Early Years Education and Care

Rethinking early years: how the neoliberal agenda fails children

Soundings ◽

10.3898/soun.76.09.2020 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 76 (76) ◽

pp. 128-157

Author(s):

Celia Burgess-Macey ◽

Clare Kelly ◽

Marjorie Ouvry

Keyword(s):

Good Practice ◽

Early Learning ◽

Early Years ◽

Formal Curriculum ◽

Small Children ◽

Children’S Learning ◽

Early Years Education ◽

Education And Care ◽

Children's Learning

Early years education in England is in crisis. This article looks at what is needed to better provide the kind of education and care that young children need outside the home, from birth to school-starting age. It explores: the current arrangements and varieties of provision and approaches in England; educational and developmental research about young children's development and early learning; the current national early years curriculum and how it contrasts to other international models and pedagogical approaches; the importance of play-based learning; the role of adults in observing, recording, assessing and supporting young children's learning; and the holistic nature of children's learning - which makes education and care inseparable in young children's lives. Neoliberal governments have had little interest in these questions: they have been focused instead on marketising the sector, which has led to great inequality of provision; and they have been unwilling to provide the necessary funding to train staff and maintain appropriate learning environments; most fundamentally, they have engaged in an ideological drive to impose on very small children a narrow and formal curriculum that ignores all the evidence about good practice in the sector, and is focused on making them 'school ready' - that is, ready to fit into the rigid frameworks they have already imposed on primary school education.

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Building a Learning Community Online

Managing Learning in Virtual Settings ◽

10.4018/978-1-59140-488-0.ch017 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 309-321

Author(s):

Tessa Owens ◽

Petra Luck

Keyword(s):

Online Learning ◽

Learning Community ◽

Community Of Practice ◽

Student Evaluations ◽

Early Years ◽

Early Years Education ◽

Education And Care ◽

E Learning

This chapter reviews a pilot e-learning project at Liverpool Hope University Col-lege. It will illustrate an approach to online learning aimed at students working inthe early years education and care sector and attempts to demonstrate the devel-opment of a “community of practice.” This chapter will discuss how the contextinformed the rationale for the approaches taken by the staff team and providescommentary from student evaluations highlighting their experiences.

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