Sustaining Quality in a New Preschool Landscape

CSER Early Childhood Care and Education Seminar

Dublin Institute of Technology

April 4th 2011

Professor Nóirín Hayes

School of Social Sciences and Law, DIT,

Centre for Social and Educational Research

noirin.hayes@dit.ie

Children proverbially

live in the present; that

is not only a fact not to

be evaded, but it is an

excellence’ (Dewey)

Pillars of quality

• People

• Place

• Pedagogy

People

• Well trained and engaged practitioners

• Young children who are ‘ready, willing and able’ [Carr]

• Strong, reciprocal interactions between adults and children and between children themselves

• Close collaboration with parents and and wider community

Place

• Appealing settings – – inside and outside

• Learning environments that are – respectful, reflective and risk rich

• Sometimes less is best• Challenge and choice• Variety and quality of materials• Collaborative arrangements

– Showcasing the lives of children– Reflecting the cultures and

community

PedagogyThe quality of children’s interactions with adults and with the environment plays an important part in the quality of their learning at all ages.

Effective early learning environments are nurturing and the adult role in early education is critical to children becoming competent and masterful learners from the earliest age.

 

Well-educated early years practitioners contribute to and sustain quality early education, which in turn, yields positive short and long-term benefits for children.

Pedagogy

Practice should be both respectful and reflective and combined with a sound knowledge base in content areas and in child development.

Such a pedagogy presumes that all minds are capable of holding ideas and beliefs which, through discussion and interaction, can be moved towards some shared frame of reference; it is child-sensitive and respectful of children’s own role in their development.

Nurturing pedagogy

• I refer to this shift in practice as a shift to a Nurturing Pedagogy – where nurture captures the educative nature of care and caring nature of education.

• To nurture children’s learning as part of the educative process it is crucial to allow for:– non-intrusive planning, – a learning environment that supports and extends children’s own

learning – quality interactive opportunities.

• To nurture requires an engaged, bidirectional level of interaction and

confers on the early years teacher an enhanced, educational role.

Changing Landscape

• 1996 – 2006:– Focus on women in work– Targeted versus universal

approach– Centre-based institutional childcare– Parental funding rather than

sectoral support– Childcare versus early education

[Hayes, 2006]

Resources to assist

• Síolta – national quality framework

• Aistear – national curriculum framework

• Workforce Development Plan

• Free Preschool Year

• Various subsidies

• Strategic investments

• The active NGO/NVCO sector

Government commitment

• We will maintain the free pre-school year in Early Childhood Care and Education to promote the best outcomes for children and families.

• We will improve the quality of the pre-school year by implementing standards and reviewing training options.

• As resources allow, this Government will invest in a targeted early childhood education programme for disadvantaged children, building on existing targeted pre-school supports for families most in need of assistance such as the youngballymun project.

The challenge

• Maintain the gains [structural and resource]

• Utilise the supports

• Focus on the integrated nature of early childhood

• Demand training and aim high

• Revisit the 1996 EU Quality Targets

• Evaluate from a process as well as a product [outcomes] perspective

The challenge

• Strive for high quality

• Research and publish

• Drive the debate for children and the sector from within

• Raise the vision and aim high

• It is not all about money - - - -

Thank You

noirin.hayes@dit.ie