder who follows instructions from the engineer which then enables them to construct the model. The pupils will change roles throughout the session to ensure that they have all experienced different roles. (LeGoff et al. 2014). As the intervention is aimed at developing the pupils’ social skills, it is important that the practitioner leading the intervention remains as non-verbal as possible. This is to encourage the group to help one another by communicating and cooperating. The only time the practitioner should verbally engage with the pupils is to praise them for their efforts and for what they are contributing to the group. The practitioner is also there to ensure that the pupils remain on task. 

As the intervention is aimed at improving Jake’s social and emotional skills, the intervention will be tracked through observing Jake during the Lego® Therapy sessions. The practitioner observing Jake will use an observational tool to make notes and tick off where he is on the scale. For example: when Jake is unable to make eye contact with his peers, the practitioner will tick off 1 on the chart. The charts would be labelled 1-10, 1 being that the child is unable to demonstrate the skill, 5 would be that they are getting more confident and 10 meaning that they can confidently use the skill. When the child has been able to demonstrate all of the individual skills that needed to be developed in the Lego® Therapy sessions, they will no longer need to continue to participate in the intervention. 

Ferre Leavers who was born in 1950, is Director of the Research Centre for Experiential Education, which is based in Leuven University in Belgium. Leuven believes that ‘emotional well-being is seen as being at the root of involvement’ (Pound, 2009, p.34) According to Pound, (2009) he also believes that without well-being, children will not fully engage in experiences, activities, interact with others and will find it difficult to concentrate. Leavers designed the Leuven Involvement Scale in order to aid practitioners to monitor and observe the pupils’ level of involvement. Leavers defines multiple factors as indicators of the level of involvement which include: ‘concentration, facial expression and composure, persistence, verbal expression and satisfaction’ (Pound, 2009, p.34). The Leuven Involvement Scale has five levels, level 1, which means there is not a lot of activity if any at all and level 5, which means that there is a sustained amount of activity. Leuven also created the Leuven Scale of Wellbeing which also has five levels. Level 1 is ‘extremely low’ which is when the child clearly shows signs of discomfort by crying or scream and by not responding to the environment or avoiding contact with other. Level 5 is ‘extremely high’ which is when the child is happy, relaxed and is enjoying what they are doing and is comfortable in the environment that they are in. (The Leuven Scale (Emotionally Healthy Schools, 2019) There are levels in between which increase in involvement and wellbeing for both scales. For both the Leuven involvement and wellbeing scale, Jake would need to be observed during the first Lego® Therapy session in order to allow the practitioner to see where he is on the scale. The practitioner could then either complete the tick chart for involvement and wellbeing weekly or every other week to observe if he has developed certain skills which would allow him to move up the scale. 

Literacy, which is one of the cross curricular skills in the curriculum, is essential to a child’s development for many reasons. The Curriculum for Wales (2020) supports this by stating that ‘literacy is a fundamental enabler of well-being.’ It also states that literature could have great potential to equip learners with what they need in order to ‘communicate their feelings, develop relationships with others, and seek help and support.’ It recognises that ‘the role of communication in expressing emotions is fundamental’. 

‘Based on a survey of 44, 097 children aged 8-18 in the UK, the National Literacy Trust’s Book ownership, literacy engagement and mental wellbeing report shows that the more books a child owns, the more like they are to do well at school and be happy with their lives’ (National Literacy Trust, 2018).

As Jake is from a low-income family, it is doubtful that he has one if any books at home which further reduces his literacy development due to lack of resources. Jake has dyslexia which affects his reading, writing and spelling. He is still learning how to blend certain letters in words and mixes some of his letters up occasionally, this shows that Jake is quite far below his peers in terms of his literacy skills. As one of the roles in Lego® Therapy is to be the engineer and the engineer has to read the instructions, Jake may find this aspect of the intervention quite challenging and could become quite destressed as a result. Supporting Vygotsky’s theory of the ZPD and the MKO, it could be beneficial to have an extra pupil to aid Jake with his reading, possibly a pupil he likes or would like to help him. By using this theory, it will prevent Jake from getting as destressed and gives him the opportunity to interact further with a peer, without getting embarrassed as he may do if the practitioner helped him. 

Lego® Therapy would be implemented at the start of the next school term and would be the responsibility of the learning support assistant (LSA). The LSA will have to have the appropriate training to ensure that she is aware of exactly how to implement the intervention and track the progress of the pupils. The LSA will take Jake along with three other pupils who have different abilities but have similar skills to work on out of class once a week to participate in Lego® Therapy. The session will take 45minutes to an hour, depending on how the session goes and how the pupils respond to each session. The pupils would all be the same age as Jake to ensure that he feels as comfortable as possible to participate in the group sessions. The Lego® Therapy sessions would take place in the nurture room in school. As the pupils participating in the intervention have varying needs and abilities and the majority of the pupils have difficulty with their social skills, the nurture room would be a welcoming and comfortable environment for the pupils. This will help the pupils to not feel as destressed and possibly more relaxed to engage in the intervention. Unicef (2018, p.16) recognise the importance of an enabling environment and learning through play by stating that ‘it can further strengthen this emphasis by fostering coordination with other sectors such as health, nutrition and social protection’ and that this can lead to the creation of ‘a unified voice for play in children’s lives’.

