An Investigation of The EYFS Framework and A Comparison of The Singapore and Highscope Curriculum Models
Introduction
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a statutory curriculum framework for the education of children from age 0-5. It was defined in Section 39 of the British government’s Childcare Act 2006 before its implementation in 2008. The EYFS framework is constituted of welfare as well as Learning and Development requirements that are mandatory for providers of care for children under five years of age. Several orders state the actual requirements. A revision of the EYFS took place in 2012.
The EYFS (2017) which is in current use has the following aims:
- Quality and consistency in all early year’s settings, so that every child makes good progress, and no child gets left behind.
- A secure foundation through learning and development opportunities which are planned around the needs and interests of each child and are assessed and reviewed regularly.
- Partnership working between practitioners, parents and/or carers
- Equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice, ensuring that every child is included and supported
The four guiding principles of the EYFS (2017) document are as follows:
- Every child who is constantly learning is unique and can be resilient, capable, confident and self-assured
- Children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships
- Children learn and develop well in enabling environments in which their experiences respond to their individual needs, and there is a strong partnership between practitioners and parents and/or carers.
- Children develop and learn in different ways and at different rates. The framework covers the education and care for all children in early years provision, including children with special educational needs and disabilities.
The EYFS 2017 document divides learning and development into seven areas; three prime and four specific areas. The three prime areas are communication and language, physical development and personal, social and emotional development. The four specific areas are literacy, mathematics, understanding the world, expressive arts and design. It provides learning goals and assessment methods for children aged 2 and 5 as well. The EYFS Profile which should be completed by June 30th of age 5 of the child should reflect: “ongoing observation; all relevant records held by the setting; discussions with parents and carers and any other adults whom the teacher, parent or carer judges can offer a useful contribution.” (EYFS, 2017) The EYFS framework mandates child: staff ratio and the assignment of a key person per child.
The EYFS and Early Childhood Theory
There are several important points the EYFS make based on updated research and the rectification of erring ways of thought. For instance, the EYFS states that ‘Babies and children develop in individual ways and at varying rates. Every area of development such as physical, cognitive, linguistic, spiritual, social and emotional is equally important’ and, “every child is a unique child.” The emphasis here, to my mind, sets right the western cultural bias for the mental and the cognitive. There are other cultural biases such as the Greek ludic, although not current anymore and, Eastern cultures which are said to be prejudiced towards the spiritual. However, the above statements by the EYFS view all these different aspects of human life as equally important. This is crucial since education is often mistakenly perceived as a function of the brain or mind alone. Recognising that every child is unique is a correction of privileged children with special talents and abilities. The acknowledgement that every child is unique also makes space for disabled and special children and is a further development on the emphasis in Every Child Matters (2003). Not only does every child matter, but every child is unique and worthy of celebration. Clearly, the EYFS has moved away from earlier thinking about childhood that viewed children as little adults or as punishable under law. Instead, we see in its influences several recent theories of early childhood development.
The EYFS acknowledges the contributions of Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory, a social constructionist theory when it highlights understanding the world as a specific area of learning and development. Vygotsky viewed people’s connections and the social world as a crucial predecessor to any learning. This is captured in the emphasis on people here: “Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment.” The above statement in the EYFS framework is also a shift from learning as an isolated process that is externally induced in children instead of being achieved through social interaction and because children are natural learners.
Also, the influence of Bowl by and Ainsworth’s attachment theory is evident when the EYFS mandates a key person for each child. According to this theory of early childhood, the child develops an attachment to the parents or a carer and depending on the security of this, attachment develops well. Consistency in caring is considered important here. This is reflected in the EYFS (2017) when it states: “Each child must be assigned a key person…”
The EYFS (2017) framework’s emphasis on the play is undeniably present. This is reflected in several passages across sections. For instance, “Play is essential for children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, to think about problems, and relate to others. Children learn by leading their play, and by taking part in a play which is guided by adults.” Evidently, the EYFS is subscribing to a specific theory of learning, one that is opposed by many and critiqued increasingly. Tom Bennett, for instance, calls it a powerful vehicle for “folk learning” but unhelpful beyond that phase. As Lynn Ang (2013) notes, there has been considerable debate on the EYFS’ emphasis on play-based approach. She also says that the intrinsic nature of play needs to be recognised and instead of formulating activities artificially to meet with play-based curriculum, practitioners could use the children’s own constructs to meet the requirements.
