How can autonomy be achieved in school?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine why the uptake of free milk in a particular nursery class was low, to explore the meanings children attribute to drinks given to them in school and those brought from home, and make suggestions as to what might be done to improve children's intake of free school milk.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is based on a case study of a nursery class attached to a primary school in West London. A total of 24 morning sessions were observed, comprising of 72 snack times. In addition, interviews were carried out with parents and early years' practitioners i.e. teachers and nursery nurses. Children's views were elicited through use of narrative observations and an activity using their drinks' cartons.FindingsThis study found that these young children linked drinks brought in from home to having choices whereas drinking school milk was associated with having little or no choice. Unlike school milk, drinks from home were linked to stories of personal identity and family life. The children seemed to exert pressure on their parents to provide them with a drink from home and appeared to be attracted to drinks that included representations of characters from popular culture as well as particular brands.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is based on one case study, therefore issues raised may not be generalisable to all nursery settings.Practical implicationsThis paper encourages early years' practitioners to look in detail at how they organize snack times and the way that this might contribute to negative perceptions of healthy foods/drinks. It offers practical suggestions around how the uptake of milk could be improved in a nursery setting, emphasizing the need for the active involvement of the children. In addition, the study highlights the importance of informal as well as formal discussions with parents about food and drinks. The study recommends that improvements need to be made to early years' practitioners' initial and subsequent training in this area, given the significant role they play in health promotion.Originality/valueThe value of this paper lies in the way it elicits the active participation of young children in the research as well as the focus on the minutiae of nursery practice and its implications for promoting healthy eating/drinking.

Objetivou-se apresentar reflexões acerca das contribuições do Método de Maria Montessori em um contexto atual, considerando o desenvolvimento da autonomia da criança nos anos iniciais da Educação Básica. Quanto ao método, realizou-se uma pesquisa do tipo revisão bibliográfica levando em conta as contribuições de diversos autores, observando as características da Padagogia de Montessori e suas reflexões metodológicas e didáticas no desenvolvimento da autonomia da criança na educação básica e sua atuação no Brasil, sucedendo com abordagem teórica e metodológica da Pedagogia Tradiconal e da Pedagogia de Waldorf para subsidiar a análise reflexiva do modelo montessoriano. Com os resultados, percebeu-se que a Pedagogia de Montessori se faz presente em 62 unidades educacionais distribuídas em todas as regiões brasileiras, podendo ser compreendida como uma alternativa pedagógica alinhada aos princípios reguladores da BNCC e PCN, e constatou-se a falta de estudos que apontem o desenvolvimento da Pedagogia de Montessori em escolas públicas que prestam serviços à Educação Infantil e Ensino Fundamental. Pode-se concluir que a Pedagogia de Montessori vem contribuindo de forma significativa para a aprendizagem da criança em seu desenvolvimento educacional com autonomia e liberdade, e através das abordagens lúdicas e aplicação do modelo em ciclos por faixa etária estimula a construção do conhecimento e melhor interação no ambiente educacional.

The aim of this prospective study was to determine the outcome of affected hand impairment and disability in a group of 31 children (16 males, 15 females) with hemiplegic cerebral palsy who were referred consecutively to our rehabilitation service and followed from a mean age of 2 years and 7 months to a mean age of 12 years and 9 months. The hand function assessment protocol consisted of video-recorded procedures: one to assess grip and the other to assess the extent of spontaneous use of the affected hand. Assessments at outset and at latest follow-up showed that the series as a whole had greater hand impairment in spontaneous manipulation than in gripping tasks. Comparison of hand function before age 4 years with the latest assessment over age 11 years revealed a non-significant improvement in grip, whereas spontaneous hand use remained stable. All but one of the children who had good grip and hand use scores at first assessment maintained them over time unless they were not treated for hand dysfunction. Among the children with low scores at outset, the improvement over time was more marked in grip than spontaneous hand use and occurred mainly in the early years. These results suggest that to evaluate the real disability of the affected hand in children with hemiplegia, grip assessment is insufficient and that an instrument assessing spontaneous hand use in bilateral manipulation is required. Furthermore, intensive treatment focused on hand function should be planned in the early years for children with more severe hand impairment, whereas regular follow-up is sufficient for less affected children.

