Learning & Development: Assessment - Quality time

Many studies show that environment rating scales (ERS) can be reliable and valid and relate to children's social-emotional and intellectual development. Recent research on effective settings - for example, the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) study - indicates that other aspects of development and practice warrant consideration if optimal support for children's dispositional as well as educational outcomes is desired (Siraj-Blatchford, 2009).

These studies promote the concept of 'sustained shared thinking' (SST) (Siraj-Blatchford et al, 2002), the active engagement of practitioners in children's learning and extending thinking through communication, which we believe can only be achieved when children's emotional well-being is also supported.

Supporting children's emotional well-being through the development of positive relationships (with parents/carers, between the adults and children and between the children themselves) provides young children with a secure and safe base for exploring the interpersonal and intellectual aspects of early education and care and promotes self-regulation.

International research reinforces these ideas, as effective early childhood education and care is described as including the ability to both engage children in meaningful activities that promote their conceptual understanding of the world and construct positive adult-child relationships.

Effective early childhood educators combine positive relationships with meaningful activities so that they can integrate explicit pedagogy with sensitive, warm interaction. They also provide responsive, individualised feedback and intentional engagement while maintaining a setting that is orderly and predictable but not overly structured or formal.

While the benefits of high-quality early childhood education and care, and the importance of aspects of practice such as SST and emotional well-being are well established (Sylva et al, 2004; OECD, 2012), what was particularly compelling for us, as we began work on the scale, was the knowledge that such approaches are especially beneficial for supporting children from areas of disadvantage and/or with additional learning needs.

SST has become a familiar term in England, and the research showing the importance of intentional and relational pedagogy has clearly influenced the Early Years Foundation Stage. But many early childhood educators have told us that SST, in particular, is a difficult concept to understand and put into practice. We recognise that SST and emotional well-being are complex constructs and the development of the SSTEW scale clarifies and exemplifies exactly what these might look like in high-quality practice.

THE SSTEW SCALE

The SSTEW scale is an ERS - a tool to assess quality in early childhood education and care. It is designed to measure and promote practice that supports children, aged between two and five years, in developing skills in SST and emotional well-being. It supports the development of strong relationships, effective communication, aspects of self-regulation and concept development.

The SSTEW scale looks particularly at the quality of interactions that occur between the adults and the children and between the children themselves. It considers adult responsiveness to the children and how they intentionally support children's learning and development.

Fundamental to the SSTEW scale is the understanding that the adults need to know the children well and develop positive relationships with them in order to successfully engage in SST. In addition, adults require a good understanding of the children's current development, cultural heritage and achievements, feelings, behaviours and responses to learning.

An effective early childhood educator would need to be able to recognise when the children are thinking, sensitively extend language and periods of concentration, and support perseverance.

In the foreword to the scale, Kathy Sylva, professor of educational psychology at the University of Oxford, writes: 'The 14 items in this scale consist of clearly defined "indicators", showing ... practices that support emotional development as well as task focus in problem-solving all rest on communication between adult and child. Narrative is important here, but so too is guided thinking based on open questions and the sharing of views. The complex communication described so richly in the scale is multilayered in its focus on the external world, the world of things and events, but also on the internal world of feelings and wishes.'

Complementing other scales

The SSTEW scale has a similar scoring framework to the family of ERS first developed - for example, the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale - Revised (ECERS-R) (Harms et al, 2005) and the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale - Revised (ITERS-R) (Harms et al, 2003). It is also closely linked with the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale - Extension (ECERS-E) (Sylva et al, 2010).

While ITERS-R and ECERS-R cover more global aspects of quality in early childhood education and care such as space, resources and activities, and ECERS-E looks more closely at the curriculum and planning, the SSTEW scale hones in on how the adults in the setting interact with the children - how they intentionally support learning and development and build positive relationships.

As the SSTEW scale covers different aspects of quality practice to the other environment scales, it can be used in combination with them. For settings that are serving children aged three to five years and are looking at enhancing practice from a relatively stable quality base, a combination of ECERS-E and SSTEW works well. For settings with two-year-old provision, SSTEW can work well with ITERS-R.

USING THE SCALE

The SSTEW scale can be used for research, self-evaluation and improvement, audit and regulation. If it is to be used for research, audit and regulation, the reliability of the observations made are most important and we are currently developing some professional development to support moderation here.

The SSTEW scale can be used to inform self-assessment processes and support staff and setting development. If SSTEW is to be used as a self-evaluation and improvement tool for settings - professional development, probably provided by external agencies - should be incorporated in the process for optimal impact.

Making changes and improvements identified using the SSTEW scale is typically more complex than some changes needed following the use of other environment rating scales. For example, changes following the use of ECERS-R or ITERS-R might include something as simple as buying or repositioning resources.

If the ability to support children's SST and/or emotional well-being is found to be absent in a setting or in a particular adult's repertoire, this could be for a number of different reasons, which would need to be identified and then supported through professional development over a longer period of time with reflective practice built in.

The SSTEW scale is being used in the Study of Early Education and Development, a major longitudinal study funded by the Department for Education and led by 4Children looking at the effectiveness of early education in England. It is designed to follow 5,000-plus twoand three-year-olds and their households to the end of Key Stage 1 (2020).

In part of the study, the SSTEW scale, together with some of the other scales, is being used to assess the quality of more than 1,000 settings used by children of two and three with assessments of the children's cognitive, language and social development, to look at the impact of the quality of the settings on children's learning and development. It is also being used in several studies in Australia and New Zealand.

TRAINING

We have already begun devising and running professional development and training on the SSTEW scale in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. We have supported researchers and those engaged in auditing early childhood education and care settings to become reliable with their observations, and devised bespoke professional development for early childhood education and care settings following the use of the SSTEW scale combined with other environment rating scales (for example, ECERS-E) which identified their areas for further development.

Collette Tayler, professor of early childhood education and care, University of Melbourne, says, 'The SSTEW scale is set to make a real contribution to early childhood professionals wanting to improve their pedagogy in support of advancing children's learning, as well as serving researchers interested in early education method and the behaviours of adults as they bring everyday early childhood programme experiences to life with groups of young children.

MORE INFORMATION

Sustained shared thinking and emotional well-being (SSTEW) scale for 2-5-year-olds provision (£19.99), www.ioepress.co.uk

For information on training, continuing professional development or action research in settings or local authorities, contact Denise Kingston, denise@b27matters.co.uk

REFERENCES

Harms T, Clifford RM and Cryer D, Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale - Revised Edition (ECERS-R) (2005) and Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-R) (2003). Teachers College Press.

Kingston D and Siraj I, Powerful Pedagogies: enhancing quality interactions and well-being through early childhood education (2016), London: IOE Press.

Siraj-Blatchford I, Sylva K, Muttock S, Gilden R and Bell D, Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (2002), DfES Research Report 356.

Siraj-Blatchford I, 'Conceptualising progression in the pedagogy of play and sustained shared thinking in early childhood education: a Vygotskian perspective', (2009) in Educational and Child Psychology 26 (2).

Sylva K, Melhuish E, Sammons P, Siraj-Blatchford I and Taggart B, Effective Pre-school Provision (2004), DfES Publications.

Sylva K, Siraj-Blatchford I and Taggart B, Assessing Quality in the Early Years: early childhood environment rating scale-extension (ECERS-E): four curricular subscales (revised 4th edn) (2010), Teachers' College Press.

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