Inside Role-Play in Early Childhood Education

Researching Young Children's Perspectives

Sue Rogers, Julie Evans

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781134136537
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Based on extensive research, and grounded in everyday classroom practice, the authors of this book explore important issues surrounding play in the early years curriculum. The book presents children's views on, and response to their role-play environment, alongside examples of good classroom practice, and addresses vital questions such as:

• Will structuring role play replace children's own attempts to create scenarios that grow out of their interests and relationships?
• Has an over-emphasis on subjects like literacy and numeracy eclipsed the important processes inherent in children's social play?
• How we can ensure that provision for role play fully benefits all young children?

Critically, the authors present the child's perspective on play in schools throughout, and argue firmly against a formal, inflexible learning environment for young children. This book will be fascinating to all students on primary education undergraduate courses and early childhood studies. Researchers and course leaders will also find this book a ground-breaking read.

Chapter 1
Four-year-olds in school

Play, policy and pedagogy

Introduction

A headline in a British national newspaper in 2005 announced ‘Four-year-olds struggling with writing!’ The article went on to explain:

One in three young children are struggling to develop their early writing skills properly ... Statistics published by the Department forEducation and Skills showed 32% of four-year-olds were not developing fast enough with the skill of linking sounds and letters.

(Guardian Press Association, 2005, Thursday October 13)

To many of our international readers, such comments must seem extraordinary. At a time when most young children in Europe and elsewhere in the Western world are experiencing a kindergarten education based mainly on a diet of play and socialisation, many four-year-olds in England are apparently already failing to develop ‘fast enough’ in order to meet government targets. It is well known that the media are highly selective in what they report and how, and that there is a relationship between the media and the ‘moral panics’ that have punctuated policy debate throughout the history of education (Critcher in Buckingham, 2003). While we do not want to be unduly negative about the ways in which young children are portrayed in the media and elsewhere, the media nevertheless reflect cultural expectations as well as contributing to them. Moreover, it is certainly not our intention to promote a moral panic about the education of four-year-olds. Rather, our aim in this book is to contribute to the growing research literature that argues that there is a great deal more to the present and future lives of four-year-olds than whether or not they can link sounds and letters. So, while it might seem odd to begin a book about children’s role-play with an explicit reference to government targets on writing, the wider context of early years education, in particular cultural and societal expectations of children’s achievements reflected in the unusually early school starting age in the UK, provides the backdrop to the research reported in this book and to many of the arguments we put forward here.

We will argue that observing some of the ways in which children engage with role-play shows that, for them, school is about much more than targets for reading and writing. We learned also that by capitalising on some of the generic features of role-play—its transformative and aesthetic qualities (what Guss (2005) describes as ‘dramatic intelligence’) – we may be able to reconsider the extent to which it is positioned primarily as a tool for pedagogy, a vehicle for learning ‘real-world things’ (Strandell, 2000), and valued mainly for the ways in which it reproduces (rather than transforms) and rehearses the expectations of society (Guss, 2004). Later, in Chapter 2, we argue that ‘being four’ is a pivotal time in human development and that role-play is central to this. Of course, we are referring here to an imaginary, prototypical four-year-old, but nevertheless extensive research would seem to support the notion that between the ages of three and five children’s play becomes especially rich, integrating a number of essential attributes that lay important foundations for later learning. If this is so, we might ask why, in England at least, we place so much emphasis on the importance of ‘linking sounds and letters’ and, moreover, introduce the notion of ‘failure’ into the discourse of education for children who are not yet of statutory school age.

Starting points for starting school

Educational provision for children under five in the UK is offered within a range of diverse settings in both the maintained and private sectors. Historically, the fragmented and patchy nature of this provision has created difficulties and divisions for children, their families and practitioners alike. Early childhood services in the UK have seen an unprecedented period of development and change since the election of the Labour government in 1997. The government’s agenda to ameliorate the divisive and fragmented nature of early years provision in the UK is closely bound up with the desire to reduce child poverty and disadvantage and to encourage more lone parents (and in particular mothers) back to work. Such aspirations have required a major ‘root and branch’ approach to services for young children and their families (Anning, 2006). Central to this has been the dual aim both to increase the quantity and improve the quality of childcare provision.

