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I receIved a letter this month, page 11, that highlights a problem in our school admissions system that often gets overlooked, and that adds to the pressure our PvI settings are facing. The letter also goes straight to the heart of a much bigger problem in our education system, and one which I have touched on before, namely its artificial nature. Take some time to look at theories of child development. What do you notice? do you notice that they are divided into four chunks – early, primary, secondary, higher? No. You won’t find those terms or divisions anywhere. They have no relevance to how a child develops. Now turn your attention to theories (or your own experience) of how children learn and think? any sign of the four horsemen? No. again, no relevance. So, what point am I trying to make here? Simple, how we structure our education system does not have any direct bearing or relevance on what our best knowledge tells us of how children grow, learn, play, develop, experience or thrive. They do not do so in chunks. But that is how we teach them, and that is how we separate them, and that forms the basis of every tinkering, tailoring and candlestick making of every policy that tells us how and when and what to teach children. The more you look at it, the more peculiar our education system becomes. Leaving content aside – and I was shocked recently to hear panel members and civil servants talking of teaching ‘knowledge’; really, makes you wonder why all children aren’t high achievers – it is the very nature of these artificial faultlines that cause so much, if not the most (controversial?) trouble in the education experience of our children, and parents, and even schools and settings themselves. When we talk of transitions, we should be talking about transitions of learning – whether styles or experiences – not buildings, key stages and types of education, our system should not be in conflict with itself. We should be talking of learning journeys, not which type of setting a parent feels pressured into putting their child in, scared that they might miss out on a primary school place. We should be talking about the richest experiences we can offer children, not the continued under-funding of the early years sector. Yet there has never been the political will, the financial backing or the collective knowledge in the corridors of power to effect real and lasting change. The Cambridge Review recommended extending the influence of the eYFS into key stage 1. In my opinion, the reception year should replace year 1, it should form a key stage 1 transition for children whose bodies and minds are developing towards a time when they are ready for different challenges. In an ideal world, the walls of the artificial boundaries between key stages would be broken down forever, leaving one continuous learning journey from birth to adulthood and beyond with an education system that supports and complements the development of each unique child. daydreaming perhaps, well, if it’s not broke... see Latest developments (page 10) and Foundation framework (page 20) for the government’s vision of a revised eYFS. Editor Neil Henty MSc

ABSTRACTFollowing on from successful early intervention programs abroad, the Netherlands also introduced a number of different programs to tackle educational disadvantage in preschool and early years education. Studies that investigate the effects of Dutch early childhood interventions have been published since 2000. This meta-analytic review study summarizes the findings from 21 experimental comparisons which study some 50,000 children in the period between 2000–2015, with a total of 165 outcome measures. The aggregate effect of early childhood interventions compared with standard preschool and early years groups is not statistically significant. The disappointing results indicate that special early childhood education programs currently offer no added value for the development of young children in the Dutch context over and above regular preschool and early years groups. A focus for Dutch policy is to improve future practice based on scientific evidence around effective approaches to ECEC. Further, the implementation of study designs with more experimental control would strengthen the current knowledge base.

The development level of children’s number-concept is a critical element in measuring the development of children's thinking. Previous studies have shown that preschool is an important stage of development and that vocabulary can help promote children’s number-concept development. This study aims to explore the characteristics of the development of rural children’s number-concept in their early years, and propose teaching strategies suitable for rural children based on the research results. This research method is based on a one-to-one standard test, supplemented by a self-designed structured interview for teachers. The research object is the early school-age children in rural areas. The impact of gender, age, school, and language on children’s number-concept development is discussed. By describing and studying the characteristics of their number-concept development, educational strategies and suggestions are put forward. This research can contribute to the literature theoretically, pedagogically and practically.

Early years education was found to be a key period for children's development. Children enter the school setting for the first time and are eager to learn as much as possible. At the same time, teachers need to address this demand that, increasingly, exceeds the purely academic boundaries and moves towards the child's holistic development. Therefore, besides academic skills, teachers should also include in their educational practice competencies for prosocial interpersonal relationships and skills to manage social and emotional aspects of life. This should be done without forgetting the academic aspects required in the curriculum. Moreover, all these contents, teaching methodologies, and principles should be adjusted according to children's age and motivation. Thus, skills to design, plan, implement, and evaluate an appropriate curriculum, manage convivencia, and create context and promote children's play are the three key elements of teacher training in early years education.