Mohammed (2013) notes that the separation of learning and development in the EYFS is an approach that is heavily reliant on Piaget’s developmental theory. Thus, the theoretical underpinnings of the EYFS lie in many theories of early childhood it combines and borrows. Critical perspectives could view the EYFS borrowings from disparate theories as causing confusion rather than clarity. For different activities, practitioners are required to confer a different subjecthood to the child. For instance, if for the physical activities, the practitioner is to view the child as a natural learner, for the play-based activities, they are viewing the child as requiring the help of adults to learn. Again, for other activities, adults must withdraw enough for other children to teach a child. If once they must follow: ‘Whatever children bring is an indication of their current interest and should be supported;’ at other times, they must decide on introducing new activities to promote learning.
The Development and Maintenance of EYFS
The way in which the EYFS developed and is maintained also sheds light on the challenges and advantages it offered. Crucial among the many revisions is the Development Matters that accompanied the EYFS in 2008 and was updated and revised in 2012. The document has now been dropped and is instead replaced by another document called the Early Years Outcomes, which is a much simpler checklist. While some theoreticians and practitioners might find the checklist easier to follow, Lena Engel suggests that it is possible that the advisors of local authorities may be just as muddled by the reduced reliance on the Development Matters guidance. It is also pertinent to remember that the Development Matters document was itself preceded by others, such as “The Stepping stones” and “The Birth to Three Matters”. The EYFS curriculum is said to have been produced to combine these two previous documents and therefore, also ranged from birth to five years. While from a governmental perspective, the 0-5 age group might make practical sense, from the practitioner’s point of view, the distance in age 0 to 5 is as wide as the earth and sky. If at age 0, the child’s sleep and eating schedules are of utmost importance, at age 5, the child most surely can eat on its own and requires many times more stimulation and activity. By age 5, communication of needs and wants is no longer a distant aim. In addition to this, goal setting for 0-5 has made many parents and teachers feel that the good citizenry or employment opportunities are pressures that even newborn babies cannot escape. Also, such early goals make relationships that the key person may develop with the child too mechanical rather than evolving organically.
Factors influencing the interpretation and implementation of the early years’ curriculum by practitioners
As Lynn Ang (2013) rightly notes, despite the good intentions of the EYFS, problems exist because there is a gap between the intention and its interpretation and implementation. The many critiques levelled at the EYFS show how crucial it is to avoid the paternalistic and authoritative approaches that governments adopt and learn to work with the irreplaceable perspectives that practitioners can offer. Often, the frameworks that are statutory overlook the infrastructure that schools need, and the time and training teachers need to re-adjust their work. Arguably, the EYFS has provided a strict framework with many constraints on job roles that are fulfilled better with guidelines in large strokes. The state could be perceived as a micromanager, thus killing the zest that educators bring to their jobs. Strict constraints also display a lack of trust in practitioners which further depletes the energy they use to tackle the grey areas in their jobs. In particular, the workload that practitioners had to take on through the EYFS framework was perceived as exhausting; they had to observe, assess and plan for every child’s development. Such practical factors negatively influence the implementation of curricula. Weston (2013) talks about the dangers of assuming that child development is governed by general and universal factors as leading appropriate practice to become accepted practice. This means that over time, parents and practitioners could set higher expectations for children unconsciously and children may suffer under pressure.
An interpretation and implementation of curriculum issue
One important issue related to the interpretation and implementation of curricula is the gap between curricula and the practical scenario of the classroom. Mohammed (2013) points out the daily issues and challenges in implementing the EYFS curricula effectively. In her Vignette 1, she points out how the same activity could yield multiple observations on what is being learned. In this case, Nicola, an Early Childhood Studies student had to repeatedly consult the EYFS before deciding which of its goals and aims were best reflected in a certain activity she was observing and making notes.
