Metodologías de intervención establecidos

„a process that must enrich (children‟s) lives, their learning and development …and the way in which, in our everyday practice, we observe children's learning, strive to understand it, and then put our understanding to good use...

Assessment is part of our daily practice in striving for quality‟. (Drummond, 2003:13)

Drummond in turn recognises the potential for practitioners in early years to learn from the New Zealand model of placing narrative at the centre of the assessment of learning and development. This model rejects the:

„product-based metaphors…in which learning is described in terms of targets, levels, outcomes and goals …(which) suggest learning is time-bound, momentary and discontinuous: …(so that) learning is something that children have…rather than something they do. (Drummond, 2003:186. Emphasis in original)

In comparison, Drummond sees Carr‟s approach to learning as a „moving event, dynamic and changeful, practically synonymous with living‟ (ibid:186).

This „watchful‟ and „listening‟ model of assessment is a respectful process (Nutbrown, 1996). Drummond (2003) sees effective assessment as recognising the disparity of power between adults and children in early years settings, which might otherwise have negative connotations of coercion. However adults can employ „the loving use of power‟ (Smail, in Drummond,2003:176) so that assessment can be „transformed‟ through educating „lovingly as well as

effectively‟ (ibid:176). These approaches seem to illustrate the attribute of quality as „adults who care for you‟ that was defined by children in the studies above.

Pedagogical practices that involve the social co-construction of learning Jordan (2004) describes the practice of working with parents, children and practitioners as the „co-construction‟ of learning. Within an early educational context, she defines it as a socio-cultural process that:

„involves both children and teachers working together towards the upper ends of their zones of proximal development (ZPDs), as they co-construct meanings in activities that involve higher order thinking‟ (Jordan, 2004:32).

The ZPD represents the distance between the level of development that a child is actually at and the potential level of development that s/he is capable of under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers (Vygostsky,1978). It is acknowledged that both adults and more expert peers can support or „scaffold‟ a

child‟s learning to the level that they are capable of working (Greenfield, 1984, in Jordan, 2004:32). Jordan explains that through co-construction the child

becomes a „powerful figure in his/her own learning‟ (ibid:33). She evokes the image of a „child rich in potential, strong, powerful, competent, and, most of all, connected to adults and to other children‟ described by Malaguzzi (1993:10) as a central tenet of the Reggio Emilia construction of the child. Through co-

construction the emphasis in learning is on children and their teachers „studying meanings in favour of acquiring facts‟ in a process of interaction (Jordan, 2004:33).

Prior to the introduction of the Foundation Stage Curriculum, Anning and Edwards took part in a project to develop an early years curriculum through methods of co-construction. The project involved a group of practitioners from a range of pre-school settings, bringing together different training, experiences and pedagogical traditions from their separate backgrounds (Anning and

Edwards,1999). The aim of the project was „to create an informed community of practice among a group of practitioners through their involvement with action research‟ (Anning, 2004:57). Also influenced by Reggio Emilia, the methodology required practitioners to collect extensive data of „logs, field notes, accounts of conversations with colleagues and parents and children‟s

drawings/paintings/models‟ (ibid:63). Anning summarised the outcomes of the process of synthesising the experiences and understanding of parents and practitioners from different settings to create a curriculum model which:

Values the everyday as a source for learning rather than trivialising it Recognises the importance of physicality in a curriculum for young children

Acknowledges the importance of the need for intimacy and emotional engagement in the quality of interactions between young learners and their teachers

Exemplifies the importance of adults working diagnostically from the documented evidence of what children do rather than what policy-makers or politicians think they ought to do and know

Places playful interactions between children and children and adults (parents and professionals) and children at the heart of effective teaching and learning

Acknowledges the importance of the social and situated nature of learning. The construct of childhood underpinning the model is of active young learners connected to other children and to the adults in early learning settings. (Anning, 2004:67)

In Anning‟s summary of outcomes, some attributes of quality from children‟s perspectives identified previously can be identified, such as caring relationships between children and adults and playful interactions.

