Early
Childhood
and
Education
BA ECS Policy and Practice in the Early
Years
Where do
the ideas
come
from?
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•
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•
•
•
•
•
Steiner
Froebel
Montessori
Robert Owen
MacMillan sisters
Piaget
Vygotsky
Neuroscience
Child
The Early
Childhood
Curriculum
Content
Context
The
Situation
in England
• Pre-National Curriculum
• Early Years Curriculum
Group (1989)
• ‘Start Right’ (1994)
1
2
• Desirable Learning
Outcomes (1996)
• Curriculum Guidance for
the Foundation Stage
(2000)
• Birth to Three Matters
(2002)
• Early Years Foundation
Stage (2007)
Early Years Foundation
Stage (2012)
• Curriculum Guidance
for the Foundation
Stage
• Jane Davidson
• Curriculum review
The
Situation in
Wales
• England
• New Zealand
1
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=N9l9S97MRaY
Literacy
• Reconstruction
• Parents
• Malaguzzi
– https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=lWf9mBJ548k
Reggio
Emilia
• Starting Strong 1
• Early Childhood
Education and Care
• Priorities 2
International
Comparisons
Expenditure as a % of GDP
Canada
Netherlands
Germany
USA
OECD Country
Italy
Australia
UK
Military expenditure
Austria
Early Years expenditure
Hungary
France
Finland
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
% of GDP
3
3.5
4
4.5

‘The Government should
immediately prepare
legislation to create by
1999 a statutory
responsibility for the
provision of free, highquality, half-day preschool education for all
children from the age of
three, in an integrated
context of extended
day-care.’
Ball, C (1994) Start Right: The importance of
early learning RSA

‘From the review of the issues arising from a study of the
importance of early learning, the nature of good practice and the
search for a strategy for change, there arise five major findings. The
first is a recognition that children’s early learning, typically
associated with the years three to six, forms a distinct and
fundamental phase of education. It is not an ‘optional extra’, but is a
necessary foundation for successful schooling and adult learning. It
has its own proper curriculum – which is distinct from, and
preparatory to, Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum. Those
nations (like the UK) which have constructed a system of public
provision which conceals or neglects this early learning phase have
created a defective public understanding of the nature of good
educational development’
Ball, C (1994) Start Right: The importance of early learning RSA 8.6

‘the introduction of academic work into the early
childhood curriculum yields good results on
standardized tests in the short term, but may be
counterproductive in the long term. For example,
the risk of early instruction in beginning reading
skills is the amount of drill and practice required
at an early age will undermine children's
dispositions as readers’
New Zealand Review Office (2000) 10

Key issues
• Intentions which ensure that all our
children have confirming and
appropriate experiences to start of
well in life
• Interventions into poverty and high
need
• Ensuring that women have the same
career choices and same power and
responsibility as do men
• Recognition that early brain
development benefits from
consistency, attachment, stimulation
and being ‘bathed’ in language
• Awareness that investment in our
children pays handsome dividends in
the future, with less delinquency,
criminality and with greater societal
‘well-being’ as likely outcomes
Gammage, P. (2006) Early Childhood Education and
Care in Early Years Vol. 26 No. 3
