The Early Years Curriculum

The UK context and beyond

Lynn Ang, Lynn Ang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317806899
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Early Years Curriculum brings together a range of curriculum models from across the world, providing in-depth discussion on key issues and theories, and enabling readers to consider each approach to children's learning within an international context. It encourages readers to explore different ways of understanding the curriculum, and to develop a critical understanding of the key issues that shape the way a curriculum is designed.

1

Introduction

The curriculum in diverse settings: defining curriculum

Lynn Ang

Contextualising the curriculum

With early childhood education and care (ECEC) increasingly high on the global agenda with many governments, the early childhood curriculum is firmly placed within an international setting. The impetus for this book is to explore the purpose, function and influence of the curriculum on children’s learning and development across a range of settings. The purpose of this book is to understand the values, philosophies, theories and ideologies that underpin different approaches to the curriculum – in other words, our understanding and assumptions about how and what young children learn within their care and educational environment. For every early childhood professional, a perennial concern about their practice revolves around two key questions: what should children learn (the content of the curriculum) and how best do they learn (the pedagogy and learning that underpin the curriculum)? These questions provide a starting point from which to explore the values and knowledge that inform the way the curriculum is shaped. More importantly, they provide a basis for educators to reflect critically on the source and currency of their own knowledge and pedagogy, as they develop their understanding of early childhood education and care. These questions are particularly important, not least because of the rapid changes in government policy in a fast-developing sector such as that in the United Kingdom, as well as the proliferation of research in the early childhood field.

In the global report Start Strong II: Early childhood education and care by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the provision of quality early childhood education and care was recognised as an essential and high-priority area. The report states that ‘[t]he provision of quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) has remained firmly on government agendas in recent years. Public awareness of gaps in provision and of insufficient quality in services has moved the issue of child care and after-school care onto electoral agendas in many countries’ (OECD, 2006). The report provides an account of the issues and debates that take place in the early childhood sector in twelve countries around the world, and the developments that occur within specific countries across Europe and the United Kingdom in their drive to transform the early years sector and improve services for children.

With specific reference to the early years curriculum, the OECD also published a report in 2004 by its Directorate of Education entitled Starting Strong: Curricula and pedagogies in early childhood education and care. Five curriculum outlines (OECD, 2004). The report marked the culmination of a cross-country project launched in 1998 on the ‘Thematic Review of Early Childhood Education and Care Policy’, aimed at improving access to and quality of early childhood education and care. As part of an extensive review of early childhood policies globally, the report on curricula and pedagogies explored the knowledge base and research of early childhood programmes across five countries: the experiential education approach in Flanders and the Netherlands; the High/Scope Curriculum in the United States; the Reggio Emilia Approach in Italy; Te Whãriki in New Zealand; and the Swedish curriculum. While the report provides useful insights into each curricula model, it also raises pertinent issues with regards to the quality and diversity of early childhood curricula. It contends that while countries approach and define curricula in different ways, there is an overarching need to ensure that the quality and impact of early childhood curricula are sustained at the highest possible standard of practice and delivery. Significantly, the report emphasises the importance of taking into account the knowledge base and values that underpin our different approaches to the curriculum, the thinking and learning processes that work best for young children, and the implications of this for early years professionals and their practice. These findings from the international community have heightened debates around issues relating to the curriculum, pedagogy and the way countries govern early childhood services in general.

In England, the issues foregrounded in the OECD reports help to contextualise the major policy drivers undertaken in recent years to raise the quality of early years provision in terms of accessibility, equality, curriculum and pedagogy (OECD, 2006). The early years sector has continued to evolve in a dynamic sea of change, in particular with regards to policy developments. The review of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) established in the Tickell report (Tickell, 2011) precipitated the introduction of a revised statutory curriculum, with key recommendations to reduce the number of early learning goals and place fewer bureaucratic demands on practitioners to fulfil statutory assessment requirements when delivering the curriculum (DfE, 2012). Following the introduction of the revised EYFS, an independent review of early years professional qualifications was undertaken and published in the final report, Foundations for Quality. The independent review of early education and childcare qualifications (Nutbrown, 2012). The report provided a timely review of the early years workforce, with proposals to improve the professionalism of the workforce by raising the standards of professional training and qualifications. One of the recommendations from the report, for instance, is to move towards a minimum level of qualification for early years practitioners: ‘Ultimately, the long term target should be that all staff counting against the staff: child ratios in the EYFS should possess at least a “full and relevant” level 3 qualification’ (Nutbrown, 2012). These reforms continue to shape the shifting landscape of the early years sector, with implications for the role of early years professionals in delivering and shaping the curriculum.

