Work-based Practice in the Early Years

A Guide for Students

Samantha McMahon, Mary Dyer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317202448
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Bringing together the essential theory, research and policy with examples from practice, Work-based Practice in the Early Years: A Guide for Students provides a complete guide to successful work placements for early years students. It makes links to the Occupational Standards for the Early Years Educator and the Teacher Standards for early years, and integrates examples of effective, universal and inclusive practice throughout.

Following an overview of the research and policy context which has shaped the sector since the 1990s, this new text is designed to prepare and support you, the student, as you embark on your placement, which is an integral part of your early years degree. It covers the key information you need about safeguarding and the curriculum frameworks, EYFS and the National Curriculum KS1, alongside chapters on reflective practice and research to support your developing professional and practical skills.

Written with the student in mind, this book draws on first-hand student experiences and introduces the idea of working towards being a leader of practice and the wider role in working with parents and families. This comprehensive guide also considers the views of placement providers, examining the roles and responsibilities of both the student and provider, and offering insight into their expectations and what factors make a work placement successful.

Including reflective activities, students' views and evidence from student portfolios, this is an essential text for all early years' students undertaking their work placement.

Chapter 1
Development of the early years sector

Mary Dyer and Samantha McMahon

Aims of the chapter

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• describe the development of the early years sector over the last 60 years
• identify key policies and legislation and explain how they have combined to shape the role of the early years practitioner
• understand how research within the sector has contributed to our understanding today of the role of the early years practitioner.

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of how the early years sector has developed, what it comprises today and what policy and legislation has shaped its current form. This will help you to understand the role of the graduate practitioner and how this has developed. Whilst it is easy to focus on the early years sector in terms of the services and experiences it provides for very young children outside the family home, it should not be overlooked that this provision can only be provided by a workforce that is appropriately trained, qualified and registered, and which has in-depth knowledge and understanding of children’s learning and developmental needs. To understand what this knowledge base includes means considering what the early years sector itself is, with its complex and wide-ranging responsibilities, and how it has evolved into the provision we see today. We will do this by considering key policy initiatives, wide-ranging research projects and landmark legislation and the impact they have had on the role of the early years practitioner.

The modern early years sector

The early years sector in England today comprises provision registered with Ofsted to provide stimulating, play-based care and education for children outside the family home aged from birth to 5 years, and out of school care for children aged 5–7 years. Such provision may take the form of:

• childminder services, delivered in a home setting to small groups of children
• day care provision offered by private and voluntary organisations, for all or part of a day
• breakfast club, after school and holiday provision run by schools, private, voluntary and independent providers
• Sure Start Children Centre provision run by local authorities, charities and social/health services lead bodies.

It also includes the free nursery education provided to children aged from 2–4 by schools either under local authority control or within the independent, free school and academy sector.

Thus the early years sector is a mix of government-controlled and -funded provision, privately owned and managed businesses, and voluntary, community-run provision and social service. Anything that is not local-authority controlled is referred to as private, voluntary or independent (the PVI sector), as it is owned either by individuals; independent groups such as charities, community groups and religious bodies; or education providers outside local-authority control, i.e. independent schools, academies and free schools. Whilst all providers must meet the same registration and inspection requirements overseen by Ofsted, the differences in the management structure and ownership of early years settings means that practitioners may have very different titles, job descriptions and terms and conditions of employment. However, in one respect they all come together – to meet the needs of young children and promote their learning and development as set out in the statutory Welfare Requirements (DfE, 2017) and Development Matters of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (Early Education, 2012), and to ensure and promote children’s well-being and safety.

It would be easy to think that the early years sector is a modern invention, developed over the last 20 years, following the election in 1997 of a Labour government committed to ensuring working parents had access to the childcare care provision they needed, and that this provision would be of a standard to ensure that children’s early care needs and educational outcomes would be met. However, much of the groundwork for this vision had been done many years previously by early pioneers of practice to meet young children’s needs. A brief overview of the early history of the sector highlights the influence of these early pioneers on the structure of the sector and the nature of early years practice today.

Early pioneers

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, pioneers of young children’s education included Margaret McMillan, Frederick Froebel and Maria Montessori. All three recognised the importance of physical and mental health to development and learning, and sought to create early years provision where children’s holistic development could be promoted and their understanding of the world supported and extended through play and interaction with supportive, knowledgeable adults, making full use of indoor and outdoor environments and taking into account the social and cultural influences of these children’s worlds. All three called for those employed in early years provision to receive specialist training and education in how children learn and develop, reinforcing the view that valued childhood was a necessary and unique element in children’s development, which could only be supported effectively by adults who were familiar with and understood a specific body of knowledge regarding children’s mental and physical development.

