In providing a quality curriculum, it is important to recognise that the EYFS does not represent the totality of the learning experience of the child. Hedges and Cooper (2014) question whether the EYFS itself is a guarantee of holistic experience and outcomes for all children.
Between this framework for consistent provision and the day-to-day activities of the learner lie a range of curricular models, which may reflect different educational philosophies, cultural expectations and pedagogical models.
We can see the curriculum as an ‘enactment’ or ‘translation’ of different intentions on the part of different stakeholders, some of whom will have competing ideas about what ‘matters’ in early education. The curriculum may become an uncomfortable ‘hybrid’ (trying to address competing aims and purposes) or a ‘site of struggle’ (Soler and Miller, 2003).
CURRICULAR PRACTICE
Quality in the curriculum is based not solely on the statutory framework that governs early years provision and practice, nor the targets the children are intended to reach. Rather, such frameworks provide a statement of the expected experience of children across all settings that can be adapted and localised within individual settings.
These then develop an ‘intended curriculum’ informed by a particular ethos or philosophy and it is the job of teachers to use their pedagogical expertise and experience to apply and adapt this in the light of individual children’s needs, interests and motivations. According to this perspective, quality is a matter of the interpretation and not the execution of a standardised framework.
Soler and Miller (2003) describe how considering differing models of the curriculum can develop holistic, individualised learning. Each of these represents a way of navigating the ‘space’ between the overarching structures of the EYFS and its associated assessment processes and the experiences of the individual children in a setting. They characterise ‘emergent’, ‘progressive’, ‘evolving’ and ‘play-based’ models.
The emergent curriculum
A progressive curriculum has greater emphasis on a child’s learning journey, rather than explicitly detailing curriculum content. Therefore, a child-centred approach offers a more structured approach to a child’s learning, rather than the potential informality of child-led activities. Soler and Miller (2003) define a progressive curriculum as one in which teachers make imaginative uses of space that invite a variety of learning opportunities and allow a child to continually engage within a variety of learning roles. However, the emergent and progressive curriculum models are often interchangeable, as a teacher can establish a child-centred learning environment in which children can lead and self-direct activities.
The evolving curriculum
The rapid emergence of new digital technologies, argue Aubrey and Dahl (2008), demands that young children become ‘digitally literate’ and have access to an early years curriculum where they can use information communications technology (ICT) to access and enhance their learning, particularly through the ‘understanding the world’ area of the EYFS.
According to this perspective, quality in an early years curriculum has to respond to needs of individuals and society on an international, national and local landscape. An exciting and challenging aspect of curriculum development is that teachers are aiding the development of young children to engage with resources, activities and employment opportunities that do not yet exist; with the speed of technological development, the curricula evolves and educational journeys are ever more unpredictable. Hence, early years settings may contain voice recorders, laptops and handheld computers, use of email, Powerpoint and internet, DVDs, digital cameras, ‘walkie-talkies’ and ‘smart’ toys, dance mats, camcorders, electronic microscopes, robots, interactive whiteboards, touchscreens and CCTV (Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford 2006).
Within a few years, a new raft of technologies may have emerged: watch out for eyegaze systems for computer control, motion and gesture recognition and ‘intelligent bricks’ – toys that can be combined creatively so that children can build their own ‘small worlds’ with programmable inhabitants and objects.
A quality curriculum ensures that emergent technologies are explored between the child and practitioner. This is achieved by ensuring technology forms a central resource in planning. In addition, the practitioner and child experiment with technologies. For example, the digital cameras used to document a child’s progress can be used by children themselves to take photographs and collate records of their own work and activities.
There are certain practical considerations that teachers need to take into account in such technology-rich environments and dilemmas to be addressed. The first is the impact of ‘screen time’ in which young children play with computer-based systems to support learning. It is essential that young children initiate these learning opportunities, and teachers develop child-centred approaches to consolidate understanding rather than these being a mandatory or highly structured part of the daily routine.
The second is the need to develop good practice from the teacher and child viewpoint: exploring technologies requires confidence and understanding, and any curriculum that incorporates digital technologies needs to demonstrate how these promote the development of social learning, digital literacy and numeracy.
The play-based curriculum
The fourth model is the play-based curriculum. In many ways, this encapsulates a variety of developments and promotes a range of learning opportunities for young children. Stacey (2009) suggests that play-based learning is self-chosen and self-directed by the child and, therefore, constitutes a fully inclusive frame- work for settings. However, play is complex and for a play-based model to derive learning opportunities, a teacher needs to know how a child plays in order for the curriculum to address statutory requirements and stakeholder expectations.
Dau (1999) identifies play as a learned behaviour, acquired as children interact with older members of the society in which they live. Play allows a child to develop imagination through pretend and fantasy play and characterisations for other children with which to socially interact. Play also develops physical, social and emotional well-being by ‘locomotor’ play that may involve changing characterisations in which children innately adapt from being ‘chased’ to ‘chaser’ (Jarvis 2013).
A play-based curriculum, then, has the potential to engage with all strands of learning within the EYFS curriculum, and as we have discussed, play is validated within the EYFS as being an essential strategy to promote active engagement and learning. However, a play-based curriculum proposes challenges to settings and play may be restricted due to choice of resources and limitation within classroom settings.
Some settings may have a ‘zero tolerance’ policy in which play can be deemed as ‘rough and tumble’, rather than responding to some missed opportunities developed by other children. Despite such challenges, a quality play-based curriculum has the capacity for children and practitioners to enact and experience what is intended as an inclusive entitlement.
CONCLUSION
EYFS is a nationally ‘directed’ model that provides explicit outcomes for young children. This is the ‘intended’ curriculum. However, a quality curriculum encompasses a range of models according to the requirements of the setting and child. Its quality, directed from EYFS, is to provide nationally benchmarked outcomes, but its interpretation may be derived from a variety of sources including an emergent, progressive, evolving and play-based curriculum.
Each model should not stand alone, but should be intertwined to maximise the experience of active learning, therefore determining a definition of quality that places considerable pressure on early years teachers.
The role of the early years teacher is twofold. The first is to be attentive to an individual child’s needs. The second is to be pedagogically knowledgeable. Each feeds into establishing an exciting and relevant curriculum that supports the child through the foundations of their early learning.
We can argue that learning is about developing knowledge, identity and self-belief in understanding wider concepts of the world. Within learning, subjects give boundaries and teachers have the power to transform children’s enquiring minds. They can create knowledge that is both powerful and can develop social identities of children. However, any response also needs to consider the impact of the national agenda of the EYFS on localised curriculum policies.
Quality is not about a best-fit scenario for the setting; it is about improving life changes for young children. Children have a right to engage actively within their curriculum and to develop their inborn curiosity. They have a right to develop and learn. Therefore, teachers have to challenge through their practice the assumption that the ‘intended’ curriculum is the only curriculum. A quality curriculum injects excitement for learning; flexibility; explicit tools to support development; and positive learning relationships between children, their families and their setting.
QUALITY IN THE EARLY YEARS
‘Quality’ in early years practice is an elusive concept, often used but rarely questioned and with little agreed understanding. Qualityin the Early Years, edited by Emma Slaughter (Open University Press, £23.99), offers a series of inspiring and thought-provoking chapters to support practitioners in developing their own notion of ‘quality early years practice’ across a range of key strands including the environment, policies, relationships, the curriculum and experiences for babies.
To receive a 20 per cent discount on the title, order via www.mheducation.co.uk/quality-in-the-early-years
This is an edited extract from ‘Quality in the early years curriculum’, Chapter 5 of Quality in the Early Years. Perry Knight leads early years within the Department of Teacher Education at the University of Bedford.
