Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Researching the changing landscape in early childhood education and care across the UK’s four nations
During 2018-2020 I was fortunate to be part of a team of researchers working on a Research Commission for the British Educational Research Association (BERA).
The commission aimed to:
‘respond to …the lack of research into policy and the need to hear the ‘voices of members of the ECEC professional community […] in practitioner research, in independent academic research, and in critical analyses of policies and their effects’ (BERA-TACTYC Review 2017, p. 119)
As an early career researcher this offered a brilliant opportunity to learn from established researchers and get a better grasp on the similarities and differences in early childhood education and care (ECEC) across the four UK nations. The final report was published in August 2022.
Scotland - In Scotland, resistance to the introduction of a national standardised assessment for children in their first year of primary school (P1) reached the Scottish parliament in September 2018, when a motion to halt the P1 tests was passed. We therefore held our second event in Paisley to find out more about the sector’s mobilisation of resistance.
Wales - During the period covered by the research commission, the Welsh government had instigated a revision of its curriculum for children aged between three and 16. In contrast to the top-down strategies in evidence in England and Scotland, practitioners were invited to join a national network for curriculum implementation tasked with co-constructing resources for use in settings. so, Swansea was chosen as the location for our third event.
Northern Ireland - Finally we selected Belfast for the fourth event, at a time of intense cross-national discussion about the early childhood workforce and paths towards professionalisation.
- School readiness: Why and for whom?
- Collaborative agency: Policy enactment or resistance?
- A curriculum for early years
- A professional workforce for the early years?
The report concludes:
…cause for hope can be found in the trust placed in the early years sector in Wales in the development of a new curriculum; in the harnessing of ‘readiness’ in the Greater Manchester Strategy; and in the lessons about early years pedagogy learned by primary teachers in Scotland, which are echoed in the confidence in the quality and potential of the profession evident in Belfast.
The different discourses that frame discussion about the purpose of early years provision need to be surfaced, and tensions between them addressed at strategic levels, if the sector is to move beyond its current structural problems and to harness the hope, potential and shared values among its workforce. (p.40)
References
Georgeson, J., Roberts-Holmes, G., Campbell-Barr, V., Archer, N., Lee, S. F., Gulliver, K., Street, M., Walsh, G., & Waters-Davies, J. (2022). Competing discourses in early childhood education and care: Tensions, impacts and democratic alternatives across the UK’s four nations. British Educational Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/competing-discoursesin-early-childhood-education-and-care
Payler, J., Wood, E., Georgeson, J., Davis, G., Jarvis, P., Rose, J., Gilbert, L., Hood, P., Mitchell, H. and Chesworth, L., (2017). BERA-TACTYC Early Childhood Research Review 2003-2017.
Authors
Jan Georgeson, Verity Campbell-Barr, Katherine Gulliver: University of Plymouth
Guy Roberts-Holmes, Siew Fung Lee: University College London
Nathan Archer: University of Sheffield
Martina Street: Manchester Metropolitan University
Glenda Walsh: Stranmillis University College
Jane Waters-Davies: University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Dr Nathan Archer
Nathan Archer is Director of the International Montessori Institute in the Carnegie School of Education. Prior to joining Leeds Beckett University in March 2022, he worked as a research fellow for University of Leeds and Nuffield Foundation.