Multimodality is an important element of teaching and learning in early years settings. It provides opportunities for young children to communicate using different resources they feel comfortable with. This paper focuses on multimodality and multimodal learning in early years education and the different approaches, which can be used to create a multimodal learning environment. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how two powerful approaches, such as the Reggio Emilia and the Mosaic allow multimodal learning, which is crucial for children’s holistic development. The Reggio Emilia approach and the Mosaic approach are discussed, focusing on the strategies used to support children in their development using their multimodal ways of communication. The Reggio Emilia approach is analysed as an example that appreciates the artistic work of children (i.e., drawings to express their way of thinking) while on the other hand, the Mosaic approach is analysed as an example that supports children to have a leading role in their learning journey. This paper can be used as a starting point in raising awareness of practical multimodal teaching practices in early years education.

Children's early years provide an important foundation for their future health and strongly influence many aspects of wellbeing. Children's tastes and eating habits are also formed early in life with consequences for growth, development, health and academic achievement in later life.1-4 Promoting the initiation and optimal duration of breastfeeding and good nutrition in the early years can reduce the prevalence of later obesity and associated chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers.5 Hence, the most cost-effective nutrition interventions focus on this window of opportunity.6 With over 1.3 million registered early years places in England7 and an increasing number of full day-care places,8 early years settings provide an invaluable opportunity to help children to eat well and engage with families to encourage development of healthy eating habits at home. All regulated early years settings in England are required to follow the mandatory standards for learning, development and care of children from birth to five years as set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework.9 The framework includes a welfare requirement for the provision of 'healthy, balanced and nutritious' food and drink, but until recently, there was no national guidance in England to explain what this meant in practice.10Development of the 'Eat Better, Start Better' programmeIn April 2011, the Children's Food Trust11 was awarded a Department for Education grant to develop and deliver the 'Eat Better, Start Better' programme. This programme evolved from two recommendations made by the Advisory Panel on Food and Nutrition in Early Years,12 the development of national food and drink guidelines for early years settings and food and nutrition training for the early years and health workforce. The main aims of the programme are to support healthier food provision in early years settings and in families with young children, and increase the food, nutrition and healthy cooking knowledge, skills and confidence of early years and health practitioners and parents.The programme has been implemented over two phases. As part of Phase 1 (2011-2012), the trust developed the Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines for Early Years Settings in England13 and practical support tools, and worked collaboratively with five local authority areas to develop and pilot an integrated food and nutrition training and evaluation package. Following successful delivery in Phase 1,14 the programme was rolled out to a further 20 targeted local authorities across England between April 2012 and September 2013.The 'Eat Better, Start Better' programme has been designed to support early years and health professionals to confidently cascade age-appropriate, nutrition advice to early years settings and families, helping to ensure that children and parents receive consistent messages around healthy eating.The programme includes two trainthe- trainer courses (how to use the food and drink guidelines; healthy cooking with families), dissemination of guidance and resources, and regular monitoring of impact using standardised evaluation tools. The Trust's training, accredited by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH),15 acknowledges the unique role health and early years practitioners have in delivering health and education services.Monitoring the impact of the 'Eat Better, Start Better' programmeEvaluation is an integral part of the programme. Following the training, each local authority undertakes baseline and follow-up audit visits in early years settings to assess the impact of the food and drink guidelines and practical tools on settings' approach to and provision of food. To assess the impact of the cooking sessions delivered to families, early years settings report what food was prepared, the skills developed and how many families were involved in the cooking sessions. This information informs an evaluation report for commissioning in local authorities and can be used as evidence of impact for health and wellbeing boards. …

