The Research Papers - Paper 1

Well it's been a long weekend in every sense of the word! We had the rainy St. Patrick's Day parade where the children were troopers and didnt moan about being wet or cold once :-), then we had the submission of information for the NCIP funding and that was an ordeal and a half. Thank god the laptop made it through the experience! Best of luck to everyone who applied, I hope we all get a little something out of it.

When I did get a chance to do some digging around on Aistear this weekend I discovered that the initial research behind it all were four papers on education and care, play, formative assessment, and learning and development. The first paper was Perspectives on the Relationship Between Education and Care in Early Childhood a research paper by Dr Noirin Hayes. By all accounts Dr Noirin Hayes is an expert in early childhood education, child development and children's rights. Hayes' background is in developmental psychology and she is both a senior lecturer in DIT and a director of the Centre of Social and Educational Research. She was one of the lead researchers in 'A Decade of Reflection' Early Childhood Care and Education in Ireland 1996-2006.

In the paper  Perspectives on the Relationship Between Education and Care in Early Childhood , Hayes sets out to explain and demonstrate that care  and education cannot be seperated in in early years provision and both must be present in order to provide the child with a balanced exeperience. She explores the roles of the adults involved, the level of professional development they do, and should, engage in. She also details the focus on the development of the whole child and a focus on interactive learning. She suggests a move way from formal curriculums and towards what she terms "frameworks" which seem to offer more scope to follow the child in his learning journey.

Hayes makes a number of key points through out the paper. They are as follows:

• The quality of children's interactions with adults and with the environment plays an important part in the quality of their learning at all ages.
• Learning is a social process; knowledge and meanings are constructed through active, shared interactions.
• Quality early childhood education and care impacts positively on all children but is most beneficial to those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Effective early learning environments are nurturing. Caring is educational; education is caring and both are efffective when responsive to the child.
• Observing children in their action, and inaction, provides a rich basis from which to provide experiences and environments that facilitate learning.
• There is emerging consensus and understanding in Ireland of the inseperable nature of education and care in early years provision across all settings.
• How early years services are supported influences, and is influenced by, cultural and societal beliefs about children, the role of the family and the purpose of early years services.
• In Ireland, many early years settings outside the primary school infant classes are considered to be health and social services rather than educational.
• The demand for early years services in Ireland has increased substantially over the last decade for a wide variety of reasons.
• There is no evidence which suggests increasing cash payments to parents improves access, affordability or quality of early years settings for young children.
• Structural adjustments to coordinate the development of the early years sector must be accompanied by associated conceptual adjustments.
• Emphasising the dynamic nature of early education for all children has led to a move away from the more prescribed curriculum to learning frameworks based on broadly agreed principles of child development, learning and pedagogy.
• Early childhood pedagogy increasingly reflects a sensitivity to child development, social context and the active, interactive nature of early learning.
• Where early learning is understood as an active, social, dynamic and transforming process the role of the adult as responsive and flexible becomes critical.
• Current early educational and developmental research suggests that where the affective and meta-cognitive dimensions are emphasised, later academic cognitive development - in terms of content knowledge, literacy and numeracy skills - is positively enhanced.
• The adult role in early education is critical to children becoming competent and masterful learners from the earliest age.
• Well educated early years practitioners contribute to and sustain quality early education, which in turn, yields positive short and long-term benefits for children.
• Recognising the centrality of informal pedagogy, as well as curriculum, to effective early education for all ages is a challenge. It requires both a trust in the educational value of the everyday and in the ability and interest of children to learn.