Lego® Therapy was chosen as an intervention that will benefit Jake due to his social competences and the skills that he needs to develop. As Jake is currently in year 6, it is crucial that he has the appropriate support needed to support his social and emotional development before he goes to comprehensive school. There have been many studies conducted into how Lego® Therapy works and how it can aid pupils who have ASD and pupils who have difficulty with social interaction. 

Two student nurses from Nevada had to conduct 30-minute group sessions as part of their clinical assignment. As they were both parents, they decided to use Lego® to see how nine 11-16-year olds would interact with one another, how long they could sit and concentrate on what they were creating and to see what they would make with the Lego®. Within the group, the children had been diagnosed with numerous diagnoses which included borderline personality disorder and major depression. In previous groups, two of the girls had been very disruptive and verbally abusive however, before the group started the student nurses laid down ground rules to the girls by telling them that if they did not behave, they would be asked to leave the group. The student nurses state that ‘everyone shared Lego bricks and helped each other out.’ They also commented that the ‘atmosphere became calm and mellow. It was almost like all of their problems and differences were left outside of the room’. (Altman and Esber, 1995, p.48). This 30-minute group session demonstrates how effective the use of Lego® can be for children who have various needs and how it can build on transferable skills that they will need throughout their lives such as cooperation, sharing and turn taking. This piece of evidence supports that the use of Lego® does have beneficial effects on the children that were involved in the session. As Jake is 11 years old and has his own individual needs that involve both social and emotional aspects, this journal account supports the potential of Jake participating in Lego® Therapy and how it could be beneficial in order for him to develop social and emotional skills. 

Although there can be many positive aspects of Lego® Therapy, there can also be some challenges. Brodie and Mather (2017) are specialist teachers in East Sussex, who were influenced by the work of (LeGoff et al 2014) and therefore decided to pilot Lego® Therapy. As interventions they had previously used were not resulting in the pupils using the social skills developed outside of the group setting, they wanted to try an intervention in a more natural setting ‘with a clear aim of building Lego models using a resource that is so universally loved’. The project consisted of having three Key Stage 1 pupils and six Key Stage 2 pupils (five of the pupils had diagnosed autism). Some of the challenges that the group encountered include: ‘frustration and upset during the sessions’, ‘language expectations’ were difficult and ‘giving and receiving instructions.’ In order to overcome the challenges that the group faced; the two teachers introduced strategies to help the pupils overcome the initial issues. They gave the pupils an opportunity to ‘develop and agree a shared language’ in relation to the Lego® blocks, visual prompt cards were given to help with descriptions and ‘Lego tokens’ were given to the pupils when they were using certain skills such as: ‘turn taking, good listening, good use of words and seeking clarification were observed’. (Brodie and Mather, 2017). These challenges are quite similar to the challenges that Jake will have to overcome however this demonstrates that there are beneficial strategies that can used to suit the needs of the group. 

As mentioned by Brodie and Mather, 2017 ‘Lego tokens’ were used when the pupils had used certain skills, this is very similar to Skinner’s behavioural approach. Skinner believed that ‘pleasant responses can strengthen a behavioural response’ and vice versa. Reinforcement was also a very important part of Skinner’s work, he believed in reinforcing praise however not too often as it would cause praise of the behaviour to lose value. (Gray and Macblain, 2015, p.56). By giving the pupils positive responses, it might encourage Jake and other pupils to have intrinsic motivation which is when the pupil will want to do something for themselves and is not influenced by external factors. 

According to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (2020), interventions that are put in place to improve pupils’ social interactions with others ‘have an identifiable and valuable impact on attitudes to learning and social relationships in school’. The EEF also state that if the intervention was implemented as a whole school approach, the cost would be to pay for the teachers and LSA’s professional development training. ‘The average cost of professional development is well under £80 per pupil’ however, they do also state that for target programmes the cost would be substantially higher. Therefore ‘the overall average cost is rated as moderate’. (EEF, 2020) In order to start the intervention, Lego® Blocks would be needed along with Lego® instruction cards. The staff would also need to be trained in order to implement the intervention correctly. Observational tools would need to be created in order to track and monitor the pupils’ progress. 

To conclude, Lego® Therapy has been trialled in numerous settings over the years and despite encountering some initial challenges, has proved to be quite effective for developing children’s social and emotional skills. The intervention has been included in an Estyn report on The Twyn School in July 2016 and they stated as a result of Lego therapy and working in the community alongside older members through an ‘intergenerational project’, the pupils who participate in these interventions ‘make good progress in their learning and skill development’. (Estyn, 2016, p.8). The next steps for consideration for the school would be to provide training on Lego® Therapy for the staff, this could eventually lead to Lego® Therapy becoming a whole school approach rather than an intervention in one part of the school. Parents who are interested in the intervention could be trained and involved in a Lego® Therapy after school club to encourage children of all ages to participate in the club. This could benefit many children and their families in terms of their social and emotional wellbeing.