Child Observation

A Guide for Students of Early Childhood

Ioanna Palaiologou

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781526470799
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Bildung
• Subtopic: Frühkindliche Bildung

This is a key text that enables students to appreciate and understand the central role of observation in understanding, planning for and educating early years children.It explores the theoretical background to child observation and links it back to practice. Recent important research in the field of child observation is highlighted and ethical implications of research in early childhood are considered. This is essential for all those studying for degrees and foundation degrees in early childhood, early years and related disciplines and for Early Years Teacher candidates.

• Updated in line with recent policy and legislation changes
• A new chapter on observation documentation in the multi-modal age
• Includes new material and case studies that explores the essential elements of child observation across the world
• Research chapter re-written to make it more accessible for all students
• More case studies throughout linking theory to practice.

Chapter 1 Observation in the policy context

Chapter objectives

In reading this chapter, you will:

• consider the changes to the policy context of early childhood education;
• have an overview of influential curricula;
• develop an understanding of curricula and assessment requirements in the UK;
• consider provision for children from birth to five years;
• explore the role of observation and the impact of policy within early childhood education.

Policy impacts on the daily practice of practitioners as it can determine the curriculum, assessment and expectations from each child in the setting. Practitioners need to demonstrate how these polices are met in their own setting and understand how observation can be affected as a consequence of the policy.

Introduction

The interest at policy level nationally and internationally is increasingly on the use of standardised tests and assessments. For example, the international organisation for promoting economic growth, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED), has established standardised tests to assess the educational progress of 15-year-old children with the results being compared among its member countries. The Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) is used by many countries to rate a country’s progress in relation to their education system. In 2015 the OECD announced the introduction of a standardised assessment programme for five-year-old children, the International Early Learning and Child Well Being Study (IELS). The IELS was piloted in England, Estonia and the United States at the end of 2017 with over 1,000 children, their parents and teachers taking part. It is stated that: The study takes a holistic approach and includes multiple domains of early learning: emergent cognitive skills such as literacy and numeracy, social and emotional skills such as empathy and trust, and skills that draw from both cognitive and non-cognitive capacities, such as self-regulation (OECD, 2018: Findings from the IELS 2017 Field Trial). The programme used direct assessments, collecting information from five-year-old children, where children completed tasks on tablets. The assessment takes about 15 minutes per domain with only two domains assessed per day. The OECD (2018) has now announced that the assessment instrument will be finalised in 2018, with the aim to be used by countries to inform policy and practices by 2020. This international standardised assessment of young children has received a number of criticisms (e.g. Moss and Urban, 2017; Pence, 2017) which argue against standardised assessment tests and urge the international early childhood community [to] be supportive of a meaningful, contextualised learning initiative, conducted in respectful and participatory ways (Urban, 2018, p.97).

However, educational policies are increasingly seeking for a more standardised approach to assessment as is the case in England currently with the introduction of the Baseline Assessment (as discussed in the Introduction). Yet research evidence shows that assessments should not be based on tests, but should embrace a wide array of formats such as observations, portfolios, parents and practitioner views in the process of development and learning in a given individual child, taking into account a child’s home culture or any other spaces that a child moves in daily. Thus this chapter aims to discuss the policy landscape of early childhood education which has left the field with a variety of terms, ideologies and practices examining the role of educational policy with a focus on curriculum and assessment and the role of observations. Knowing the policy context in which you work with young children will help you understand the value of observation and determine its uses.

Activity 1.1

The role of policy, why is it important?

Fitzgerald and Kay (2016, p.1) argue that policy-makers impact on the way practitioners are working with children:

Policies are not just conjured up out of thin air. People who make policies have reasons for what they do. We may not agree with them, but they are reasons, not mere whims. We need to understand those reasons in order to implement more effectively those policies that appear to be useful and to challenge more effectively those that do not. We want to argue against the sense of helplessness. Practitioners can do more than just cope, particularly when policies are not seen as appropriate or effective.

Reflecting on the above quote, consider the value of understanding policy. Discuss the role of policy in your context and how it is impacting in your work.