So far from reading through the key points I see no issue when it comes to Montessori:

• Montessorians believe in the trinity of child - directress - environment.
• The Montessori materials provide opportunities for both social interaction and problem solving and active participation.
• Montessori opened her first school in a disadvantaged area of Rome and her method has been proven time and time again to be most effective with children from disadvantaged backgrounds such as those children in India.
• The Montessori method is nurturing both in its cosmic method and the social grace and courtesy exercises.
• Montessori's entire method came from observing the children and altering the learning experiences from the feedback gleaned from those observations. Montessori teachers have been observing in classrooms for years.
• Montessori has had a long standing tradition in Ireland since the late 1920's and has been accessed by families all over. From then until now it has supported and explored the diverse cultural mix of famillies.
• The move away from prescribed curriculum is not something Montessorians should fear because that is exactly what we already do. The child decides his curriculum based on his interests in the environment. There are enough materials in the room to support the child's learning and development for three years giving the child the freedom to carry on in a subject or area that he has great interest. It is up to the directress to make sure that the environment is laid out in a way which captures the child's interest and curiosity.
• The Montessori directress encourages the child to become a masterful learner from the earliest practical life activities through teaching the child independence, concentration and both gross and fine motor skills.
• Montessori teachers undergo a very rigorous learning process and are very highly qualified.
• Finally it is the practical life exercises which recognise the value in the every day and the ability and interest of the child to learn.

All in all, I'm happy enough that this research paper doesnt throw anything up that would concern me as a Montessorian, in fact I feel it supports what we have already been doing for years. If anyone wants to read the paper in full from which I have taken the key points the link is as follows:

Research Paper - Noirin Hayes

As always if you have any comments on my interpretations please feel free to add :-)

Before it all began

So I've started to look into the background of Aistear and where it came from and I cannot believe how young this sector really is in Ireland. I certainly went to pre-school and that wasn't today or yesterday ;-) and yet when you look into the policy and research behind Aistear it all seemed to grow out of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) which we only ratified in 1992. Before we ratified the convention the Childcare Act 1991 was passed. Then there was sectoral silence as it were until 1998 when the Report of the National Forum for Early Childhood Education was pulished followed quickly by the White Paper on Early Childhood Education Ready to Learn in 1999, this was the same year that Children First was published. The following year the National Children's Strategy was published, followed by Ready Steady Play! A National Play Policy in 2004. An Early Childhood Care and Education Report 31 prededed the Childcare (Pre-School Services) Regulations 2006 which we all know and love, and finally Siolta was published in 2006 by the CECDE. I was quite shocked to realise the sector was so young and Siolta was so old in a way, considering the grand scheme of ECCE! I personally certainly hadn't heard about Siolta until the introduction of the ECCE Free Pre-School Year Scheme.

It is hard to believe that there are so little regulations and policy documents around Early Years in Ireland and that they have only started to emerge in the last 20 years. In looking back over the policy documents that have emerged it's strange to see the word 'education' used so often and yet the Pre-School and Childcare sector somehow fell under the remit of the HSE. It is shocking that Children First is a guideline or best practice document and not law. I wonder will we actually see the passing of the long awaited Child Care Bill / Amendment Act this year or will it be pushed to the back of political agendas again?

Anyway, I'm off on a tangent, it makes for interesting reading all this background on Aistear and really gives you a place to anchor the professionalism of the sector, where it comes from and where it's moving too. I'm looking forward to reading about the research carried out before the framework was settled upon and who those stakeholders were in agreeing  the framework.

This is my understanding so far on the research I've carried out but if I have misinterpreted anything or gotten it wrong I'd love some feedback! Thanks :-)

Néady
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So what's it all about?

All services that sign up to the ECCE Scheme in Ireland must agree to using Aistear in their services in designing the curriculum, but Montessori already has a very particular curriculum so how does it work? How do I make it work for my school? Looking around it seems Montessori teachers in particular are having difficulties in working with this framework especially the focus on "play".

For me to fully understand how to apply Aistear to my school I need to investigate further into what it is, who were the stakeholders involved in writing it and how they came up with the final product. At the moment I'm not sure I like the idea of something being forced on us which seems at the outset to be at odds with our Montessori philosophy so I'm going to look at it further. I want this to work for my school not because this is something I must comply with in order to qualify for funding but because it compliments what I am already doing.  From my understanding formal engagement with Aistear must be undertaken by services from this September 2012 so I am going to work towards knowing as much about it as I can, document it's application in my planning between now and then and from September onwards document how it works in the classroom and reflect on its relevancy to my practice.

Wish me luck and please free to add your comments of your Montessori Aistear!

Néady
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