Early Childhood Education Redefined

Reflections and Recommendations on the Impact of Start Right

Pat Preedy, Kay Sanderson, Sir Christopher Ball, Pat Preedy, Kay Sanderson, Sir Christopher Ball

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780815380269
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351213646
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Probing the shortcomings of contemporary early years provision, whilst offering practical and informed solutions, Early Childhood Education Redefined at once celebrates the progress made in this field since the publication of the 'Start Right Report' (1994), whilst also calling for further changes to ensure that all children are able to 'start right', to become effective, independent learners.

Developing and emphasising the importance of concepts which have become overlooked within modern educational policy and practice, yet which remain key to our children's development, this book considers how elements such as attachment and love; movement and exercise; and language and talk may be better integrated into early years practice via the three main vectors of parenting, the curriculum, and pedagogy. From a revised curriculum from birth to seven renamed Key Stage 1, to a greater emphasis on formative assessment, and the promotion of pedagogies including purposeful play, planning in the moment and attachment theory, chapters build on the principles set out in the 'Start Right Report' and take into consideration the research and reflection developed over the last quarter of a decade.

Reopening a vital debate and challenging governments, education providers, parents and professionals to re-define what young children need to grow, develop and learn in our contemporary society, this timely response to the 'Start Right Report' is essential reading for all those involved in early years research, education and care.

1
Start Right Revisited

Sir Christopher Ball

Start Right, The Importance of Early Learning, was published by the RSA in 1994 – almost a quarter of a century ago. The Foreword, contributed by three leaders from the worlds of social service, business and industry, and the care and resettlement of offenders, asserted that:

This Report presents a challenge to the nation, to parents, educators, employers, parliament – indeed to our society as a whole. It demonstrates the importance of early learning as a preparation for effective education to promote social welfare and social order, and to develop a world-class workforce. It shows how countries benefit which provide good pre-school education for their children. . . . The Report examines good practice. . . . It finds that the key factors are a curriculum which encourages ‘active learning’, well-trained staff of the highest quality, and the involvement of parents in a triangle of care involving parents, professionals and society. Each requires attention if we are to provide our young children with the start they need for learning, for work and for life.

The time is ripe for significant change. The Prime Minister has personally responded to the growing public concern about provision of nursery education. The Report argues that this should be among our highest priorities. It squarely confronts the problem of resources, and offers a new and unexpected solution. We, too, believe that ‘no child born after the year 2000 should be deprived of the opportunity and support for effective early learning’.

The Report, containing seventeen recommendations for action, is controversial and provocative. It will stimulate a wide-ranging and lively debate. But we hope that this will not delay an effective response from the Government and others to whom it is addressed. All children should be enabled to start right.

(Ball 1994, p. 6)

Start Right attracted considerable attention from the press, parliament and the public. It earned front-page headlines in the London evening papers when it was published. Welcomed by the Prime Minister (John Major) – and then immediately dismissed by the Secretary of State for Education – it provoked an ongoing debate about the importance of early learning, its nature, its inextricable relationship with child-care, the appropriate social provision required, and the need for providers and practitioners of the highest quality. The five major findings won widespread support: that good early learning is the foundation-stone for a well-lived life; that the triangle of care provided by parents, professionals and society as a whole is essential in early childhood; that the provision must be of the highest quality if it is to be fully effective (‘good enough is not good enough’); that progress is possible and resources can be found – provided the political will can be harnessed to the task; and that to further neglect the needs of the most vulnerable members of our society – young children, especially those from a deprived or disadvantaged background – would be nothing short of a national disgrace.

The nation, and its leaders, responded to this challenge. Over the next few years most of the 17 recommendations were discussed and addressed and many of them were implemented – for example, 12. The Government should immediately prepare legislation to create by 1999 a statutory responsibility for the provision of free, high-quality, half-day pre-school education for all children from the age of three, in an integrated context of day-care. The programme named Sure Start, perhaps echoing the title of the Report, went a long way towards providing what was needed. I commend it. But the authors of this book, myself included, feel the time has now come to revisit, not just the Start Right Report, but more importantly the whole subject of ‘the importance of early learning’, to reconsider and review what still remains to be done, what has been done – but not well enough, and what further things now need to be done in the light of our learning and experience since 1994.

I identify three major areas of weakness in the provision for early childhood in our society – in spite of all that has been achieved over the past 20 years. They are: the education and support of parents, the curriculum, and the pedagogy for children from birth to 7 years. (Curriculum means what the child should be learning, and being taught; pedagogy means how the child should be learning, and being taught. The world of education – and society at large – is obsessed with curriculum, but sadly neglects pedagogy. And yet in human learning how one learns governs what is learned.)

The education and support of parents is a subject – and a challenge – that deserves several books to itself. And many such books have been written. For my generation the authoritative text was Benjamin Spock’s Baby and Child Care (1946), which taught us useful wisdom like: ‘children know best about food: parents know best about sleep’, ‘if your child seems unwell, don’t worry – it’s probably not serious – but ask your doctor about it anyway’, ‘keep your word – never make a promise or a threat that you are not prepared to honour’ and ‘support your partner – never allow the child to divide the parents’… Raising six children, my wife and I found precepts like these helpful, and they have stood the test of time.