‘Exploration' is recognised as research behaviour; anecdotally, as an early years' teacher, I witnessed many young children exploring. However, young children's self-initiated explorations are rarely regarded as research by adult researchers and policy-makers. The exclusion of young children's autonomous explorations from recognition as research conflicts with ‘new sociology’ perspectives positioning children as social actors. These tensions have driven a small-scale interpretive study, developed with children aged four to eight years in three ‘good’ schools in England to investigate (1) Do children aged four to eight years in three Early Childhood Education and Care settings explore?; (2) If so, what are their explorations and what effects and affects them?; and (3) Do young children's explorations count as epistemology? Findings indicate that in settings where ‘free-flow’ play characterised practice, four- to five-year-old children engaged in exploration, but its quality was affected by several factors, including variable levels of children's autonomy. Seven- to eight-year-old children in a teacher-directed setting explored less than the four- to five-year-old children, but were frequently observed ‘off-task’, pursuing self-initiated explorations.

SUMMARY There has been a growing public concern in the UK about falling standards in numeracy over the 1990s. A little-examined assumption of successive governments has been that providing high quality teaching of numeracy from an early age leads to the raising of standards, to be judged in national and international terms. One goal of the project to be described here was to evaluate critically this assumption. This was achieved through a case study of the development of learning and teaching of numeracy in two, contrasting European contexts — England and Slovenia — in order to search for the explanations for observed differences in international performance at nine years (TIMSS, 1997). This paper will focus on the development of high and low-attaining six and seven-year-olds' arithmetic knowledge and calculation strategies in the two contexts and in relation to existing policy and practice. Several standardised and non-standardised instruments designed for the study were applied, using both oral and written tasks. Two-way analysis of variance showed six-year-old English pupils to score significantly higher than Slovene preschoolers for a test of basic arithmetic yet by seven years there were no significant differences and thereafter the Slovene pupils forged ahead. For a standardised arithmetic test (BAS) English six and seven-year-olds scored significantly higher yet by eight years there were no significant differences between the countries. Mental calculation tasks also showed that by the end of the Slovene children's first year at school there was little difference in accuracy between the two groups. Furthermore, unlike their English counterparts, Slovene children were beginning to use recall of fact strategies. By eight years, as data from the larger project showed, there appeared to be no benefits to accrue from the English early school entry. These results are discussed in the light of broader educational and cultural differences.

Early years of child’s life are acknowledged as vital stage for his/her all-inclusive intellectual, physical, emotional and linguistic development. Previous literature suggests that Early Childhood Education (ECE) provides solid basis for optimal development of life-long skills and consequent learning. Keeping in view the importance of ECE in international scenario, Pakistan National Education Policy (2009) made commitment to allocate additional budget for establishment of ECE resource rooms in all the public schools to provide at least one year of pre-primary education to children along with specialized training for teachers. This study, therefore, mainly focused to analyze teachers’ views about utility of ECE resource rooms in Pakistani public schools and to highlight opportunities, gaps and challenges. To achieve the objective, researchers used quantitative survey design and collected views of 308 (150 male and 158 female) randomly selected ECE teachers in district Muzaffargarh. A self-developed questionnaire comprising two factors having 45 close-ended items was used to collect data. Researchers applied both the descriptive and inferential statistical techniques to analyze the quantitative data. Overall, results suggested that majority of sample teachers showed positive perception about ECE setup as well as its utility but with some reservations. Findings further revealed that teachers' perceived utility of ECE resource rooms differed significantly in terms of their gender but not for school location. This study finally recommends that governments should increase allocation of budget to further promote ECE in public sector schools, specifically to construct purpose-build resource rooms and to train teachers.