This is not the place to describe in any real detail the complex and copious policies and initiatives that currently exist in the early years sector (for a comprehensive overview of policy, see Baldock et al., 2005); rather we want to set the scene for the four-year-olds in this research study. In 2000, a Foundation Stage for children aged three until the end of the reception year in school was established in England and Wales, supported by the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage (CGFS) (QCA, 2000). The aim of this initiative was twofold: first, to establish a long-awaited and distinct educational phase for young children, and second, to clarify for practitioners working with young children key areas of learning and appropriate progression towards Key Stage 1 of the National Curriculum. In broad terms this initiative was welcomed by early childhood practitioners since it provided a bridge between nursery and Key Stage 1, stressed flexibility and informality in the reception year, focused on child development, practical play and outdoor activity, and provided good guidance for teachers (adapted from Aubrey et al., 2002). The CGFS also gives prominence to children’s socio-affective, linguistic and imaginative development. Such radical changes to the curriculum, and the long-awaited recognition that the reception class was best seen as part of early years rather than of primary education, brought with it the promise of debate about raising the school starting age to six. However, despite major change and development across all areas of policy in the early years sector, one aspect that has remained remarkably resistant to change in the UK is the statutory school starting age.

In England, Wales and Scotland, the statutory school starting age is ’5 and-a-bit’ (Drummond, 2005: 83), described in official documentation as ‘the term after a child’s fifth birthday’ (QCA, 2000). In Northern Ireland it is currently four, although following a recent major review of pre-school provision this is set to change to five. The decision to begin compulsory schooling at five in England was established as long ago as the Education Act of 1870. The basis for this decision had little to do with either developmental or educational criteria and was more closely related at that time to child protection issues on the one hand (children must be ‘withdrawn from evil and corrupting influences’ (cited in Read, 2006)), and an attempt to accommodate economic pressures on the other (an early starting age justified an early leaving age in order that children could join the workforce) (Woodhead, 1989). By way of contrast, the school leaving age in England has been raised incrementally on several occasions since compulsory schooling began: in 1918 it was raised to fourteen, in 1947 to fifteen, and in 1972 to sixteen.

Though the school starting age is set officially at five, in practice the majority of children in England enter the reception classes of primary schools at four. The latest figures available at the time of writing note that 62 per cent of four-year-olds are in reception classes of primary or infant schools (DfES, 2007). In the global context, the UK is certainly unusual in its policy of admitting children to school at age four or five rather than the more common European and international age of six and sometimes seven (Woodhead, 1989; Daniels et al., 1995; Sharp, 2002; Gelder and Savage, 2004; Rogers and Rose, 2007).

Since its inception, concerns have been expressed about this unusually young school starting age, with policy reports and research studies having documented with great regularity over the decades unease both with the practice of admitting such young children into formal educational settings, and with the kinds of provision they encounter. To illustrate, consider the finding of the report of the Committee of Council on Education for the year 1897–98. Here the author writes: ‘I fear that many years will elapse before little children under the age of six are delivered from the tyranny of books and slates’ (in Read, 2006: 316). More than three decades later in 1931, the authors of the Consultative Committee Report on the Primary School noted ‘a mistaken zeal for the initiation of children at too early an age to formal instruction’ (in Read, 2006: 316). More recently still, David writes of ‘the grave concern about the kinds of provision the majority of these four-year-olds, those in primary school reception classes, are experiencing’ (1990: 5).

In spite of these concerns, there is little evidence of a serious challenge to the official school starting age or the practice of admitting four-year-olds to school, with one notable exception. It seems that proposals to raise the school starting age from five to six were discussed at some length in 1922 by the Committee on National Expenditure (personal correspondence with Kevin Brehony). This group of prudent businessmen estimated that such a move would produce a saving of some £1.7 million (Simon, 1991). The proposal was eventually rejected, and the trend to admit four-year-olds into reception classes in the year of their fifth birthday has continued to the present day (David, 1990; Taggart, 2004; Adams et al., 2004). Now, as it was then, the practice is, arguably, more the outcome of economic and political expediency than well-considered educational aims (Gelder and Savage, 2004). As socio-economic conditions take precedence over debate and reasoning about what is best for children’s learning (Rogers and Rose, 2007), Sharp concludes in an exhaustive review of literature relating to the school starting age that ‘there is no compelling educational rationale for a statutory school age of five or for the practice of admitting four-year-olds to school reception classes’ (2002: 20).