Defining curriculum

The very notion of curriculum is elusive as its meaning is often open to multiple interpretations. The concept of ‘curriculum’ gives rise to many different perspectives and theories, and these vary not only according to those who deliver it but among those who learn from it. These interpretations of ‘curriculum’ are crucial as they in turn serve as sources of curriculum decisions made at the level of policy and practice. It is therefore immensely important that we investigate various approaches to and definitions of curriculum to help us identify the philosophical and epistemological roots that shape much of current thinking about young children’s learning and development.

Early definitions of curriculum tended to espouse an aspirational model of education by which children are taught and towards which they are guided. Spodek (1973), for example, argues that curriculum models are idealised descriptions of programmes that can be copied or emulated. Evans (1982) states that ‘a curriculum model provides an ideal representation of the essential philosophical, administrative, and pedagogical components of a grand education plan’. Both definitions suggest a somewhat ‘ideal’ model of education and the role of educators in the pursuit of achieving such a vision. In another early definition, Tanner and Tanner (1980) define the curriculum as a highly prescriptive learning experience, which follows a formulaic construction of knowledge and experiences that contributes to the accumulative growth of the individual’s competence. As they write, the curriculum is:

the planned and guided learning experiences and intended outcomes, formulated through the systematic reconstruction of knowledge and experiences under the auspices of the school, for the learners’ continuous and wilful growing in personal and social competence.

However, as recent paradigms emerge, particularly about the sociology of childhood, this notion of curricula as an idealised and highly structured educational framework becomes untenable. The growing literature regarding sociocultural theory and the importance of situating children’s learning and development within their sociocultural contexts and developing sociocultural beliefs has led to significant shifts in our understanding of the curriculum. In the journal paper ‘New directions: charting the paths for the role of sociocultural theory in early childhood education and curriculum’, Edwards (2003) argues for the importance of sociocultural values and their influence on the way the curriculum is shaped:

The creation of curriculum is a human endeavour, and like all human endeavours involves the cultural values, beliefs, assumptions, theories and languages of its developers in its very construction. Defining curriculum therefore becomes a task of identifying not only course content, but also the particular cultural values and theoretical constructs on which it has been based.

From a sociocultural perspective, the curriculum is therefore embedded within its particular social, cultural and historical context, and is a product of its time and culture. Decisions about the content of the curriculum and how it is delivered are informed by society’s understanding and assumptions of how children develop and learn, and determined by its purpose and function (what and who the curriculum is for). As a cultural and social construct, the early childhood curriculum is therefore an educational framework which reflects larger societal concerns and expectations. They help shape government and public expectations of what and how children should learn, even though these can at times be different from those held by early childhood practitioners. As the 2004 OECD report explicitly states, we are all embedded in culture and the curriculum can never be copied from somewhere else but ‘must be developed in the historical and cultural context of each country’. The report lays an important claim in broadening our current understanding of the concept of curriculum. By adopting a sociocultural approach, it acknowledges the complexity of the way curriculum models develop, and the reality that there are no two curricula that are exactly the same and there therefore cannot be any replication.

The construction of the early childhood curriculum has immense implications for early years professionals. As a framework of practice, the curriculum provides an educational structure and direction for educators in their work to support and develop the competencies and skills of young children (Sylva et al., 1999). The curriculum provides a conceptual framework for educators’ decision making in terms of planning and setting their educational priorities, policies and teaching practices. The body of knowledge that influences the way the curriculum is shaped is therefore crucial, as it gives us a clue as to how the curriculum is determined and by whom. Historically, during the 1980s and 1990s, theories of child development were the dominant theoretical foundation for constructing the curriculum (Silin, 1987; Spodek, 1986; Spodek and Saracho, 1991; Weber, 1984). This meant that how learning took place and what was taught in settings were determined by psychological concepts of how children developed. This theory was influenced predominantly by the work of the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget. According to Piagetian theory, children develop in a linear, predictable progression along identifiable milestones or stages, but the environment in which their development takes place is somewhat de-emphasised and irrelevant. A major criticism of this paradigm was the cultural appropriateness of using developmental theory as an underpinning paradigm for learning, and the universal application of the curriculum for children whose cultural and social backgrounds can be very diverse, and whose development does not always conform to a hierarchical, organised sequence.

