HISTORICAL AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES OF EARLY YEARS
By Linda Fuller
The purpose of this assignment is to critique and evaluate the chosen article in terms of strengths and weakness and to demonstrate an understanding of an international educational approach to Early Years education. In addition it will explore the similarities and differences of the international approach to the current Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) working within my setting. Furthermore it will critically reflect upon the strategies within the approaches to identify possible issues and limitations of systems.
The article I have chosen is called ‘The struggle for Early Childhood Curricula: A comparison of the English Foundation Stage
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(Soler and Miller 2010, p. 60)
Throughout my career I have worked within settings that do not comply to a national curriculum as there was none, and also within settings that did. It was in 1996 that the first UK curriculum was introduced which was called ‘Desirable Outcomes’. Within the document were learning outcomes to be achieved by all children by the age of five and being a centralised system, an inspection scheme was also introduced. In this article Soler and Miller (2010) highlight how these changes were perceived to be shaping the early childhood curriculum from the outside rather than from within the early childhood community.
On the opposite side of the continuum, the Reggio Emilia approach is a programme that is centred on the principles of respect, responsibility, and community. It is based on the interests of the children through a self-guided curriculum with no early learning goals or inspections.
The article then goes on to explain how in 1999 new curriculum guidance was introduced in the UK which was entitled ‘Early Learning Goals’. It was later developed to bring in six learning areas and stepping stones that led each child towards an early learning goal. Soler and Miller (2010) research this statement further and write, that in structuring the curriculum and its assessment in this manner, the policy makers have made assumptions about where the levels begin and end for all children. My
In this assignment I am going to compare previous and current pioneers that have and are influencing the current principles of early year’s pedagogy. For example how they are influencing the four principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). This assignment will get me to look at different views that theorist have to education and how they can be used in current practice. It will provide me with the information on how they influence early year’s pedagogy and current practice. Throughout this assignment I will be referencing from current reading that I am doing, these will range from eBooks to articles. I will be using nursery world articles to provide information about each pioneer and what their work has done for current principles in early year’s pedagogy.
This assignment is based upon my understanding of child development and children’s learning, considering the curriculum for the Early Years and the curriculum for the Early Years Foundation Stage/Key Stage One. I propose to outline a rationale for effectively continuing children’s learning, from the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage into Year One and include strategies to support transitions, effective curriculum delivery and links between the EYFS and the National Curriculum. Throughout the assignment I will refer not only in general but also to how my research has help me as a practitioner help my setting to effectively continue children’s learning.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is the statutory framework that sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children are ready for school and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills t hat provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life. The Early years foundation stage was introduced in 2008 and sets out one standard framework for learning, development and care for all children from birth to the foundation year.
I achieve this within my role by ensuring residents and their families are informed, kept up to date and by providing clear choices. I will act as an advocate on behalf of the young people in my care, to ensure they are represented and heard.
The early years curriculum that supports children's care learning and development is the foundation phase. Foundation phase promotes learning through play. There are 7 areas of learning that consists of:
Theories of development and frameworks to support development are incredibly important to us working with children and young people. They help us to understand children, how they react to things/situations, their behaviour and the ways they learn. Different theories and ways of working with children have come together to provide frameworks for children’s care, such as Early year’s foundation stage (EYFS) which is used within all child care settings. This encourages us to work together, help and check the development of babies, children and young people, to keep them healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to
Early childhood education curriculums are becoming a national curriculum in most countries. With more governments and society thinking about education of under-fives we are seeing shifts in thinking and education to meet the changing world. We are developing children skills for the future to create a society where children feel they belong and can contribute to society. Curriculums are being influenced my social, political, cultural, historical and theoretical issues that are impacting different curriculums in the world. I am going to explore and develop my understanding about three different curriculums to recognise the different influences affecting curriculums. I am going to explore the curriculums of Te Whāriki: New Zealand, Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia and Curriculum for Excellence: Scotland. This will allow me to develop an understanding of other curriculums which I have not heard about to discover other way to education that I have not been taught in teacher’s college.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum in England differs greatly in structure and content to the Te Whariki curriculum in New Zealand; this therefore makes for an interesting comparison. The EYFS was introduced in England, in 2008, by the DfE as a framework that ‘sets the standards for learning, development and care of children from birth to five’ (DfE, 2012). Alternatively, Te Whariki was founded in New Zealand, in 1996, based on the aspirations for children ‘to grow up as competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body, and spirit, secure in their sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society’ (Ministry of Education, 1996). Throughout this essay, the EYFS
1. Setting the standards for the learning, development and care, ensuring that every child makes progress and that no child gets left behind. Parents, providers should deliver individualised learning, development and care that enhances the development of the children in their care and gives those children the best possible start in life. Every child should be supported individually to make progress at their own pace and children who need extra support to fulfil their potential should receive special consideration. All providers have an equally important role to play in children’s early years experiences and they have to ensure that the provision they deliver is both appropriate to children’ needs and complementary to the education and care provided in child’s other settings.
In my role as senior I am responsible for ensuring that all individuals, their families, friends, carers and members of staff and those I work with (ty mawr) in partnership, are treated equally. Everyone should be treated with dignity and respect. There are many legislations, Codes of practice which ty mawr follow. The workplace policies which regulate equality diversity and inclusion with each area of responsibility. Below is a list of acts.
The legal status and principles of the Early Years Foundation stage is used with children aged from birth to five years. The Government have outlined three primary and four specific areas and seventeen early learning goals that they think are important to a child’s development and planning is used to meet a child’s individual needs.
1.1 Explain how the range of early years settings reflects the scope and purpose of the sector
Reggio Emilia is a child driven methodology where children are enriched within their environment as well as communication from their peers. Reggio Emilia schooling is an innovative approach for preschoolers and kindergarteners. Teachers are considered co learners with the children. The classroom environment is considered a “third teacher” while the children are seen as obtaining a “hundred languages”. Reggio Emilia schooling can be viewed as an out of the box and unorganized approach to learning due to excluding a written curriculum. Reggio Emilia has been viewed as highly unstructured with a high chance of bullying to develop. Reggio Emilia is an unconventional way of providing students with a manipulative environment including co-learners
The National Quality Standard includes standard 1.1 states that ‘An approved framework informs the development of a curriculum that enhances each child’s learning and development’. This is where the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is introduced. This framework is included in the National Quality Standard to help ensure the consistency in the delivery of learning programs within Australia. Within the EYLF is the Early Childhood curriculum framework which guides early childhood educators to develop quality early childhood education programs. This framework describes the principles, practice and learning outcomes which support and enhance young children’s learning from birth to five years old, and then their transition to school.
The article, The Emergence of Emergent Curriculum, talks about the two different ways that a curriculum is set. The first way is emergent curriculum which goal is to respond to every child’s interest. Emergent curriculum starts off as being a day to day plan based upon a response to their observations and reflections on the children’s interest and needs taken during the teachers observing the children’s play and recording what they saw, only after this is the curriculum set into place. Then during the last half of the twentieth century there was concern for social equality. This led to the creation of the Head Start program. Preschool teachers were expected to