Literature Overview
‘Encouraging quality in ECEC’
7th ECEC Network Meeting – 22nd
June 2010
Ineke Litjens
Education and Training Policy Division
Directorate for Education
Parent and Community
Involvement
To build on the
knowledge about
children, fostering
continuity with learning
in the home
To promote positive
attitudes and behaviours
towards children's
learning
Main reasons for involving parents and
community services
in ECEC services
To provide parents/staff
with information and
referrals to other services
To support parent and
staff empowerment
Why does it matter?
The Importance of
Parents and the wider community
 All environments affecting children foster similar goals
Foster great communication with parents
 Better parenting
 Increase parents’ understanding of appropriate educational practices
Better knowledge of child development
Better understanding of children by staff
 Promote positive later achievement
Defining parental and community involvement
Child-focused
Centre-oriented
Communicating
Design effective forms of
school-to-home and home-toschool communications about
school programmes and
children’s progress
Volunteering
Recruit and organise parent
help and support
Parenting
Help all families establish
home environments to
support children as students
Decision making
Including parents in school
decisions, developing parent
councils and parent-teacher
organisations.
Learning at home
Provide information and ideas
to families about how to help
students at home with
homework and other
curriculum-related activities,
decisions, and planning.
Collaborating
with community
Identify and integrate
resources and services from
the community to strengthen
school programmes, family
practices, and student learning
and development.
Evidence of its impacts of particular Type
of involvement on child outcomes
Main Areas
Improving the home learning
environment(HLE)
Home visiting
Parenting Education
Active Involvement
Collaboration with wider community
resources
Combination of different approaches
Details
Provide activities and materials for parents and children
to do together
Offer parents tips on reading aloud to children and
offering literacy learning kits
Provide confidence in parents’ interactions with children’s
education programmes
Offer great knowledge in children’s development
Gain positive relationships with children and families for
staffs
Empower parents to engage with their children’s learning
Positive results on later school measures, regardless of
family background or income
Focus on teaching children literacy skills concentrated on
children and families creating meaningful self-authored
texts
Key to children’s motivation for learning and
development
diminish development arrears
home visits by the pre-school teachers, provision of
literacy resources, centre-based group activities, special
events, postal communication
Encouraging parent and community
involvement at system level
 Establish a system of communication with and participation of
parents
Establish mechanisms for community involvement in support of
staff and children
Set out
goals/purposes
Requirement
Incentives
and support
Feasible
within context
Implementation of effective curricula and
pedagogical approaches
Perceived barriers (challenges)
Key success factors
 Language and cultural barriers
 Ethos
 Stigmatisation
 Clarity of objectives
 Insufficient knowledge about
possibilities to engage or participate
 Pro-activeness
Staff education and training
 Parents’ low education level
Flexibility
 Attitudinal barriers
Funding
 Time barriers
Curriculum and
Effective Pedagogy
The Importance of
Curriculum and Pedagogies
Key-factors in the quality and effectiveness of the program
Clarifies development aims
Provides structure
Respond adequately to children’s needs
 Improve the status of early childhood workers
Ensure an even level of quality across different provisions
 Positive effect on children’s social and cognitive development
Promote the well-being of young children
What pedagogical and curricular approaches
are used in ECEC?
Main areas
Perspectives of learning
Direct instruction curriculum  input by the environment
 structured teaching-and-practice lessons
 discrete skills, frequent repetition and praise
child’s free learning directly through the
materials
less teacher’s personal involvement
Socialisation curriculum
Montessori
approach
Constructivist curriculum
 Developmentally balance of child-initiated learning and guidance
Appropriate Practice from staff members
 Experiential
education
emphasis on the relevance of emotional wellbeing and child’s involvement
 High/Scope
curriculum
better learning by active experiences that
express child’s interests
 the Reggio Emilia
approach
creative communication to develop thinking
capacity and child’s own theories
 Te Whariki
Develop useful understanding attached to
cultural and purposeful contexts
 Swedish
curriculum
nurture the child's need for exploration through
play and social interactions with adults and
peers
Evidence of its impact on child outcomes
Main areas
Curriculum content
Pedagogical approach
Details
 Early literacy
print and phonological awareness
Mathematics
numbers, problem-solving, reasoning skills
 Science
critical thinking, reasoning skills
 Art
improve children’s attention and cognition
 Physical and health
development
develop social skills and an understanding of
social rules
 Importance of
interactions and play
develop child’s main sensory, cognitive, linguistic
and social growth
 Child-initiated and
teacher-initiated
activities and free choice
simulate child’s independent thinking and selfregulation
 Warm and responsive
staff behaviour and close
child-staff relationships
impact on child’s attitudes toward learning
Factors that contribute to the effectiveness of curricula and
pedagogical approaches
1. Cognitive + social development = complementary
2. Sustained shared thinking
3. Behaviour and discipline policies
4. Balance of practitioner-initiated and child-initiated activities
5. Differentiated learning environment
6. Learning materials
7. Appropriate learning intensity and duration
8. Strong parent and community involvement
9. Informative feedback
10. Good knowledge about curriculum and pedagogies
11. Trained staff
12. Low-staff turnover rate
13. Positive work conditions
Implementing effective curriculum and pedagogy
 Clear guidelines for the content
 Goals of early learning experiences
 Pedagogical approaches
Main consideration
Child’s individual needs
 Wide cultural variations
in the experiences of young
children
Challenging task
 Determine relationship between the
expectations of curriculum guidelines and
specific age-related yearly accomplishments
 Provide flexible descriptions of researchbased learning trajectories or developmental
practices
Implementation of effective curricula and
pedagogical approaches
Perceived Barriers
 Insufficient knowledge about
appropriate practices for a diverse group of
children
Key success factors
 Professional education and ongoing
training
 Positive and workable environment
 Programme assessment
 Insufficient curriculum content and
pedagogical knowledge
 Providing guidance or access to
advice for staff
 Involving relevant stakeholders
Professional Education
and Working
Conditions
Staff’s education, training, and
their work environment :
Why does it matter?
 Centre of children’s environment and experiences in ECEC
 Increases knowledge on child development, curriculum content
and pedagogical approaches
 Create richer and stimulating learning environment
 Enhance optimum engagement for children
 Promote the educational, physical, socio-emotional,
and healthy development of children
Improving child outcomes
through teacher and caregiver’s effectiveness
Main areas
professional development
work conditions
[ personal characteristics
Details
 initial(pre-service) education
level of formal education and
qualifications
 on-going (in-service)
education and training
staff meetings, conferences
and workshops, subject
training, field-based
consultation and training,
supervised practices,
mentoring
 specialisation in ECEC
earn higher degree
 salary and benefits
proper compensation
 child-staff ratio
positive, nurturing interactions
 group size
appropriate care-giving
 professional support
job satisfaction
 physical, material resources
active engagement
 workload
working hours, physical
demands
 mental health status
high personal motivations,
depression]
Implementation of effective professional development
programmes and improving working conditions
 A framework with professional (working) standards or guidelines
Policies that
support staff
Induction,
mentoring,
evaluation
Involvement in
curriculum design
and flexibility in
instruction
Qualifications
for tasks
descriptions
Adequate work
environments
Pay scales and
(financial)
incentives
Equitable
access and
certification
standards
Implementation of effective professional development
programmes and improving working conditions
Challenges
Key success factors
 restricted financial resources
 management support
 no incentive to achieve higher qualifications
or attend in training course
 inter-professional collaboration and
coordination
 insufficient time
 insufficient knowledge about appropriate
curriculum content for professionals
 unavailability of appropriate training
opportunities