I would just like to say a huge thank you to Early Vision for giving me the opportunity to show my Year R children the 'real world' and so easily. They love designing their own role play areas based on the videos and play so beautifully when done. I enjoy completing the activities with them and they respond really well. Thanks again. Mrs Gorton

During Summer Term 2007, as Foundation Stage Coordinator, I agreed to trial the ‘Early Vision’ Pack introduced to myself and our Headteacher through the ICT Register and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, of which we are a members.
Having an embedded ethos of Learning through play in our classroom, the importance of real-life experiences is always uppermost in my mind when planning our learning journeys which is why Early Vision had immediate appeal. 
Our setting is a small village school deep in rural Rutland (nearest city approx. 20 miles)  with the class consisting of 24 EYFS children, myself and a marvellous TA. We selected to trial ‘The Post Office’ Pack, as our focus was ‘Letters and Parcels’, and I initially envisaged many hours of role play in small groups with the myself and/or our TA supporting, questioning and generally encouraging/extending the role-play.
This was not how things panned out as our TA spent the term on Sick Leave following a major operation. I wasn’t sure how I could manage the practicalities of extra Role Play activities I had originally planned being alone in the classroom for many sessions, but thanks to Early Vision I needn’t have worried! The whole philosophy of the scenarios lends itself to whole-class teaching, and the quality of the short film clips is so good that my class knew immediately what and how they wanted to play after watching them. I cannot praise the film footage highly enough, as this type of child-friendly factual detail is otherwise really difficult to track down. The quality of their learning was superb, and the pleasure they gained from wrapping, weighing, sorting, ordering and labelling parcels was tremendous! Best of all, they didn’t need me to interfere!!!  Early Vision is a marvellous tool for children to enable independent learning, as it really gives children the confidence and direction for them to extend their own learning within the confines and security of their setting. I was also very impressed with the ideas within the training film, and incorporated many of the ideas immediately to enhance my own practice.
The children loved Meg, and valued her contributions enormously! From my experiences of Early Vision I thoroughly recommend it to colleagues working in the EYFS and also in KS1.
Incidentally, I was observed by Rutland Early Years Advisor Sally Hickman during this time, who described the teaching and learning she encountered as ‘phenomenal’ and I do feel that Early Vision certainly played it’s role in this!