Refelctions & Consequences to Professional Connections

I have had the privilege this term to connect with Jon Swain, a professional in the field in London, England.  Through my connections with him and the additional readings that he pointed me towards, I was able to learn a lot about early childhood and the education system there.  I discovered that there is so much that I would love to adapt from their programs and implement here.  I spent many hours in research about the early childhood education and education system in general there and saved lots of materials and already began writing a part of things from their program into my next community training.

Additionally, learning about early childhood in another area helped me to realize that there are many places that are successful in their practices that I can study and learn more about.  My husband and I spent a great deal of time this past weekend looking up what the top countries are in education.  They we chose four that seemed to consistently be in the top and decided that we would study and learn more about their systems and determine what things would work here and could be adapted.  We also talked about started a coalition group to work with others to get community input about how parents and educators feel about the current system and their views about what could be changed.

The other positive part about my experience was simply understanding that an early childhood professional does not always have all the answers, nor has always gone through everything that others in the field have been involved.  We all have our strengths, our levels of expertise, and our experiences that give us the knowledge and insights that we have.  I enjoyed understanding that I do not have to know everything, but that I can become an expert in several things and train on those things as I continue to learn and grow in other areas. My areas of passion and experience can help others who are in the same situations I have been in, and can provide insight to those who have not been there before.

My goal is to spend the next several weeks learning about the field of early childhood in several different countries, and then determining what I believe could benefit the education field here in the U.S.  Then I want to continue to connect with organizations that I have become a part of the last few months and see what type of influence I can have in the field.  I want to take stronger advocacy efforts and possibly even begin a research project of my own in the next couple of years where I can test the information that I have compiled.

Early Childhood Quality Standards in England

This week I took some time to learn about quality standards and professional development of those who care for young children in England.  Early Childhood and school programs are monitored by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. Ofsted inspects and regulates services which care for children and young people, and those providing education and skills for learners of all ages.  http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/

There were several great things I learned about quality and care of children in England.  The first thing I was impressed with was the level of inspections that take place.  It seems in the U.S., most state licensing inspections of child care and preschool centers focus only on the health and safety of the environment.  They come, they walk through, they look for hazards, they review paperwork on children and staff, and then they leave and grant you your license.  They do not observe the activities happening in the center or the interactions between children and staff, or monitor child progress or effectiveness of the program as a learning environment.

When Ofsted inspects, the program must complete a self-evaluation where they answer questions and rate themselves based on:
1. Physical Setting - main characteristics of the setting as well as background of the children and staff training, recruiting, and retention
2. Views of those who use your setting or work with you - views of children, parents, staff, administrators, volunteers, community partnerships, local schools, health professionals, etc. anyone who associates with your program.
3. How well your teaching strategies meet the needs of the children who attend the program - includes things such as the learning environment, child or teacher directed activities, observation and assessment information and how it is used to individualize teaching, how the program implements individualization for culture, disabilities, or other family special needs.
4. The contribution of teaching strategies to children's personal, social, and emotional well being and development - how do your practices directly help children feel emotionally secure and ensure they are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.  How do the daily routines meet needs, how do transitions work, is there balance of appropriate activities, etc.
5. The leadership and management of the program - how effective are the leaders and managers of the organization, do they understand their responsibilities and properly carry them out with effective systems of management.
6. The overall quality and standards of the program - progress of the children, are practices meeting needs, do children demonstrate that they feel safe, secure, and happy with their general welfare needs being met.  How effective has the program been in monitoring all children's progress.

After the program has completed this self-evaluation, then Ofsted comes and completes an evaluation, observing all of these things and rates the program on a scale of 1-4 as well.  They do watch the interactions between staff and children, they do look over child assessment records and progress, and they spend time at the center looking at all these things to determine quality of the program.  This goes far beyond what we do here for children.  Clearly they understand the importance of high quality education more than the U.S. and are far developed in this area.  This is not just for child care centers either.  This includes anyone that cares for children, including home providers, either in the home of the child or in the home of the provider, and schools.  Anywhere children are, that place will have an inspection and evaluation completed intermittedly.

Next, I was impressed with the amount of focus on developing the whole child and the continuity of learning that takes place through preschool years into all levels of schooling.  For instance, there is a program called SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning).  "SEAL underpins effective learning and positive behaviour and promotes the well-being of pupils and staff alike." (http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110809091832/http://teachingandlearningresources.org.uk/whole-school/social-and-emotional-aspects-learning-seal).  SEAL curriculum starts with children from birth and carries on throughout all of the child's schooling.  There are specific lessons that are taught and consistent teaching practices that happen with all teachers and all children every where. Students are not only assessed by academic progress, but a continuum of social and emotional development as well.  I really wish we had programs like this in the U.S. that was consistent with every child, regardless of where they moved, what school they went to, or what teacher they had from year to year.

