Introduction

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Children are whole people who have feelings, ideas, a sense of embodied self and
relationships with others and who need to be physically, mentally, morally and
spiritually healthy.2

The first place that I would take my specialist early years PGCE students was a local
nursery school that would provide part of their school experience. The nursery head-
teacher would ask the students to kneel down on the floor of the nursery. They were
always disconcerted at this opening request, fearing some ritual for which they had not
been adequately prepared. The headteacher then told the students to explore the setting
on all fours and to note what they could see. It was when he explained that this was the
view of the nursery that a young child saw that the rationale for his strange request
became immediately apparent. This book is, in some ways, similar in that it looks at the
early years nursery experience from the young child’s point of view, from the inside of
their heads, looking out, rather than from the outside, looking in, thus gaining an insight
into how a child develops.

Why study child development?

Children’s earliest years are vital to their subsequent success and well-being. Yet there are
feelings of anxiety and confusion amongst parents and practitioners about how children
should be treated and how childhoods should be lived. Historically, early years’ educa-
tion was linked to what was known about how children developed. As early as the
Haddow Report in 1931 there was the exhortation that ‘the curriculum of the primary
school is to be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than knowledge to
be acquired and facts to be stored’.3 Educators such as John Dewey were influential in
placing child development at the heart of high-quality education for the youngest
children in our education system. Attempts by recent governments to ensure children’s
educational progress has led, however, to a more target-based system of education, and
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this, together with the growth of competency-based training for practitioners, has had
the effect of marginalising child development in both training and practice. Currently,
national concerns about children’s well-being and confidence are leading to a
realisation that knowledge about children’s emotional, social, physical and cognitive
development may well lead, not only to happier children but also to children who learn

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 Introduction

more successfully. At this point, it needs to be emphasised that there is a difference

Copyright © 2011. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or

between children’s development and their progress. Children’s development is the study
of how they change emotionally, cognitively, physically and socially as they grow; and
the study of how these changes are affected by both environmental and genetic factors.
This is very different from the progress that they make through the Stepping Stones of the
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The Stepping Stones sometimes follow children’s
natural development but very often do not. They are predominantly about the acquisition
of academic bodies of knowledge such as reading, computation and the humanities.
This book maintains that, both to develop to their full developmental potential
and to progress effectively through the EYFS, children need first, to feel good about
themselves as people and second, to develop those attributes that all effective learners
have: namely, motivation, self-confidence and social competency. Thus, the major aim
of this book is to suggest ways in which practitioners can, through their relationships with
their children, help them become these effective learners.
Currently, children’s educational progress has a high profile and, as a result, many
research studies are being conducted to establish the type of environment in which they
are most likely to flourish. These studies are often reported in the press as having clear
indications as to what benefits one type of care may have over another. Some studies will
suggest, for example, that day care is inappropriate for the very youngest children,4 while
another study suggests that grandparents are not as able to prepare their grandchildren
for school as effectively as nurseries.5 This book suggests that where a child is placed in
their early years is of secondary importance to what happens to them while they are
there. In other words, children may be well cared for and educated across a range of
settings and situations, be they domestic, state, private or voluntary. What makes a
significant difference to their learning success is the quality of practitioner training. This
needs to include a secure understanding of child development, as it has been defined,
above, as this is the key to ensuring that children’s needs are met wherever they find
themselves. Meeting these developmental needs is of vital importance in helping them
flourish as successful learners.
Child development is not, then, about teaching the bodies of knowledge that need
to be addressed in the Foundation Stage. Rather, it is about how that knowledge should
be taught to very young children in ways that link to their natural innate development.6
This was a major finding of the Rumbold Report, which reported in 1990, and which
investigated the quality of experiences offered to young children in early years settings.
Developmentally appropriate practice, as it is sometimes called, comes from respected
research and theory and is enshrined in current government legislation. From this research
and theory we can extract clear principles of practice which guide our practice.
We should ask ourselves ‘If I believe in this theory, how would my setting look to reflect
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it?’. In this way, we can link theory directly to practice and enable children to learn
successfully.
In fact the reasons why our settings look as they do – why they have role-play areas,
sand and water play, and an outside area for example – are not random. Each aspect of the
early years setting is based on a theory. In other words, researchers have suggested, through