Today, I teach (when given the chance) the simple mnemonic of NESTLE, while role-modelling the nursing mother with her baby at her breast: Nurture, Exercise, Stimulation, Talk, Love, Environment – this list offers a summary of the agenda for parents to learn and practise. (NESTLE is not a reference to dried milk!) Parents need to learn the art of nurture (as opposed to nature, which comes naturally) in both the narrow sense of ‘nourishment’ and the broader one embracing the whole subject of child-rearing. They should ensure that the child is provided with opportunities for healthy exercise, indoors and outdoors. They need to provide appropriate stimulation for the imagination, without the risk of overstimulation or over-reliance on technology. Children need talk – and time and tenderness: parents who are too busy to converse with (and listen to) their child are failing to do their job. Love seems obvious, but not all parents understand what love means: it means acceptance, care and trust. We all need and want to be loved in a way that combines these three strands, to be accepted – even when our behaviour is unacceptable, to be cared for – come what may, and to be trusted – even when we have proved ourselves untrustworthy. The art of love is not an easy one to master, and maintain. As for the environment, one of the most important parental tasks is to provide the child with an environment (both indoors and outdoors) that is both stimulating and safe. For most children today the external environment offers neither an adequate challenge of adventure nor real safety. We have sacrificed the well-being of our children to the false god of the private motor-car.

In the chapters that follow, contributors who speak with more experience and authority than I, develop this theme of the education and support that parents need today. I especially note Chapters 5 and 6, which highlight the importance of parenting and ways that parents can engage with their children particularly through play. I hope that one of the outcomes of the publication of this book might be a revival of interest in the subject, and the possibility of a national debate of the question: what do parents need to know? However, knowledge is the easy part: sound values, appropriate attitudes, the skills of child-rearing and the benefits of experience prove to be even more important to those embarking on the long and challenging journey of parenthood.

We postponed our great project of the adoption of (four) children, whose natural parents were unable (or unwilling) to care for them, until we had produced – and learned from – two ‘home-made’ babies. The experience of caring for these two ‘training children’ (as they are sometimes called in the family to this day) helped us to learn what we needed to know. One of the wisest things I have ever heard is the advice of the (wonderful) midwife, shortly after the birth of our first child, when I was left in charge of a new baby and a sleeping wife, feeling totally unprepared for the responsibility; ‘Don’t worry, Sir Christopher – if you don’t know what to do, and your wife doesn’t either, the baby will know!’ Children often, but not always, know the answer, when parents are perplexed. We should be ready to learn from them.

A delicate and sensitive issue for parents – and for those who write about parenthood – is the separate roles of the mother and the father, and the value to the child of two role models, of either sex, who stay together at least until the task of child-rearing is completed. I wrote in Start Right,

In the present state of knowledge, there is a case not so much for reasserting the traditional model of parenthood (with its pre-determined gender-specific roles), as for promoting a modern version of it (providing flexibility of role), with parents who contract to stay together at least until the (youngest) child reaches the age of parenthood, and who honour the contract.

(Ball 1994, paragraph 5.8)

Interviewed shortly afterwards, I was asked whether I seriously expected couples to wait until their youngest had reached the age of 15 before going their separate ways, if they wished to. I explained that I had meant the age of normal, responsible parenthood – which then was approaching (and now has almost reached) twice that figure! However, the Marriage Foundation informs us that today only 50 per cent of children will still be living with both (married) birth-parents, when they reach the age of 15, while the figures for co-habiting couples are even lower.

Paragraphs 5.8 and 5.9 caused some difficulty to my colleagues, who in some cases dissociated themselves from this part of the Report, and to some of its readers who did not agree with statements promoting the importance of fathers and concerned by the high risks associated with single parenthood and broken parenthood. But I stand by them. My concern is the needs of children, not the convenience of adults. Of particular interest today is the question of distinct roles for fathers and mothers. My personal experience has been of the ‘traditional’ model of the father as bread-winner, and the mother managing the home and family. It worked for us. But, today, there is a wide variety of different models to study and ponder, including shared roles, alternating roles and the converse of the traditional model, as well as single parenthood, broken homes and complex multiple step-families. Research and common sense tells us that a child’s life chances diminish with each step of the way from the traditional model of the nuclear genetic family, to adoption, fostering and institutional care. I wish it were otherwise. We need more research on the new patterns of child-rearing that are becoming commonplace. When I wrote Start Right, I tried to argue from the child’s point of view, as best as I could ascertain it. It is all too easy for adults to assume that what is convenient for them will be good enough for the children in their care. This is often not the case.