Additionally, they have a program called Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS.  This program sets standards for the learning, development, and care of children birth through age 5.  All providers must follow these standards. Assessments begin at the age of two and continue through age five when children are ready to begin primary (elementary) school. I love that they are not assessments that are directly administered to the children, but they are based on provider observations of the child during play activities that occur in a regular day.  This is what we need to be following here in the U.S., not assessments that are administered by an outside provider to very young children.  The other thing I really like about these assessments is that they are seven areas of concentration.  The three prime areas are: communication and language, physical development, and personal, social and emotional development.  The four areas of learning are: literacy, math, understanding the world, and expressive arts and designs. The handbooks, the assessments, the parent information brochures, etc can all be found at http://www.foundationyears.org.uk/eyfs-2014/ This is phenomenal that all the information is there for not only providers but for parents as well.  When the child moves on to their first level of schooling, an entire profile is sent to their teacher who uses the information to plan lessons for the students in the class.  Can you imagine what this would mean to kindergarten teachers to have a full profile on each child that comes into their class to guide the teaching practices that will take place immediately at the start of the year.  I find this so amazing and together. 

Another thing that excited me was the level of education and training that persons who care for children must attain.  While there are many different types of providers, they all must go through levels of training to become professionals in their field and know and understand best practices in working with children.  Even the nannies who care for children in their own homes, home providers, those who work in centers or in schools, must all understand basic child develop as well as how to use the early childhood standards and how to administer proper assessments on the children through their growing years. 

What a great system of quality they have implemented for young children to not only get off on the right track in life, but to have continuity of standards and assessments taking place throughout all their schooling years. I am grateful to my contact for pointing me in the direction of understanding the system of early childhood care and schooling in England and the opportunity to learn through him.

Learning through Web Resuorces

NIEER (National Institute for Early Education Research) has a large variety of links and resources to help a person learn and stay up to date on what is happening in the field of early childhood.  With all the talk and debates regarding implementations of preschool programs nationwide, NIEER is a great site to help someone understand all that is happening.

While exploring this site I was introduced to another organization link, CEELO (Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes) found at ww.ceelo.org. This organization helps to “strengthen the capacity of State Education Agencies (SEAs) to lead sustained improvements in early learning opportunities and outcomes”.  Their simple vision statement “Fostering sustainable change in state policy and practice for children birth to third grade” initially hooked me to this site, as this is my passion to help make changes in teaching practices in children through third grade.  I was amazed at the amount of information, research, and connectedness this website has to early education.  While they are closely connected with NIEER, there is a wealth of unique information on their site that I found myself spending hours reading.    

I took some additional time to research an area of the NIEER site related to current projects.  I was simply astounded at how many projects they are currently working on and how much research they really are putting into the early childhood field.  This gave me peace in knowing that there are more than just politicians and economist who are researching this field.  There are specialist with backgrounds in early childhood who are looking out for the best interests of our children and determining best practices that lead to desired outcomes.  They are researching policy, program evaluations, STEM, international programs, assessments and curriculum, and even specific state policies.  I felt this drive and passion to want to help in these research projects, to help bring to the world the knowledge and importance of early childhood education.

NIEER Research Professor Shannon Riley-Ayers recently presented at the SAAEYC conference and addressed the issue of formative assessments appropriate for young children.  NIEER posted an article as a follow up to her presentation called An Assessment Primer: What is effective assessment in the early childhood classroom? I have been reading, studying, and reflecting on the balance between assessments in young children, appropriateness of how assessments are administered, and deliberate practices that are used to teach desired outcomes assessments are measuring.  This information reconfirmed the understanding of why we assess young children, best practices in assessing, and how to use the information from the assessments.  I was so glad to read the importance of assessing young children against themselves rather than against other children their age.  This progress can be measured and tracked to see their own potential for growth and learning.