Pedagogical practice that involves cognitive constructivist approaches to learning

There are two further associations between learning and quality that have relevance to the study. Laevers (1994) has identified two quality indicators as part of the Experiential Education (EXE) project that he claims can be regarded as „conclusive indicators for the quality of education, whatever the context‟. The concepts of „involvement‟ and „emotional well-being‟ are „process variables‟ within a quality of learning framework that inform „on what is going on in the child‟. Involvement refers to a quality process in the child where „the involved person finds him/herself in a special state characterized by concentration, intense experience, intrinsic motivation, a flow of energy and a high level of satisfaction connected with the fulfilment of the exploratory process‟. (1994:5). Involvement is assessed by adults to indicate the quality of learning in the child, from a total lack of activity, to maximum activity, with the implication that practitioners can

intervene and alter the learning environment to increase an individual‟s involvement.

Well-being „shows us how much the educational environment succeeds in helping the child to feel at home, to be him/herself, to remain in contact with him/herself and have his/her emotional needs (the needs for attention,

recognition, competence) fulfilled‟ (1994:5). Similarly, well-being as a feature of a child‟s adjustment to a setting can be promoted through intervention by

practitioners, who take the experience of the child as the point of reference for learning and care.

The concepts of involvement and well-being are related to a cognitive constructivist paradigm of learning. They are helpful for the study and are referred to in the methodology to describe the level of children‟s engagement observed during the fieldwork, and again in the research stories.

Chapter Summary

The purpose of this chapter has been to situate the position of children‟s

perspectives of quality and the meaning made by children of their experience of early years provision, within a wider context of an understanding of quality. The nature of quality as it is applied in England at the present time has been explored in some detail. It appears that whilst each of the three approaches to quality management presented can accommodate the views of children, a Quality Control model can only do so at arms length. Quality Assurance models rely on the value afforded by individual schemes to the inclusion of children as part of the evaluation of a service. The means and the processes through which children

might be able to voice their views have been identified within an approach to Total Quality, which is particularly responsive to all stakeholder views.

As the concept of quality has started to be unpicked an understanding of what the concept of quality means for children has been proposed, based on existing studies. From the concept analysis, it appears that the defining attributes, based on values, of the „outsider‟ adult perspective are different to those of children. The former are concerned with structure (frameworks, standards, criteria), and

characterised by certainty and the authority to inspect and direct change. This is a „top down‟ perspective. In contrast a „bottom up‟ perspective is concerned with process and relationships, and the ability to make choices and take some control. The studies revealed children‟s awareness that they had more control and

autonomy to decide on what they do can at home than they had in their

preschool setting. However children‟s responses also reflected the influence of the outsider perspective in terms of rules and order, the discourse of learning and the role of adults in children‟s lives. Whilst adults were seen to control their activity children also voiced their liking for „grown ups‟, and saw them as being there to help them. This was an empowering aspect of child/adult relations. Direct links can be made between Laevers‟ (1994) definition of well-being and those studies which found children identifying issues of personal autonomy and empowerment as aspects of quality provision (Sheridan and Samuel -

Pramlington, 2001 and Einarsdottir, 2005). It appears to be important to children that they are able to influence events and have some control over their activity in their preschool in order to „feel at home…and have…the needs for attention, recognition, [and] competence‟ realised (Laevers, 1994:5).

Another perspective on the practice of early years provision referred to in this chapter is that of the post modern thinkers, who seek to redefine the way early years provision is constructed and understood, away from a discourse on quality towards a discourse on meaning making, central to which is the concept of children as social agents within their pre-schools. Initially, it might be seen to be similar to Total Quality, as it is open to children‟s views, but it is based on different social constructs. It seeks to deconstruct existing practice and to reconstruct practice through the active reflection of all involved in a setting. It is within this construct of quality that the study sits.

The final section, drawing links between quality measures and assessment in early years, reviewed a range of current approaches to assessing children‟s learning that utilise a constructivist paradigm. In working with the child, and often their families, practitioners seek to understand and promote individual children‟s

learning through shared meaning. They also develop their own wider knowledge and understanding of conditions for learning in the early years.

The next chapter presents the methodology, which involved working closely with children, observing and talking, with the aim of eliciting the views of a sample group of children on the quality of their pre-school experiences, including those of learning. Chapter Three explains the ethnographic methodological approach utilised in the study. It describes the research sites, sampling and data collection methods, and details and justifies the analysis and interpretation of the data. This takes as its starting point existing categories identified in the literature review in order to develop a deeper understanding of children‟s perspectives on the quality of their experiences in early years provision.