There are two new and important terms in the 2020 revision of Development Matters: ‘curriculum’ and ‘pedagogy’. Neither word features in the previous version of the document, so it is essential that we explore these terms.
Development Matters (2020) defines the curriculum as ‘what we want children to learn’, and pedagogy as ‘helping children to learn’. These two concepts are very closely related at every stage of education, but never more so than in the early years.
Imagine that I am with a child who is plucking up the courage to climb the steps up the hill in our nursery garden. Climbing and balancing are important skills which we have planned into our curriculum. But children also need help to develop the confidence they require to climb and balance.
In this instance, I am helping by watching and being encouraging. As the excellent Rumbold Report into the early years stated 30 years ago, ‘Careful planning and development of the child’s experiences, with sensitive and appropriate intervention by the educator, will help nurture an eagerness to learn as well as enabling the child to learn effectively.’
In the early years, everything connects together.
CURRUCULUM:
What we want children to learn
Over the years, many of us have used Development Matters (2012) to map out what we want children to learn. We check our observations against the bullet points in the age-related statements. When we find gaps, we plan further activities and experiences. This reassures us that our children are accessing all the aspects of early learning, and are making progress. In this way, the old Development Matterscan feel like a comforting security blanket. However, there are pitfalls when we use the document like this.
Is a single, national document the best way to set out the curriculum in each of our unique settings and schools? For example, the Mayor’s Early Years Hub for Newham is a collaboration of more than 100 nurseries and schools. More than 90 per cent of the children are learning English as an additional language.
We put a very strong emphasis on helping children to learn English, as well as valuing their home languages. With that extra help, the children are able to access the curriculum when they get to school. They also have the lifelong advantage of growing up multilingual. That is why the job of constructing the curriculum belongs with us, the practitioners and the leaders. We know our children, families and communities. We know how to choose which aspects of early learning and care need a higher priority. But those choices would not be right for other settings and other communities.
Right for your children
The revised Development Matters is ‘non-statutory curriculum guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage’. It exists to support you as you plan the curriculum that is right for your children and families. The curriculum is the ‘big picture’ of what we want children to learn, experience and discover: it does not need to be long, complex or detailed.
At Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre, we have set out broad curricular goals for children aged two to four years old. The first of these is to ‘settle in and become a confident learner’. We break that down into several steps:
- To manage the transition from parent to key person.
- To take part in pretend play, communicating and negotiating with friends.
- To persevere with difficulties and show pride in what they do.
- To reflect on their learning, looking at photos or videos of significant learning. Children can use their own log-in in Tapestry. That provides a focus for the child to talk about how they learn and what helps them when they find something hard.
The burden of ‘next steps’
The practitioner’s focus is on helping every child to access that curriculum: some children will need significantly more help than others. By mapping out progress like this, we can reduce the workload involved in setting out ‘next steps’ for every child.
‘Next steps’ can quickly multiply and overwhelm us, giving us far too much planning to do. Even with a small group of 15 children, if every child has three of four ‘next steps’, we will need to plan for roughly 50 different outcomes. It makes more sense for us to put our energy where it makes a difference: helping children. As the new Development Matters says, ‘every child can make progress, if they are given the right support’.
Access for all
It is crucially important that we help every child to access all aspects of the curriculum. We are not genuinely including all children if they are merely physically present in our settings, and keeping busy. If a child is not accessing a broad and balanced curriculum in our setting, then we need to find out where the barriers are, and help the child to overcome them.
For a child who is physically disabled, we might need to make sure there is enough space for their wheelchair to move freely between different areas. We might need to offer sensory play on their tray, where they can easily reach it. For a child with delayed or disordered communication, we might need to use Makaton signs or other symbols, so they can tell us how they are feeling, and we can reply.
Children’s learning journey
The curriculum consists of all of the understanding, skills, concepts, vocabulary and attitudes that a child needs for their development today. The curriculum also needs to prepare children for the next phase of their learning journey. We need to give children enough time to make sure that their development is secure before we move them on to learning new things.
As Development Matters says, ‘depth in early learning is much more important than covering lots of things in a superficial way’.