On April 4, 2014 NIEER produced the next newsletter, found at http://nieer.org/publications/online-newsletters/volume-13-issue-7 .  This newsletter contained many articles regarding the topics and progress for a universal preschool, children in poverty, and legislative debates.  Of interest to me this week was the article Children and Poverty: the Role of Preschool written by Senior Research Fellow Cynthia Lamy http://preschoolmatters.org/2014/04/03/children-and-poverty-the-role-of-preschool/ .  Lamy mentions that many early childhood professionals themselves do not recognize the long term extent and importance of the work they do with children.  Early childhood educators need to be better at understanding how to help families and children in poverty as they correlate with other community resources and provide a solid, high quality based educational opportunities.  The article asks us to develop stronger relationships, to be smarter about risk factors, and to be a voice in the community for help in expanded services and providing best practice.  This can lead to long term cost effective improvements for families and help fight poverty as we all do our part.

Overall, I realized that there is a large wealth of information available to learn more in the field of early childhood.  I realized that there are many people and organizations with experience, education, research, and expertise in the field that we can turn to for help and support.  As I write for grants and sponsorships to help the children in poverty that I serve, I have found many facts and research that will be helpful in providing information to help others understand what many early childhood professionals already know.

School Readiness Internationally

Lately there has been a lot of talk about what it means to prepare children for school.  What things do young children need to know to be successful in school?  How do we track this or assess preschool age children in a way that is developmentally appropriate?  Is there a right and a wrong way to teaching standards to young children?

Through my conversations with Job Swain this week, I learned that England also has been dancing with the idea of what it means to prepare children for school.  He mentioned that there was talk of more formalized preschool lessons that may becoming the new standard to better help prepare children for school.  He says schooling has changed since he was a teacher.  Now, there is some play, but it is structured by the teacher and combined with formal desk lessons.  He mentioned "Ofsted" had just been on the radio that morning (Thursday, April 3, 2014) talking about the need for all children to have to learn to do basic counting, be able to write their name, read some simple text etc before they start school at 4 yrs old.  This is what state policies in my area are starting to push for as well.

I looked up more information about this online.  http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/resources/are-you-ready-good-practice-school-readiness Indeed an article had just been published Thursday morning called Are You Ready? Good Practice in School Readiness.  The article was a lengthy compilation of results that had been found from centers found to be the most successful in preparing disadvantaged and vulnerable children for school. While this article recognized that there were various views on the definition of school readiness, it still understood that "the quality of a child's early experience is vital for their future success" and that "gaps in achievement between the poorest children and their better-off counterparts are clearly established by the age of five" (Ofsted, 2014, p. 4).

I found many similarities in the things they found the schools did well or right with the children there that has been noted as working well for children in America.  I agree, as the article recognizes, that it is important to establish where each child is developmentally as they begin in your program so you know how to work with them and understand their strengths and areas that need further developing.  I agree in the involvement of parents in the assessing to find the baseline of children as well as their involvement in their child's education. I agree that some "adult-directed teaching session" in small groups can be advantageous to all children, but I don't believe that they should be a majority of the teaching.  I was excited to see that this survey recognized the importance of social and emotional development in young children and the role that being able to form good relationships has on language and communication skills as well as being provided opportunities to recognized their feelings.   Further, this study recognized that school readiness also included physical development, both gross and fine motor, as well as the ability to care for their personal needs.

The last part of the article I found interesting and related it directly to what Mr. Swain had mentioned with the settings being more teaching directed activities.  The article stated, "the majority of pre-schools and children's centres increased the proportion of adult-directed teaching over the academic year to increase children's readiness.  Without exception, we encountered adult-led discrete sessions for groups of children in all settings" (Ofsted, 2014, p.23).  Now, the article doesn't specifically mention what teacher-directed activities included, as I am sure this would look different in the variety of settings.  However, this is where I believe that many people,  especially those not in the early childhood field, begin to confuse what this may look like.  To some, teacher-directed lessons may be visualized as children sitting around tables or in a group on the floor learning directly from a teacher.  While this may be the case at times, teacher-directed learning can also be referred to as intentional planning and teaching as children play in child-initiated activities.  High quality, well trained teachers can be successful in teaching through modeling, questioning, explaining, encouraging, and even facilitating during play.  This learning can be so natural, so discrete and hidden into the play, that it may be hard for the untrained eye to understand all the learning that is taking place. 

The article mentioned that "play is essential for children's development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, think about problems and relate to others" (Ofsted, 2014, p.24).  If we can instill this value in early educators, parents, politicians, and the general public everywhere, we would be able to help others understand all that it means to provide children the opportunities to learn through a play based environment.  While school readiness may not have a universal meaning, it is clear that universally we are all struggling with what it really entails, and how to best teach and measure this.  One thing that is clear for all, we need to be doing a better job at helping to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.  We need to be able instill learning values and concept while they are young so they can continue with them while they are older!