ABSTRACT
This book on children’s schemas has been with us, as a team, for a long time. The idea of writing a book together was conceptualised at a time when we were meeting regularly with Chris Athey (every six weeks or so) to think about children’s development and learning, and to deepen our understanding of schemas. We engaged in day-long sessions and sometimes discussed only three five-minute video sequences during a whole day, which were supported by additional documentation. Sometimes the parents attended and contributed on the day. At other times, we met with families separately. They always made the major contribution. Chris says that she ‘never tells people less than they want to know’ and she certainly never needed to simplify anything for parents, although there was one memorable occasion when she nearly ‘scared the living daylights’ out of our 0–3s advisory team, who were invited to join our session for part of the day. (In fairness to them, they are now avid readers of Chris Athey’s research and competent trainers in schema theory.) So this book is one outcome of those study days.