Policy context and early childhood education

Historically, early childhood education policy and quality in many countries has been influenced by distinctive strands of thinking, ideology and practice. The OECD (2001 and 2006) in two reports argues that:

ECEC [Early Childhood Education and Care] policy and the quality of services are deeply influenced by underlying assumptions about childhood and education: what does childhood mean in this society? How should young children be reared and educated? What are the purposes of education and care, of early childhood institutions? What are the functions of early childhood staff?

(OECD, 2001, p.63)

In a recent examination of 30 countries’ educational policy on ECEC it was found that although there is progress made among many countries in improving quality, systems are still divided between education and care and the professionalisation of staff varies depending on the ages of the group of children (Oberhumer and Schreyer, 2018; full report on all countries can be found at: http://www.seepro.eu/English/Country_Reports.htm).

Policy reforms have left ambiguity and competing discourses regarding the nature and role of ECEC. For example, from one perspective, the idea as to whether provision should focus on care or education that is based on children’s needs still dominates discussions of its nature that are reflected in the role societies promote. On the other hand, the age boundaries of early childhood education are still debatable. For some, early childhood education is concerned with the period between birth and five years (e.g. the UK) while for others it is between birth and six years (Austria, Greece, Italy, Sweden). Moreover, even the terminology has been diverse: the terms ‘early childhood education and care’ or ‘early years’ or ‘pre-school education’ have been used to describe areas that are hosting children from birth to five or six that we refer to variously as ‘nursery’, ‘child care’, ‘day care’, ‘pre-school’, ‘kindergarten’ and ‘early years setting’, each of which follows different programmes that have their own philosophy, mission and approaches to practice (see the Theory Box on p.28, Table 1.1) that presents some of the most influential approaches that have shaped curricula and educational policies around the world).

This diversity is also mirrored in the people who are responsible for working with young children – normally referred to as ‘early years teachers’, ‘early childhood teachers’, ‘early years practitioners’, ‘early childhood practitioners’, ‘pre-school teachers’. Questions have been raised as to what extent they are perceived as professionals or whether it is just an occupation. In the UK, for example, people who worked with young children were considered part of the social care sector and under the responsibility of health and social care (Chalke, 2013). Earlier, Cohen et al. (2004), in a cross cultural-national study which examined reforms for young children in three countries (England, Scotland and Sweden), concluded that the relationship between education and care is problematic and linked with society’s understanding of childhood. For many years in many western countries (i.e. England, Scotland, Greece, Sweden) early childhood was the responsibility of welfare services and it a relatively recent phenomenon that it has become the responsibility of education. Consequently, the people who were working in the sector were received with scepticism by the rest of the established educational world as part of the education community (Brock, 2012; Taggart, 2011). Moyles (2001, p.81) addresses this from earlier on:

[I]t seems impossible to work effectively with very young children without the deep and sound commitment signified by the use of words like ‘passionate’. Yet this very symbolisation gives a particular emotional slant to the work of early childhood practitioners which can work […] against them in everyday roles and practices, bringing into question what constitutes professionalism and what being a ‘teacher’ means.

At the policy level, and considering the long history of different provision in the field, it has taken a long time to actually merge the terms ‘education’ and ‘care for children’. In many western countries the introduction of curricula for ECEC emerged in the 1990s. For example, in the US, although the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) – initially the National Association for Nursery Education (NANE) prior to the change of name to NAEYC in 1964 – has existed since the mid-1920s, it took until 1995 to develop a set of recommendations for early childhood education and educators (that were revised again in 2006).

Another example comes from public pre-school in Sweden that has had a long tradition of regulation and working towards professionalisation. As early as the 1960s the government organised committees to examine content and working methods in the pre-school class for six-year-olds (OECD, 2010, p.23). Professionals working in day care and the pre-school class were expected to have similar training and work on similar content for children of all ages. The educational function of both day care and the pre-school was recognised, as well as the key notions of interaction, communication and dialogue. It was in 1996 that the Ministry of Education and...