AS I write we have still not heard the full response to the Childcare Commission, but bits of information keep appearing as to how the future might work. We are still no nearer hearing how the funding for More Great Childcare will work, though I suspect it will fall short of what is needed. What we have learned is that Childminder Agencies, the one’s that no-one seems to want other than Ofsted and the government, will not be centrally funded, which means they will need to charge childminders for their services, which means that costs will be passed on to parents. I would like to see the government come up with some gures to show how this will meet their expressed aims of increasing wages and reducing parental costs. Or indeed, how this will tempt new childminders into the sector? Meanwhile, the simpli cation of the early years continues apace. Where currently we have many di erent quali cations of varying standards, especially at Level 3, feeding up to degree level, and also to EYPS, we will soon have two types of practitioner – the educator and the ‘teacher’. Neither of which carries quali ed teacher status, although one will be called a teacher. Now we welcome Teach First into the mix, whose teachers will gain quali ed teacher status (QTS), after two years. Simple. Now, Teach First has, by all accounts, been a welcome and successful addition to the primary landscape, and I expect that given time, and with the appropriate support from the sector, the training programme will prove successful in the early years. But it must get that training right, and it must get the early years message across, it must be routed in child development and the holistic child. If it is to be a government-led tag-on to the primary scheme, with the aim of increasing the schooli cation of the early years, then it will be a disaster. But how lucky that the Teach First graduates will gain QTS. And how would that make anyone embarking on the Early Years Teacher training feel, who would be called a teacher, but wouldn’t be a teacher in the ‘accepted’ sense of the word. Or, is the point that the government would want everyone to train through Teach First? I suspect not because that is only open to graduates. So, does that mean if you are not a graduate, and you work in the early years, you will never have the same status, pay and conditions as your primary equivalents? Which, when you are trying to professionalise a workforce, seems to me a bit of a disincentive? I presume the Teach First early years teachers will be on the primary pay scale... One thing’s for sure, any change in ratios is not going to make up a wages shortfall, so we are left hoping that perhaps sense will prevail, and that all those potential Early Years Teachers, you know, the ones with years of experience, high levels of competence and empathy, a fantastic knowledge of child development, whole-child approaches and history of the early years, the ones who work day in and day out with children and their families, those devoted, enthusiastic and intelligent people, will nally be given the status, the kudos and the wages they deserve. You deserve it. Editor Neil Henty MSc eye@markallengroup.com

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The 18-month well-baby visit: A commentary

The Early Years Intervention Toolkit provides a range of ready-made activities to enable early years practitioners and health visitors to address observed difficulties in a child’s development prior to starting school. It includes a checklist of observed behaviours which links to a range of effective and engaging activities to support children’s development across the three prime foundational areas of learning: Communication and Language; Physical Development; and Personal, Social and Emotional Development. Activities focus on a variety of crucial skills such as speaking and listening, moving and handling, and forming relationships, making use of materials that are readily available in every early years setting. This toolkit offers: A time-saving approach to interventions, with additional guidance on planning, providing, and recording appropriate interventions Advice and activities to share with parents for them to try at home A framework to enable early years practitioners to identify specific difficulties in key areas of development Downloadable resources to support activities and interventions The Early Years Intervention Toolkit is an inclusive programme and all children in the early years will benefit from taking part in the activities. It will be an essential resource for early years practitioners to effectively identify and support learning needs in child development and will boost the confidence of young children as they prepare for Key Stage One.

Play is crucial to the learning and development of children in the early years. The third edition of Play in the Early Years is a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of play for children from birth to 8 years old. Drawing on classical and contemporary theories, this text examines social, cultural and institutional approaches to play, and explores a range of strategies for successfully integrating play into early years settings and primary classrooms. This edition features a new chapter on conceptual playworlds, which demonstrates what conceptual playworlds look like to infants and toddlers, pre-schoolers, and children transitioning into school. The text features classroom vignettes and photographs designed to help students connect theory to practice, and reflection questions and research activities encourage in-depth reflection and extend learning. Highly regarded by early childhood researchers and practitioners alike, Play in the Early Years remains an essential resource for pre-service students.

