ECEC POLICY IN THE UK:
RESEARCH PERSPECTIVES AND ISSUES
WALES
University of Winchester
30th April 2013
Jane Waters
Provision 0-8
• Flying start (SES-directed funding and provision)/ local provision
0-3
• Funded nursery place from 3rd birthday in Foundation Phase
(FP) setting (usually located in a school)
• FP: N,R, Y1 and Y2 follow FP under 7 Areas of Learning (AoLs)
• Personal and Social Development, Well-Being and Cultural Diversity;
• Language, Literacy and Communication Skills;
• Mathematical Development;
• Welsh Language Development (in English-medium schools and
settings);
• Knowledge and Understanding of the World;
• Physical Development;
• Creative Development.
• Transition into KS2 national curriculum Wales
Pedagogy
• ‘Play-based’/ ‘active learning’
• ‘Balance between child-initiated and practitioner-directed’
• ‘Emphasis on use of the outdoors’
• Pedagogical approach is not explicitly set out (Welsh
Government Social Research, WGSR, 2013)
• E.g. Distributed across:
• ‘Foundation Phase Framework’;
• ‘Play/Active Learning’;
• ‘Learning and Teaching Pedagogy’ and
• ‘Observing Children’.
• Continuous, enhanced, focus tasks
• Location of trained adult / teacher usually with focus task
Description
provided
in WGRS 2013
Adult:chlid ratios
in FP settings:
1:8
1:15
FP Assessment
• On-entry assessment
• ‘provide a baseline of the child’s development progress and needs
• to help plan for the next steps in their learning and development’.
• No prescribed tool for on-entry assessment to the Foundation Phase.
• The previous statutory assessment tool, the Child Development Assessment
Profile (CDAP), was withdrawn in February 2012.
• Review of assessment tools:
• Wide range:
• include tools that have been developed locally or in-house,
• the tools that the settings used prior to the introduction of CDAP,
• CDAP in full or in part and
• a range of other commercially available tools .
• Report to parents at end Y2; teacher assessment
Common assessment framework
• Development of 0-7 assessment framework is out to
tender from WG
• Consultation re: common assessment framework 0-7 from
Summer 2014
• Welcomed but sceptical
• ‘must be based on observation over a number of weeks of the child
in natural FP setting’
• ‘Would provide joined up thinking across 0-7 age range and help
remove false divide 0-3/ 3-7’ Flying start
Welsh in Education Strategy
• Outcome 1
• More seven-year-old children being taught through the
•
•
•
•
medium of Welsh.
Indicator Targets
The percentage of Year 2 learners assessed in Welsh
(first language)
• 2015: 25%
• 2020: 30%
‘Welsh medium’ FP education - no ‘English’ language
teaching until KS2
2011 data: 21.9% Y2 children assessed through WM (first
language)
• year on year increase since 2003 (19%)
National policies/priorities impacting on
ECE provision
• National ‘3 priority areas’
• Literacy
• Numeracy
• Breaking the link between poverty and achievement
• National Literacy Programme and National Numeracy
Programme (from Sept 2013)
• ‘PISA panic’
• The Literacy and Numeracy Framework (LNF)
• curriculum planning tool (5-14 years)
• outlines literacy and numeracy skills to be developed across the
curriculum.
• The Literacy and Numeracy tests are not part of the LNF. They
are statutory.
• ‘raising the bar’ of expected achievement
• concern raised over lack of discrimination at lower end of the tests
(failure at 7)
National policies/priorities impacting on
ECE provision
• WG ‘have adopted the UNCRC as the basis of all work for
children and young people.
• This is expressed in seven core aims. All children and young
people:
• have a flying start in life
• have a comprehensive range of education and learning opportunities
• enjoy the best possible health and are free from abuse, victimisation and
•
•
•
•
exploitation
have access to play, leisure, sporting and cultural activities
are listened to, treated with respect, and have their race and cultural
identity recognised
have a safe home and a community which supports physical and
emotional wellbeing
are not disadvantaged by poverty.
• The 7 core aims ‘form the basis for decisions:
• on priorities and objectives nationally.
• on strategy and service provision locally’
Research agenda
• Foundation Phase evaluation ongoing (Cardiff Uni lead)
• HEFCW funded WISERDEducation initiative:
• Data mining focus/ quantitative development of research capacity
in Wales
• Local small ‘r’ research
• Minimal national agenda outside FP evaluation
Critique / comments
• Wales' significant investment, through Flying Start, in
children under 4 for the next 3 years is ‘something to be
proud of’. Impact?
• Geographical nature of provision 0-3
• Workforce competency 0-3 is inconsistent
• Those 0-3 outside maintained sector are squeezed by current
economic climate
• Gap in quality assurance of EYEC standards across 0-7
range
• Division of 0-3 and 3-7 ECE and 0-5 / 5+ in other services
leads to inconsistencies across Wales
• Proposed EYDAF in developmental in its conceptualisation
Critique / comments
Learning and teaching in the FP:
• ‘there is no single clear explanation for the approach and
pedagogy of the Foundation Phase that practitioners could use’.
(WGSR 2013 viii)
• FP ‘pedagogy’ very varied on the ground (inside and out)
• Tensions in pedagogical ideology of FP and the reality of focus
task directed (if ‘play-based’) ‘teaching’
• Opportunities for child initiated learning and co-constructed episodes
limited by this tension
• Inherent tensions in FP pedagogy / National Literacy and
Numeracy programmes / Welsh language agenda
• Tension between the children's rights approach (7 Core Aims)
and the (perceived) move towards adult-led pedagogy
References
• Welsh Government Social Research (2013) Evaluating
the Foundation Phase: Policy Logic Model and
Programme Theory ISBN 978-0-7504-8080-2