The staff training took place on Thursday 28th November 2019.

Introduction:

Dreaming the world

Sapiens rule the world, because we are the only animal that can cooperate flexibly in large numbers. We can create mass cooperation networks, in which thousands and millions of complete strangers work together towards common goals. One-on-one, even ten-on-ten, we humans are embarrassingly similar to chimpanzees. Any attempt to understand our unique role in the world by studying our brains, our bodies, or our family relations, is doomed to failure. The real difference between us and chimpanzees is the mysterious glue that enables millions of humans to cooperate effectively.

This mysterious glue is made of stories, not genes. We cooperate effectively with strangers because we believe in things like gods, nations, money and human rights. Yet none of these things exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money and no human rights—except in the common imagination of human beings. You can never convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana by promising him that after he dies, he will get limitless bananas in chimpanzee Heaven. Only Sapiens can believe such stories. This is why we rule the world, and chimpanzees are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

Yuval Noah Harari

The slide show was the ‘main event’ that Sammy delivered:

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This presentation below shows the ages of the children and the kinds of books and adult support suitable for each age phase.

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Click this link for a list of all EYFS developmental milestones which link to sharing stories and reading books with children

Additional Reading

This additional reading (click here to download) provides some background on introducing children to books and literature can support all aspects of children’s development