Leave It Out!
Why We Shouldn’t Always Tidy Provision Away
When learning is stopped rather than finished
There is a moment in every Early Years setting that feels so routine that it rarely gets questioned, even though it has a profound impact on how children experience learning. A child is deeply involved in what they are doing, not simply occupied but actively thinking, exploring, testing possibilities, and the space around them reflects that thinking in a way that is both visible and evolving.
Resources have been moved, combined, adapted, and the play has clearly travelled beyond whatever the original intention might have been. It is not finished, and yet, almost without hesitation, it is brought to an end. The tidy up music is put on (45 times on repeat!)
This is rarely because the child has reached a natural conclusion. More often, it is because the structure of the day requires it. It is time to tidy up, time to move on to the next thing, time to return the space to a state that feels manageable and recognisable to adults.
From a practical perspective, this makes sense. But from a developmental perspective, something far more significant is happening, because what is being interrupted is not just activity, it is thinking.
Early learning does not unfold in neat, contained episodes. It develops through sustained engagement, through the opportunity to stay with an idea long enough for it to become meaningful.
The research into sustained shared thinking, first identified through the REPEY and EPPE studies, makes this very clear. The most powerful learning occurs when children are able to work through ideas over time, extending and refining their thinking through interaction and reflection, rather than being moved on too quickly (dera.ioe.ac.uk). When we consistently bring play to an end because the timetable demands it, we are not simply organising the day, we are limiting the depth of learning that is possible.
Learning develops through returning, not resetting
One of the most important things to understand about early childhood learning is that it is not linear. Children do not encounter something once, understand it, and move on. They build knowledge gradually, returning to ideas again and again, each time with slightly more understanding, slightly more control, and slightly more intention.
When a child comes back to something they were previously engaged in, they are not repeating what they have already done in a superficial sense. They are reconnecting with prior thinking, testing new possibilities, and refining their ideas in ways that are often subtle but deeply significant. This process of revisiting is fundamental to how learning develops.
The research underpinning sustained shared thinking reinforces this, highlighting that children make the most progress in environments where they are able to revisit and extend their play, rather than being moved on too quickly (early-education.org.uk). When provision is cleared away at the end of each session, that opportunity is disrupted. The child does not continue their thinking, they reconstruct it, and in doing so, much of the richness of the original experience is lost.
When a space ‘hovers on the cusp of mess’
Professor Kate Pahl (MMU) describes how learning often emerges in spaces that are not fixed, not finished, but are instead in a state of flux, what she refers to as moments where spaces “hover on the cusp of mess” (Pahl, 2002).
That phrase is important, not because it describes disorder, but because it captures something much more nuanced. These are spaces where ideas are still forming, where meaning is being negotiated, where children are actively engaged in shaping and reshaping their understanding through interaction with materials, with place, and with each other.
From an adult perspective, these spaces can feel uncomfortable because they do not look complete. They do not conform to our expectations of what an organised environment should look like. But from a child’s perspective, they are rich with possibility, precisely because they are not finished.
When we step in too quickly to tidy, to restore order, to make things look ‘tidy’ we risk closing down that space of possibility. We move it from something that is becoming into something that is complete, and in doing so, we interrupt the process that was still unfolding.
Provision as a holder of thinking
When provision is left in place, it begins to function in a very different way. It is no longer just a collection of resources, but a record of thinking. It holds traces of what has happened, but more importantly, it holds the potential for what might happen next.
Children returning to a space are not starting from the beginning. They are stepping back into something that already has meaning for them. They recognise what they were doing, they recall the ideas they were exploring, and they continue from that point.
This continuity is essential for sustained shared thinking to occur. As defined in the research, these are times where ideas are developed and extended over time, and they rely on children being able to remain connected to their previous thinking. If the environment is reset too frequently, that connection is broken, and the opportunity for deeper engagement is reduced.
What adults see and what children experience
One of the reasons this can be difficult to hold onto in practice is the difference between adult perception and child experience. To an adult, an area that has been heavily used can feel unfinished, prompting a natural desire to restore it to a more recognisable state.
But what we are seeing in that space is not something that has gone wrong. It is something that is still happening.
Children are: exploring possibilities, testing ideas, making meaning through interaction with materials. The visible changes in the environment are a reflection of that thinking. They show that something has taken place, and that something may still be in progress.
The EPPE research makes it clear that what distinguishes high-quality settings is not how they appear at a surface level, but the quality of the interactions and the depth of thinking taking place within them (kathybrodie.com). When we prioritise appearance over process, we risk undermining the very conditions that support that depth.
What to say when someone tells you to tidy up
This is often the point where practitioners feel most exposed, because the decision to leave provision as it is can be misunderstood. Having a way to articulate what you are doing, grounded in both practice and research, makes a significant difference.
You might say that what you are seeing is not something that has been left unfinished, but something children are still working on, and that by leaving it in place you are allowing them to return and develop their ideas further. Resetting everything at the end of each session means they have to reconstruct their thinking rather than continue it.
You could also talk about the research, describing how sustained shared thinking depends on children being able to stay with and return to their ideas over time, and how environments that support this continuity are consistently associated with deeper learning.
A different way to think about tidying
This is not about abandoning routines or never resetting provision. It is about being more intentional about what we interrupt, and recognising when learning is still unfolding. Instead of asking whether something needs to be tidied, it may be more useful to ask whether the thinking within it has come to a natural conclusion. If it hasn’t, then leaving it is not a compromise.
References
Pahl, K. (2002) Ephemera, mess and miscellaneous piles: texts and practices in families
Siraj-Blatchford, I. et al. (2002) Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY)
Sylva, K. et al. (2004) Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE)
Early Education (2022) Sustained Shared Thinking
Structural Learning (2026) Sustained Shared Thinking and Cognitive Development