This approach supports the important EYFS commitment to the unique child, as we value the many different pathways of children’s development. All children, including the youngest babies who join our settings, are primed to explore, enquire and learn. As the famous psychologist Alison Gopnik once said, babies are ‘the most powerful learning machines in the universe’.
A large part of our work is about supporting that drive to learn. We do that through the resources we offer, the organisation and routines of the day, and our interactions. Good curriculum planning is always flexible and responsive to children’s fascinations.
Child- and adult-led
This does not mean, however, that the curriculum can be entirely child-led. Early maths gives us a good example of why. The research tells us that children’s self-chosen play is a powerful way for them to learn maths. The researchers Douglas Clements and Julie Sarama (2018) comment that ‘children, including toddlers, engage in spontaneous mathematics during almost half of every minute of free play’. But children cannot learn a tricky skill, such as learning to count, solely through play.
As the maths section of Development Matters shows, there are many skills and concepts which children need to learn so that they can count accurately. These skills and concepts build on each other. As Prof Clements and Prof Sarama note, ‘It is unrealistic for any teacher to see opportunities for multiple children to build multiple concepts consistently.’
Similarly, a 2016 report into early maths from the New Zealand government concludes, ‘Without a balance of deliberate teaching and spontaneous learning, a “hands off” approach does not benefit children’s learning.’
The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project report also found that the best early years settings offered a mixture of free play, adult-guided, playful learning, and direct teaching.
PEDAGOGY:
What we want children to learn
All of us in the early years are a bit like actors, playing different parts to help children’s learning. For example, sometimes we are play-partners, and sometimes we stand back and encourage without interfering. There are many aspects to pedagogy in the early years, and it is important that we have a wide repertoire.
Right approach, right time
We need to use the right approach at the right time. That is why Ofsted’s (2019) definition of the many aspects of teaching in the early years is helpful:
‘Teaching should not be taken to imply a “top down” or formal way of working. It is a broad term that covers the many different ways in which adults help young children learn. It includes their interactions with children during planned and child-initiated play and activities: communicating and modelling language; showing, explaining, demonstrating, exploring ideas; encouraging, questioning, recalling; providing a narrative for what they are doing; facilitating and setting challenges. It takes account of the equipment adults provide and the attention given to the physical environment, as well as the structure and routines of the day that establish expectations. Integral to teaching is how practitioners assess what children know, understand and can do, as well as taking account of their interests and dispositions to learn (Characteristics of Effective Learning), and how practitioners use this information to plan children’s next steps in learning and monitor their progress.’
Even with the youngest children, we are mostly but not always following their lead. We are taking the initiative when we start a game of Peepo with a baby, and the baby is responding, or when we choose the songs to sing with babies and young toddlers to help them learn new words and action sequences. Our job is to choose the right moment to respond, and the right moment to initiate something new.
At every phase in the early years, we need to follow children’s interests, and we need to introduce them to new experiences that they will enjoy and learn from.
BUILDING BEST PRACTICE
Both our pedagogy and our curriculum need to stay under review. As we get to know each child, we also need to reflect on how well our provision meets their needs and engages with their interests. That leads us to make changes, such as enhancing the resources and books in the small-world area for the child who is crazy about dinosaurs.
It is subtle and skilful work, requiring us to reflect on our experiences to make the right decisions for the children. The revised Development Matters is briefer so that we can use more professional judgement, and follow less guidance.
As a result, leaders and managers need to consider how we are supporting the professional development of our teams. Poor-quality initial training let down many practitioners in the past. There are also more unqualified practitioners in early years settings every year, according to the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA).
Professional development
Development Matters outlines ‘Seven Features of Effective Practice’ to focus on professional development in the areas which make a difference. We can continuously improve as practitioners if we keep improving our knowledge about child development and our understanding of evidence-informed practice. That requires in-depth professional development extending over at least 20 weeks.
This period might include some training that is face-to-face or online. It might include regular time with a manager or mentor to reflect on practice. It might include seeing what effective practice looks like: well-chosen film clips are very helpful in this respect. It might include plenty of opportunities to put that effective practice into action, with the support of a colleague or mentor.