Social norms are valuable; we should not discard them carelessly. Men and women are different, both by nature and in their learned behaviour, and children seem to benefit from having both a mother and a father, if possible. It used to be said, ‘Mothers are for care; fathers are for play.’ The mother’s instinct is to keep the child safe; the father’s to encourage adventure and risk. The mother holds the baby to her breast, or on her lap; the father throws the baby in the air (and catches it) – which is why my role-modelling of the nursing mother (see above) always amuses the audience! In a century and a nation rightly determined to give the fullest equality of opportunity to both genders, we must be careful not to assume that they are identical – especially when it comes to the great task of child-rearing. Observe the babies, and ask the children. Their instinctive knowledge and attitudes deserve careful consideration, and respect. I hope these preliminary paragraphs, and this book, may serve to stimulate a wider national debate on parenthood, to enable us to identify more securely what is best for the children, and to provide appropriate education and training, in both the science and the arts of parenting, to promote good practice across the whole of our society. There is no greater, or more pressing, national challenge today.

What would good practice look like in a society that responded to this challenge, I wonder? As a first step – to launch the debate, perhaps – I propose ten guidelines for our grandchildren to ponder and evaluate:

1. Choose a reliable, long-term partner (listen to both head and heart – and study the online NVQ on ‘preparing for parenthood’, which is a prerequisite for qualifying for child benefit payments) [I wish!];
2. Before starting a pregnancy ensure that you are both in good health, have a good enough home for the baby to share with you, and are jointly practising the discipline of NESTLE (see above) in preparation for the birth;
3. Once the baby is born, NESTLE your child, encouraging the virtues of a patterned life, good habits and human kindness;
4. Teach by example – demonstrate the virtues of self-reliance, strong families and the learning habit;
5. Foster curiosity and independence, while always providing a framework of security and protection for the young child;
6. Learn to practise ‘tough love’ (study for a vocational course focusing on effective parenting);
7. Create a supportive partnership with your child’s school(s), the teachers and your friends (and theirs), to develop the ‘triangle of care’ (see the Start Right Report) that is essential for good long-term nurture of the young;
8. I leave for the reader (and our grandchildren) to identify. The elderly know much – but they don’t know it all!

However, ignorance of – or failure to learn and observe – these simple guidelines contributes not a little to a range of social evils in Britain (and elsewhere) today: child neglect, foetal alcohol syndrome and eating disorders, conditions of anxiety and OCD, lives that seem both ‘unexamined’ (as Socrates deplored) and undisciplined, learned incompetence, dependency and educational failure, ill health and poverty, crime, addiction and self-harm, obesity, drug abuse and early death… The education, training and support of parents really matters to us all. But it matters most to our children – and to their children.

The early years curriculum was summed up in the phrase ‘purposeful play’ in Start Right and set out authoritatively by Professor Kathy Sylva in greater detail in Appendix E (Glossary and Curriculum). In Chapter 2 of this book Pat Preedy proposes a revised Early Years Framework that replaces the current EYFS with a Key Stage One that covers birth to age 7. It takes into account changes in our society and the latest research. I commend it.

The appropriate pedagogy should, of course, go hand in hand with the curriculum. This principle underpins effective education at any age or stage of learning – since what we learn, as every experienced teacher (or learner) knows, depends critically on how we learn it, and how it is imparted to us. Without good pedagogy, the best curriculum will remain inert.

What is effective pedagogy? Most learners tell us that they want a teacher who loves them – accepts them, cares for them and trusts them – and who challenges them to become their best selves. The task of the teacher is to help ordinary people – like us, the authors, and you, the readers, of this book, and those in our care – to live extraordinary lives. I like the formulation of warm, demanding adults as a first approximation of what a teacher – or parent, or leader – should try to become. We all need to surround ourselves with ‘warm, demanding adults’ throughout our lives, if we are to make the most of them.

Good pedagogy starts with the requirement of providing a good role model for those in our care. Walk the talk. Lead, and teach, by example. We are social creatures and learn by imitation. Wordsworth said of the small child, ‘As if his whole vocation/ Were endless imitation’ (1807). Good teachers understand that successful learning is critically dependent on two qualities: the desire to learn, and belief in one’s own capability to learn (whatever is required). And these qualities are themselves learnable – and teachable. If you don’t want to learn to dance the tango, for example, and know you’d be no good at it, you probably won’t ever try. Experto credite! So the first task of the teacher is to develop the learner’s qualities of determination and resilience, and of confidence and self-belief. One useful definition of ‘readiness to learn’ is that all-important combination of eagerness and self-confidence, which is the pre-requisite of success in learning, work and life. Those who have mastered these qualities will put in the practice that is necessary for any worthwhile learning challenge – reading, numeracy, music or dancing, and the rest (the curriculum).

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• About the authors and editors
• Introduction
• 1 Start Right Revisited
• 2 Roots to grow wings to fly: re-defining early childhood education
• 3 Movement a child's first A, B, C
• 4 Movement for learning
• 5 Do parents need to be qualified?
• 6 Parents as play partners project: giving children a head start through play
• 7 Executive functions: skills that underpin success
• 8 Creating successful learning environments in the early years: a case study
• 9 Creativity in the early years
• 10 An international dimension: making a world of difference
• 11 Conclusion – so what?
• Index