As research in early childhood education advanced, the work of Vygotsky (1978) and later Rogoff (1984, 1998) presented an alternative paradigm for the curriculum, emphasising the importance of the social context and collaborative process of learning. As a cultural psychologist, Vygotsky, unlike Piaget, stressed the social nature of development and how learning is context dependent. At the core of Vygotsky’s work is the notion that children develop best as a result of their interactions with the sociocultural environment and the world around them. Building on Vygotsky’s theory, Rogoff went on to argue that children developed cognitively through participation in their sociocultural contexts, either by observing or participating actively in their interactions within the community and society. Children would then develop their own cultural norms or cultural competence in order to interact effectively with those around them. The work of Bronfenbrenner (1979), an American psychologist, has also made significant contributions to our understanding of how children develop in their sociocultural contexts and of the interactions that take place within them. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model consists of a series of ‘nested’ structures which signify the complex layers of influence on children’s development. Referred to as the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem, each of these integrated layers demonstrates the inter-relationships between the child, family, community and society, and the powerful impact they have on children’s development.

The ideas of cultural theorists such as Bronfenbrenner, Vygotsky and Rogoff offer a more differentiated understanding of the contextual influences on children’s development by recognising the extent to which children’s development is mediated first and foremost through their wider social, cultural and political environments. This focus on the wider context of learning has informed much of current practice in early years settings today, where collaborative learning, play and interaction – encouraging cooperative relationships among children and between children and adults, and ensuring learning is situated within sociocultural contexts – have become central tenets. What seems to take precedence is the importance of taking into account a holistic perspective of children’s development and creating an environment that is conducive to exploring, learning and constructing, and which is meaningful to the child. The relevance of sociocultural theory for contemporary understanding of the early childhood curriculum is therefore pervasive, especially in the way that it has shaped our knowledge of how children’s learning can be developed and supported.

The influence of sociocultural theory is not only pertinent but also far reaching in the way that it informs cross-cultural research in the field, more specifically in the Asia-Pacific region, where early years curricula are often perceived as unique learning environments and distinct cultures for learning. In an ethnographic study of the early years curriculum in Singapore, Ang (2010) argues:

Vygotsky’s ideas inform us of the importance of adopting a holistic perspective of early childhood education. More importantly, it also emphasises the significance of taking into account a cross-cultural perspective, not least because children develop and learn in the context of their culture and society, and one is inconceivable without another.

Key questions

The chapters that follow will therefore seek to explore the different knowledge base and models of the early childhood curriculum. They will aim to understand the sociocultural dimensions of the teaching and learning experience, the purpose and role of the curriculum and its impact on children’s development and learning. Throughout the discussions in this book, key questions arise:

■ What does it mean to provide an effective early childhood curriculum?

■ As practitioners and students of early childhood, how do we know if the setting is providing an appropriate curriculum and how do we know if it is effective or even appropriate for the children?

■ How do educators maintain the quality of their curriculum and service? Is providing additional funding and resources the only solution?

■ Who defines what is a quality curriculum? How can we define a quality curriculum when quality itself is such a dynamic and complex concept, influenced by values and beliefs, and closely bound up with culture and context?

■ How can the curriculum address issues of inclusion and inequalities?

■ How can we deliver the curriculum in a way that ensures all children, regardless of their background, are able to participate fully in a quality early years provision?

There are no easy answers to these questions, but what they provide are starting points for reflection and new challenges from which to explore the pertinent issues and debates that surround our understanding of the curriculum. What is clear is that all early childhood settings, regardless of their type or function, have a responsibility to deliver a curriculum that serves the needs and interests of the child, and one which develops children’s learning. To do so would certainly mean that the child’s cultural and social context must be taken into account in all its complexities.

To deliver an appropriate and quality curriculum also means evaluating its impact and effectiveness on the children and their learning. It is my fervent belief that a curriculum or experience of learning is only ever effective if it is meaningful to the child. To this e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Introduction – The curriculum in diverse settings: defining curriculum
• Chapter 2 The Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum in England: a missed opportunity?
• Chapter 3 The challenges of implementing an early years curriculum: a practitioner’s perspective
• Chapter 4 Providing an inclusive early years curriculum through physical learning
• Chapter 5 Implications of special needs and multiculturalism for the early years curriculum
• Chapter 6 A book is a machine: electronic storybooks in the early years curriculum
• Chapter 7 The Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education
• Chapter 8 The Singapore context: A Framework for a Kindergarten Curriculum
• Chapter 9 Conclusion: rethinking curriculum
• Index