Susan Isaacs, in attempting to understand the world of the child from the child’s perspective, and advise on appropriate care and upbringing, concluded as early as 1929 that “What helps most in the long run is the ability to enter into the child’s own world with informed sympathy& and a patient and friendly interest” (Isaacs, 1929, p. 7) and that “Children need all our affection and sympathy; but they also need all our intelligence and our patient and serious efforts to understand the ways of their mental growth” (p. 2). Thus she identified the need for knowledgeable practitioners with a clear understanding of children’s mental and physical development. She argued strongly that without affectionate and sympathetic support, children’s motivation and ability to explore and understand the world would be significantly limited or even impaired and that adults should have realistic expectations of the children they care for and should know their children as individuals to be able to monitor their progress and extend their development in appropriate ways. She proposed that early childhood was, in fact, the foundation for successful subsequent learning and development, and must be properly supported in ways that met the needs of the individual child if he/she was to become a socially and cognitively competent adult.

What these early pioneers had in common then was their valuing of childhood for its own sake and an understanding that children’s learning was more effectively defined as their active and growing understanding of the world rather than their more passive acquisition of facts. This was coupled with an understanding of holistic development and the acceptance that mental and emotional health was not only as important as physical health but that it also supported this exploration and understanding of the world. What was required was a practitioner that understood this and could support it.

Strategy and the shaping of the sector

Table 1.1 below identifies some key points in the latter stages of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century in the development of the early years sector as we know it today. It includes key political initiatives and policies that have shaped the structure and size of the sector, significant legislation that has impacted on how early years practitioners work with others to ensure children’s safety and well-being, and important development in curriculum design that have driven changes to day-to-day practice in early years settings.

Until the beginning of the twenty-first century, government-funded and -regulated nursery education could only be provided by local authority-maintained providers – nursery schools and nursery classes attached to infant and primary schools – and was not a compulsory part of education provision in the UK. The PVI sector could provide care for children from birth to 5 but this was not considered as education, nor did government fund it. As nursery education was outside the compulsory education sector, which began in infant school, this meant that in many parts of the country, nursery education was in limited supply, and many children came into infant school with no experience of education or care outside the family home.

Concerns were raised in the 1960s about the impact this was having on young children’s initial experiences of settling into school and on their progress, leading to calls for provision to be put in place that would help prepare children for this significant transition in their young lives. The Plowden Report (DES, 1967), commissioned by

Table 1.1 Development of the early years sector in England

Policy or legislation	Contribution to the early years sector	Impact on the early years sector
The Plowden Report (DES, 1967)-highlights the importance of pre-school provision.	Formation of Pre-school Playgroups Association (now Pre-school Learning Alliance) 1962.	Development of voluntary pre- school provision, paid for by parents.
The Children Act 1989.	Introduces a focus on children's safety and well- being, defining children at risk and children in need; requires all providers to have suitable premises and appropriate staff.	Registration and inspection of early years day care provision by local authorities.
1997 - Labour government elected, introduces new childcare strategy - The National Childcare Strategy: meeting the childcare challenge (DfEE, 1998) with commitment to development of level and quality of provision, including workforce development.	Expansion of PVI sector through Neighbourhood Nursery Initiative, funding of Out of School Club provision; introduction of Early Years Development and Care Partnerships (EYDCPs) to support local providers; workforce development funding to raise number of Level 2 and 3 qualified staff; introduction of Nursery Education Grant (NEG) - funding nursery education for 3- and 4-year-olds for 12.5 hours per week.	Development of Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (QCA/DfEE, 2000) to support providers, and introducing stepping stones for learning outcomes - eventually to become Early Learning Goals (ELGs); Ofsted takes responsibility for national framework for inspections and registration of provision and introduces national regulation standards for different types of providers distinguished in terms of provision they offer - sessional, full day care, childminder, creche and out of school provision; Nurs...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• 1 Development of the early years sector
• 2 Placement and professional skills
• 3 Communication and teamwork
• 4 Being a reflective practitioner
• 5 Early years curriculum
• 6 How young children learn
• 7 Key Stage 1 curriculum
• 8 Practising safely
• 9 Observation and assessment
• 10 Leadership in ECEC
• 11 Developing academic reading, writing and research
• 12 Working with parents
• 13 Working in partnership with placement
• Index