A recent increase in the number of young four-year-olds entering school may be due to a number of factors. First, falling school rolls create pressures for schools simply to fill places. Second, there may be pressure from parents for their children to start school earlier because of a lack of free pre-school provision, along with the perceived educational benefits of early admission to school. These factors may also contribute to successive governments’ resistance to review school admissions policies (Daniels et al., 1995 in Rogers and Rose, 2007; Baldock et al., 2005). Third, the National Curriculum has exerted an indirect pressure within primary education to ensure that children have sufficient time in school before formal assessment at seven (Daniels et al., 1995) so that teachers may feel under pressure to prioritise formal teaching in the areas of literacy and numeracy above a developmentally appropriate curriculum based on play, socialisation and talk (Adams et al., 2004; Gelder and Savage, 2004; Fisher, 2000; Bennett et al., 1997).

Reports on admission policies have raised important concerns about the quality of provision for these young four-year-olds in reception classes (e.g. Rumbold Report, see DES, 1990; HMI Report 1988/9 cited in Cleave and Brown, 1991), noting in particular a lack of appropriately trained staff and restrictions on adequate space and resources. It is important to note that these reports have at the same time endorsed nursery-style provision for four-year-olds (Rogers and Rose, 2007). In 1995, 85 per cent of local authorities reported a single-point-of-entry policy, with only 15 per cent operating a mixed policy (Daniels et al., 1995). In light of the variation and, some would say, discrepancies between admissions policies, it is not unreasonable to suggest that any policy decision ought to be based on whether or not this is beneficial for the children. A recent review of research on the advantages and disadvantages of single-point admission to school identified a number of key considerations if children in reception classes are to receive the high quality educational experiences to which they are entitled (as set out in the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage and the proposed Early Years Foundation Stage). These can be summarised as follows:

• There is a need for training for head teachers and non-early years specialist teachers in reception classes regarding appropriate curriculum, pedagogy and assessment for this age group.
• Some improvements in organisation and allocation of internal classroom space to encourage more active modes of learning and social interaction are likely to be needed too.
• Considerable effort will be needed to ensure universal outdoor provision for children in reception classes and where possible with free-flow access between indoor and outdoor areas.
• Increased and appropriate adult–child ratios may be needed in some settings.
• Less emphasis on preparation for Key Stage 1, formal, large group ‘sit down’ tasks is needed in reception classes in favour of a much greater emphasis on active, play-based learning, both indoors and outdoors. This is endorsed by Sanders et al. (2005) in research on transitions between reception and Key Stage 1.
• Young four-year-olds in school should receive an equal share of qualified teacher time so that they are not marginalised by the perceived ‘academic’ needs of older children in preparation for entry to Key Stage 1.
• Clear guidance for parents about what constitutes an appropriate curricular experience for children in the Foundation Stage, regardless of whether they are in the school context or elsewhere, is needed. This is imperative to counter increased and unrealistic expectations of children’s academic achievement as a corollary to early entry to school.
• There is a need for greater awareness on the part of schools of the changing context in services for young children to avoid the gap which currently exists between ‘pre-school’ agencies in England and Wales such as Sure Start and ‘school’ agencies such as the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the National Primary Strategy.
• Continuity, progression and integration of services for this age group, irrespective of where they are placed, are vital to the maintenance of quality provision in the early years.

(Rogers and Rose, 2007: 59–60)

Research into the educational benefits of an early school starting age suggests that the actual length of a child’s education appears to matter less than the quality of the experience. Inappropriate provision may in fact be detrimental to children regardless of their starting age, and children who start formal schooling at a later age seem to outperform those who start earlier. The debate about the time at which a child starts school may, then, be less significant than the debate about the nature and quality of provision. If the provision is suitable to the developmental needs of young children, it appears that early attendance at school may be an advantage (as it is for pre-school attendance, see Sylva et al., 2004). The challenge seems to lie, then, not in adopting a particular entry system, but in developing educational practices ‘which better match the style of young children’s learning in the early stages of acquisition’ (Kavkler et al., 2000: 84). Arguably, the most pressing need in the field of early childhood is to develop and implement a coherent and sufficiently responsive pedagogy for all children under five wherever they may be located.