Supporting mathematical competence has been identified as an important issue in early childhood education in order to ensure successful participation in knowledge-based societies around the world (Early et al., 2007; OECD, 2018). A growing body of research in recent years has addressed pre- and elementary school children's development of mathematical competence (Linder & Simpson, 2018). This research has highlighted that early mathematical competence is highly important for the development of mathematical competence in later years at school (Duncan et al., 2007; Krajewski & Schneider, 2009; Litkowski, Duncan, Logan, & Purpura, 2020; Nguyen et al., 2016). The development of mathematical competence in children's early years depends on several aspects, ranging from individual characteristics (e.g. children's general cognitive abilities) to environmental ones, such as parents' socioeconomic status or specific learning opportunities provided by the parental home or in institutional early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings (Burghardt, Linberg, Lehrl, & Konrad-Ristau, 2020; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007). Institutional ECEC settings have been identified as relevant learning environments for mathematical competence, in particular (Litkowski et al., 2020; Ulferts & Anders, 2016). However, in order to experience these advantages, ECEC institutions have to offer children high-quality learning opportunities. High-quality learning opportunities in the field of early mathematical learning are characterized by a focus on children's needs and interests as well as on core mathematical ideas in terms of content (Clements & Sarama, 2016; Gasteiger & Benz, 2018; van Oers, 2010). The quality of such learning opportunities depends to a great extent on ECEC teachers' professional competence. Research has shown that domain-specific aspects, for example with respect to mathematics (McCray, 2008), play a crucial role in addition to general aspects of teachers' professional competence (Parks & Wager, 2015). Domain-specific aspects include, for example, knowledge about children's domain-specific development or domain-specific aspects of learning support. ECEC teachers' professional competence in mathematics has been the subject of a growing body of research in recent years. However, there is still a lack of systematic 2literature in this field (Linder & Simpson, 2018). Specifically, no comprehensive overview of descriptions, development and effects of ECEC teachers' competence in mathematics currently exists. This edited volume serves as a first step to closing this literature gap.

Several studies have shown the value of outdoor environments for children's development in different ways: developing motor skills, more harmonious and imaginative play, improving quality of playing and perception of landscapes. This chapter will introduce how different outdoor environments affect children's play activities and motor development. Children interpret landscapes as functions to play and they operationalize the affordances as an awareness of the environments and their functional meaning into action. The methodological approach to outdoor motor play will be based on a Dynamic Systems Approach, the Theory of Affordances, and the Typology of Place. These approaches will introduce the outdoor environment as a context for learning, affording children different challenges to be explored through problem solving and experiential learning. Stimulating fundamental motor skills in early years will be the basic approach using theories that support these perspectives.

Infant Mental Health relates to how well a child develops socially and emotionally from birth to age three. There is a well-established link between parent-infant relationship quality, Infant Mental Health, and longer-term social and emotional development there is a lack of evidence-based interventions that support the parent-infant relationship and/or protect against poor Infant Mental Health. Little Minds Matter is a specialist Infant Mental Health service developed in Bradford (UK) to support parent-infant relationships by providing training and consultation for professionals and direct clinical work to families. The successful implementation of this intervention depends upon how well it becomes embedded within, or integrated into, the early years system. For the purposes of this study, the early years system includes health, social and education services that support child health and development from conception to primary school entry at age five. This study protocol aims to apply a systems approach to evaluate this service and provide a perspective on the process of embedding a complex service within a healthcare system. Multiple methods will be used to investigate embeddedness within the wider early years system. Routinely collected quantitative data about the service will be used to develop a system map showing interaction with related services. Qualitative data will be collected at two time points through interviews with individuals involved in the design and provision of the service, and professionals working within the early years system. Framework analysis will be used to analyse the data inductively and deductively within a systems approach. The findings from this study will provide evidence to inform the ongoing implementation of the service for providers and commissioning bodies. Exploring the application of a systems approach in this clinical context will have application more broadly for researchers evaluating complex interventions and services within a wider system.

CHERRY, FLORA F., and EATON, ETHEL L. Physical and Cognitive Development in Children of LowIncome Mothers Working in the Child's Early Years. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 158-166. Children of 200 low-income families were studied as to possible deleterious outcomes due to maternal employment in the child's first 3 years of life. In an 8-year follow-up, children of workers and nonworkers were compared as to weights and measures, IQ, reading, arithmetic and spelling achievement, and ITPA. Children of workers performed as well as nonworkers. Associations with maternal age, education, parity, subsequent fertility, per capita income, crowding index, household size, adult/child ratio, and presence of the husband were also examined as to maternal work status and the outcome variables. When controlled for maternal variables, 30 differences in outcomes were found, 27 of which favored children of workers. This study indicated there are certain advantages to children and families with limitation of procreation.