While the early years of children’s education have long been acknowledged as crucial in supporting learning and development, there has been less focus on argumentation literacy as a way to promote active learning. This conceptual paper explores a new cross-disciplinary teaching framework, called the kaleidoscope framework of inquiry dialogue, which explicates the role of elementary school children’s collaborative argumentation processes during inquiry dialogue. The two key theories (reflective devices) in the framework include reflexivity and epistemic cognition. Using a kaleidoscope metaphor, we conceive of dynamic theoretical interactions which depend on aspects of children’s collaborative argumentation skills and learning/teaching contexts (the pieces of coloured glass contained within the kaleidoscope) that are in focus at any particular point in time. This paper first discusses inquiry dialogue and collaborative argumentation, followed by an overview of the underlying theories of reflexivity and epistemic cognition used in the kaleidoscope framework. Implications for supporting elementary school children’s collaborative argumentation processes during inquiry are discussed throughout.

This article is about children's literature in the early years of children's development, and it touches on many issues relating to children's literature, literacy models and literacy skills through research approaches. This article provides a few actions for cultivating the love of reading and the value of sharing literature with a few effective ideas to use literature to help children learn to read and write. When used sensitively by early childhood professionals it entertains and helps children develop self-awareness and understanding. Through an example of a children's picture book, ideas will be sharing about how adults can develop the kind of rich literacy environment that provides an excellent basis for learning literacy.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0977/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

In this article Doret J. de Ruyter and Anders Schinkel argue that parents' ideals can enhance children's autonomy, but that they may also have a detrimental effect on the development of children's autonomy. After describing the concept of ideals and elucidating a systems theoretical conception of autonomy, de Ruyter and Schinkel explore the ways in which the ideals of parents may play a role in the development of their children's autonomy. They show that abstract and complex ideals of parents (be it ideals for their children, ideals with regard to their parenthood, or their personal ideals) are most likely to enhance their children's autonomy. They also explain that an authoritative parenting style is most conducive to autonomy, although whether or not it does benefit children's autonomy also depends on the types of ideals pursued by parents.

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. …

Extracurricular participation and young children's outcomes in Hong Kong: Maternal involvement as a moderator

During the first decade of the twenty-first century there have been increasing numbers of bilingual children entering early years settings, many of whom are new to English. Twelve percent of school children in the UK are identified as having a mother tongue other than English and this number rises to 50% in urban areas such as inner London. In some London primary schools 80% of the children are classified as bilingual and more than 200 languages are spoken in the homes of children attending schools. It is often assumed that young bilingual children who are new to English will ‘pick up’ English naturally and very easily, but this article examines the complexities of the process of learning English as an additional language (EAL) in the early years. It also challenges some of the ‘myths’ about the ‘Silent Period’, as currently understood by practitioners and explained by linguists, and argues for a socio-cultural perspective on young children's learning during the early years.

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This book gives teachers, student teachers and other Early Years practitioners a clear understanding of how science and design and technology contributes to children's learning. It will help teachers make more focused, diagnostic observations of young children's play by identifying the scientific and design concepts, skills and attitudes being developed. It gives clear guidance for planning experiences and interventions that will help move the children forward in their learning within specific areas of the foundation stage curriculum, while giving a critical insight into the implications of this approach for teaching and learning and assessment in Key Stage 1 and beyond. It includes a focus on young children's learning, covering what we know from research about how young children learn and the centrality of their early scientific and designing/making experiences to this learning. The authors also present case studies of successful Early Years practice in science and design and technology; examples of practical planning for learning, written by Early Years practitioners; an analysis of the contribution of Science and Design and Technology towards meeting the Early Learning Goals; and advice for adults working in different Early Years settings. Founded on both research and first hand experience, this practical and accessible book demonstrates how scientific and designing/making activities are natural to young children, and have the potential for contributing to all aspects of their learning.

The aim of the project is to develop a global education model for The Global Bookshelf for children based on early childhood pedagogy and collection development and management principles from library and information science. Using an action research approach the researchers will compare use of The Global Bookshelf by practitioners in…Le but de ce projet est de mettre en place un modèle éducatif pour la Bibliothèque Globale destinée aux enfants et basé sur la pédagogie des jeunes enfants, sur le développement des collections, et sur les principes de gestion de la bibliothèque et des sciences de l’information. En utilisant une approche de recherche-action, les chercheurs comparent l’utilisation de la Bibliothèque Globale par…