Supporting Early Learning - the Way Forward

Addressing such questions as how to ensure all young children have access to high quality education, and what constitutes an appropriate curriculum between birth and 6 years of age, this text also looks at how best nursery nurses, playgroup leaders, teachers and childminders can work with parents to enhance education of children. This text aims to be sympathetic and accessible, and to provide guidance for adults working with children in a variety of formal and informal settings. Improving the effectiveness of early education is a particular focus. To this end, the authors emphasize that children from birth to age six have particular development needs, and they argue that those working with young children are most likely to meet these needs if they approach their work developmentally. The suggested solution is to offer children educational opportunities within a framework of an integrated and developmentally appropriate curriculum. The argument concludes that this approach would enable the acquisition of social skills, attitudes and dispositions by young children, as well as subject knowledge. This would hopefully match their individual personalitites, capabilities and levels of attainment more closely than (present) conventional learning frameworks.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Preface Introduction Children learning Personal and moral development An adaptable curriculum for a changing world Play and learning Observation underpinning appropriate education Parents and practitioners sharing education The way forward References Index.

About the Author :
Vicky Hurst has been a nursery teacher and a lecturer in early childhood education. She is the founder and chair of the Early Years Curriculum Group and recently co-ordinated the Quality in Diversity Project to establish a common framework for early learning for all practitioners working with children from birth to 8 in the voluntary, independent and maintained sectors. Jenefer Joseph has been a reception teacher and a nursery school head teacher. She was Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the University of Hertfordshire, where she devised and taught the Advanced Diploma in Early Childhood Education. She has taught in South Africa, India, USA, Malaysia and Cameroon, and is currently an Early Years Consultant.

Review :
"It affirms many of the principles which are sometimes said to be almost 'mantra-like' to early years teachers, but it advocatesand places those principles clearly in the context of theory, reaffirming their vitality and soundness." - Early Years