We all need the right mix of support and challenge, and we can all learn to be better practitioners. But for some of us, the rate of change will be slower than for others; some of us will need more guidance and feedback on our work. In the end, it is the consistent improvement of the skills of the whole team that makes the difference to our pedagogy.
Making progress
In recent years, we have focused too much on covering all the statements in Development Matters (2012). We have put too much energy into using those statements to generate data and track children’s progress. As a result, we have not put enough focus on thinking about the curriculum, and thinking about the pedagogy that helps children to access it.
In my next article, I am going to look at the question of assessment and tracking in detail. I will explore how assessment might serve the curriculum, instead of ruling over it. When we get the curriculum and pedagogy right, we give children wonderful experiences every day. That helps us to ensure that our settings are great places for children to play, make friends, and learn together. Many children depend on us to offer them wide-ranging and rich early learning: if we do not offer it, who will?
About this series
Development Matters: Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage, published in September, is made up of two parts: an overview of seven key features of effective practice in early years care and education, followed by tables setting out the pathways of children’s development.
The seven features are: ✔the best for every child ✔high-quality care ✔curriculum ✔pedagogy ✔assessment ✔self-regulation and executive function ✔partnership with parents.
This series aims to describe each of the seven features, explain their importance and show how settings can incorporate them into their practice, so that they can deliver high-quality provision that meets the learning and development needs of each child in their setting.
The guidance is at: https://bit.ly/2Fpxt5c
Curriculum: reflection points
The 2020 Development Matters defines the curriculum as ‘a top-level plan of everything the early years setting wants the children to learn’.
Settings and practitioners are in the best place to know the children who attend, their families and the local community. As a result, they are best placed to design an appropriate curriculum, guided by Development Matters.
For example, at Sheringham Nursery School, many of the children are living in very overcrowded housing. That is why our curriculum puts a very strong emphasis on outdoor play and learning. Other settings will have different priorities.
Reflection points
- How can you get to know your local community better? You might link with other settings and schools, voluntary groups and faith leaders, for example. You can use the website www.mycommunity.org.uk to get a wealth of data about deprivation, housing, green spaces and more.
- How can your curriculum build on strengths in the community?
- How can you help children from different backgrounds to mix confidently with each other, learn about each other’s cultures and traditions, and grow up to oppose racism and be positive about diversity?
Pedagogy: reflection points
The 2020 Development Mattersstates that ‘children are powerful learners. Every child can make progress in their learning, with the right help’.
Pedagogy in the early years is partly about the child’s drive to learn, and how we create an enabling environment to fuel that drive. It’s also about using the right approach at the right time: having a ‘pedagogical repertoire’.
Sometimes we need to stand back and encourage children, without interfering. Sometimes we need to get involved in their play, to extend it or deepen it. There are some skills which we should teach children directly, and there are times when it is best to guide learning in a playful way. Older children in the EYFS need more guided learning and direct teaching.
Reflection points
- How do you decide which approach to use from your ‘pedagogical repertoire’?
- How do you check that your choices work for the children and help them to learn? The Intentional Teacher by Ann Epstein is an excellent and brief guide to choosing the best strategies for young children’s learning.
REFERENCES
- Clements D and Sarama J (2019) ‘Myths of Early Math’, https://bit.ly/3mWrUvH
- Epstein A (2015) The Intentional Teacher (NAEYC)
- New Zealand Government Education Review Office (2016) Early mathematics: A guide for improving teaching and learning, https://bit.ly/35035cj
- The Rumbold Report: Starting with Quality (1990), https://bit.ly/3jYmBd9
- The Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) Project (2004), https://bit.ly/366JHJJ
NW SHOW
Dr Julian Grenier will be talking about the revised EYFS guidance at our online Nursery World Show masterclass (5 February). For programmes and more information, visit:
MORE INFORMATION
Dr Julian Grenier expands on the seven features of effective practice in Working with the Revised Early Years Foundation Stage: Principles into Practice, which aims to support practitioners in understanding and implementing the updated Development Matters. It is free to download, or can be bought, at: http://development-matters.org.uk.
See also page 35 (guidance opinion)
Dr Julian Grenier led on the revision of Development Mattersfor the Department for Education. He is head teacher of Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre, east London, which is a Research School.