In England and Wales, the legislated curriculum framework offers this possibility, endorsing a play-based, informal curriculum and pedagogy that is designed to be responsive to the developmental, social and physical needs of children in this age group. In turn this is informed by a robust research literature in which there is compelling evidence that children aged three to five are particularly receptive to peer group play activities that nurture imagination and creativity, and that develop social competence (Piaget, 1962; Sutton-Smith, 1971; Rubin, 1980; Smith, 1990, 2005; Corsaro, 1997; Trawick-Smith, 1998) and that such skills will ultimately support the development of literacy and numeracy, positive dispositions and well-being, thus laying firm foundations for lifelong learning (Laevers, 1993; Katz, 1999). This position is further strengthened by recent perspectives from neuroscience which argue that space, time and flexible open-ended resources appear to be significant in the healthy growth, well-being and intellectual development of young children (Bergstrom and Ikonen, 2005). However, less attention has been paid to precisely how a play-based curriculum might be implemented in classrooms of primary schools.

Interest in the state of children’s play in school has, arguably, been eclipsed by the more serious, immediate and pressing concerns engendered by serial educational legislation and initiatives orientated around the concerns of primary schooling rather than early years provision. It was against this background that the present research developed.

A brief history of play in school

Play at the centre

That children ‘learn through play’ is a central and long-established tenet of the nursery and infant tradition which has shaped and continues to shape early childhood pedagogy as we know it to the present day. A central and defining feature of this tradition, well documented in the literature (see for example Bennett et al., 1997), is the belief that play is necessary to healthy growth and development and is the natural and, therefore, most appropriate way in which young children learn (see for example Isaacs, 1933; Bruce, 1991; Beardsley and Harnett, 1998; Moyles, 2005). Play activity in early childhood education features also in a succession of government reports that have punctuated the debate to the present day and particularly since the publication of the Plowden Report (CACE, 1967) entitled Children and their Primary Schools (see for example DES, 1990; QCA, 2000; DfES, 2007).

A trawl of the vast literature on play in early childhood education returns a wide range of claims for its value and significance in young children’s learning and development. Play scholars argue that children express their current interests and needs, and develop social and linguistic competence, through peer group play activity (Johnson, 1990; Corsaro, 1985), and that they exercise control over the environment, materials and outcomes, and acquire mastery of a range of skills, through the processes of imitation, exploration and practice (Piaget, 1962). Play can serve as a window on the child’s developmental status, personality and well-being (Johnson, 1990; Pellegrini and Boyd, 1993). Moreover, it is argued that learning resides in the act of play itself, that it creates its own context for learning (Vygotsky, 1978; King, 1992), and that play is the child’s work (Isaacs, 1929). Scholarly interest in the play of children is of relatively recent inception, traceable in part to the emergence of psychology as an autonomous discipline in the late nineteenth century. In carving out a space for itself within and between the existing disciplines of natural history, anthropology, physiology and medicine in particular (Burman, 1994), psychology conformed to a larger tendency of an age of science, of positivism and of incipient modernity. Both scientific modalities and the discourse of modernity promoted the measurement and classification of behaviours, abilities and dispositions in ways that were particularly apt for the study of children. In many ways this can be viewed as the late-nineteenth-century culmination of an Enlightenment project concerned with the increasing specialisation and progressive rationalisation of categories of knowledge. In a compelling deconstruction of the effects of developmental psychology in society at large, Burman notes the rise of child study ‘societies’ in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, their purpose to observe, weigh and measure children, ‘documenting their interests, states and activities’ (1994: 11). It is rather clear, then, that play provided an ideal site for the quasi-scientific observation of children’s ‘natural’ interests, behaviours and mood states. Moreover, such observation, with its roots in the scientism and positivism of the late nineteenth century, continues to inform early childhood practice today. Since then, early childhood education has tended to align itself closely with the discipline of psychology, and in particular with studies of child development.

Another relevant pre-history of play in education lies in the Romantic movement, which took its definitive form in the imaginative culture of the late eighteenth century. The social theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau were an important influence on this movement, and especially his idealisation of Nature and of ‘natural man’. Rousseau’s liberatory concerns were welded to a kind of nostalgia that was itself to become an important dimension of early Romanticism. The perceived dignity, spontaneity and expressiveness of the pre-civilised—whether of tribal peoples or of childhood innocence—represented conditions towards which ma...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Four-year-olds in school: play, policy and pedagogy
• 2 Perspectives on role-play in early childhood
• 3 Researching young children’s perspectives: a multi-method approach
• 4 Teachers’ perspectives on role-play
• 5 Exploring role-play from the children’s perspective
• 6 Playing with space, place and gender
• 7 Rethinking role-play in reception classes
• Glossary
• References