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 Introduction

their observations of children’s behaviour, that certain experiences help children to learn
Copyright © 2011. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or

most effectively and the way we, as practitioners, offer these experiences to children depends
on our knowledge and our beliefs about children’s development and ways of learning.
These theories are the ‘big ideas’ on which our everyday practice is based and the first four
chapters will explore them and consider how they underpin what we do every day.
What we know and believe about how children learn best is evident in how our
setting looks. If we think that children learn best by sitting down and practising their
writing skills in a formal way, there will be tables and chairs for each child. If we believe
that children learn best by being active, then we will have less furniture but a range of
interesting things to do that involve first-hand, practical involvement from the children.
This latter approach reflects much of the research by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky early
in the twentieth century. It became apparent to them that the mind of the young child
gathers not only basic numerical, scientific and linguistic information but also strategies
for remembering, understanding and solving problems if they are learning actively. If this
is what we believe, then there must be activities and experiences in our settings that will
engage children’s interest for prolonged periods of time to allow for creative thinking and
a deep level of learning. This will have direct implications for how we organise our
setting and how we manage children’s learning. Theories are only helpful to further
young children’s learning if they have implications for our everyday practice!
This book acknowledges the principles of child development which were devised
by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NYEYC),7 and are stated
below:

1. All the domains of development and learning – physical, social and emotional, and
cognitive – are important, and they are closely interrelated. Children’s development
and learning in one domain influence and are influenced by what takes place in other
domains.
2. Many aspects of children’s learning and development follow well-documented
sequences, with later abilities, skills and knowledge building on those already
acquired.
3. Development and learning proceed at varying rates from child to child, as well as at
uneven rates across different areas of a child’s individual functioning.
4. Development and learning result from a dynamic and continuous interaction of
biological maturation and experience.
5. Early experiences have profound effects, both cumulative and delayed, on a child’s
development and learning; and optimal periods exist for certain types of development
and learning to occur.
6. Development proceeds towards greater complexity, self-regulation, and symbolic or
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representational capacities.
7. Children develop best when they have secure, consistent relationships with respon-
sive adults and opportunities for positive relationships with peers.
8. Development and learning occur in and are influenced by multiple social and
cultural contexts.

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 Introduction

9. Always mentally active in seeking to understand the world around them, children
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learn in a variety of ways; a wide range of teaching strategies and interactions are
effective in supporting all these kinds of learning.
10. Play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation as well as for promoting
language, cognition and social competence.
11. Development and learning advance when children are challenged to achieve at a
level just beyond their current mastery, and also when they have many opportunities
to practice newly acquired skills.
12. Children’s experiences shape their motivation and approaches to learning, such as
persistence, initiative and flexibility; in turn, these dispositions and behaviours affect
their learning and development.

In this book, Chapters 1–4 consider the theories of child development and discuss
the knowledge that early years specialists need to understand in order to teach young
children effectively. While recognising that children’s development is multifaceted, there
are four strands which will be looked at in depth. These are children’s:

● emotional and behavioural development

● cognitive and intellectual development
● physical and motor development
● social and language development.

From these strands, practitioner questions have been extracted which, it is hoped, may
be helpful when they are planning and evaluating their provision. These are:

● How should children feel about themselves and their learning? This links to
children’s emotional and behavioural development.
● How do I know where the children are in their learning and how can I move
them on? This links to children’s cognitive and intellectual development.
● How can I ensure that resources are available for children to use actively and
independently? This links to children’s physical and motor development.
● How should we all act towards each other? This links to children’s social and
language development.

These questions are designed to encourage a reflective attitude to practice and, although
designed to highlight children’s development, will also have some implications for how
practitioners feel about themselves, their colleagues and their practice. How children
feel and act towards each other in the setting will directly reflect how the adults feel and
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act towards each other!

The next six chapters of the book take these strands and their associated questions
and apply them directly to areas of practice that are common in all settings. In these
chapters there will be direct links to the Practice Guidance and Statutory Requirements
of the Early Years Foundation Stage. As this is referred to constantly throughout the book,

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 Introduction

it is impossible to index practically. In all the chapters the six areas of learning and
Copyright © 2011. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or

development are referred to by their abbreviations:

PSE Personal, Social and emotional development
CLL Communication, language and literacy
PSRN Problem solving, reasoning and numeracy
KUW Knowledge and understanding of the world
PD Physical development
CD Creative development.
The strands and questions have been separated out purely to help practitioners
consider them in some depth. In reality, of course, they intertwine and children all
progress at different rates and often in different directions from that anticipated by the
practitioner. In the last chapter, the strands will be gathered into themes which practitioners
may like to consider when planning holistic learning. These themes will provide
opportunities for children to follow their own interests at a level which is appropriate for
them as individuals through the playful ways in which they are presented.
The EYFS consistently reminds us that child development is at the heart of effective
practice. It also states that child development is complex and individual to each child:
‘Development is a continuous, complex interaction of environmental and genetic factors
in which the body, brain and behaviour become more complex’.8 This book, then, aims
to explore these interactions and to suggest practical ways in which children can be
enabled to become more successful as learners and more confident as human beings.
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Copyright © 2011. Routledge. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or
applicable copyright law.

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