Inadequately met an Inclusion issue in the EYFS
Curiously, the EYFS document does not mention the word culture in the sense of multiculturalism even once. What this implies is that although inclusion is an issue of importance for the EYFS as far as special children are concerned, it is not extended to include other aspects of identity and difference such as cultural understandings or beliefs of the family. While the document states in numerous places that the practitioner should work with the parent, there is no hint of how the practitioner should do so if the parent belongs to a culture that the practitioner is unfamiliar with. How can the practitioner truly understand the child’s context and its play/activities if the context is left unexplained? Thus, Perepa’s (2013) work is crucial in so far as cultural understandings influence almost everything about a child’s perceived well-being. Similarly, Ahmed’s case study in Beckley and Karen (2009) is eye-opening in so far as it recognises that a Muslim child’s experience of food will be different and story settings from English culture will be unfamiliar. Thus, when introducing a story, practitioners need to be mindful that Ahmed needs to experience a strawberry tart.
The EYFS document is conspicuous for not mentioning the word gender either. This may be read as a credit to the neutrality of the document, but we must acknowledge that ‘parents’ more often than not, means ‘mother.’ That is, a document which involves parents at almost every step of child development fails to acknowledge the inclusion issue of gender and how women bear the burden of child-rearing and caring despite holding professional jobs. If the EYFP document displayed knowledge of the patriarchal milieu we are in, it might well have addressed the issue structurally as well. Adler and Lenz (2017) accurately point out how father’s care work and father-friendly policies are very recent in families, labour markets and state policies.
Comparison of Singapore and High Scope Curriculum Frameworks
Nurturing Early Years, A Curriculum Framework for Kindergartens in Singapore was updated by the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2012; its earlier edition was in 2003. This document begins with the understanding that children are curious, active and competent learners. It views teachers as facilitators which is a shift from the earlier perspective of top-down approaches, where children needed to be disciplined and punished (because as Piaget put it, they were egocentric) and were ‘imparted’ knowledge of teachers. Learning through purposeful play is an important aspect of this curriculum framework. Desired Outcomes was the year 2000 document that was introduced by the MOE. Before this, laws and policies safeguarding children’s rights were in place, but no curriculum framework document. Since most pre-school services are provided by the private sector as childcare centres, care and education have been synonymous in Singapore (Ang, 2013). But then, kindergarten, where it does exist, is perceived as providing more education than care. The desired outcomes of the Singapore curriculum such as, “Know what is right and what is wrong, Be willing to share and take turns with others,” is very specific and is a combination of social communication skills, as well as development. Singapore has a diverse population consisting of Chinese, Indian and Malay people. Its principle of Learning through interactions is most certainly based on social development theories that stress relationships with others. The child’s portfolio and parents/family are important in the Singapore curriculum model. Ang’s (2013) research shows tight budgets and limited resources mark many of the implementation decisions by practitioners. The Singapore model’s handling of diversity is remarkable in so far as language education is concerned. It fosters inclusion by labelling English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil as all official languages and nurtures learning in English and all mother tongue languages. This is something that has little scope in the UK or USA curriculum models.
The HighScope Curriculum framework was first developed in 1962 and encompassed five areas: environments, adult-child interactions, a consistent but flexible daily routine, active learning experiences, and child observation and assessment. The HighScope approach follows the idea that children learn by doing. The HighScope Curriculum was called the Cognitively Oriented Curriculum earlier to demarcate its approaches from other curricula that did not include an emphasis on cognitive development. It was developed by a group of public-school principals and special services staff in Ypsilanti, Michigan, led by David P. Weikart. Its guiding spirit is the civil rights movement of the 1960s USA, and it includes the influences of the context of hard-won rights such as school integration, voting rights, open housing, and intrigue about how to solve poverty issues and help poor school performance of students from low-income neighbourhoods. As a curriculum that was designed to help children overcome the negative effects of poverty on schooling, the HighScope’s theoretical underpinnings view learning as a social constructionist process wherein identity, and other aspects play a huge role in a child’s learning process. Aiming at improving students coming from underprivileged families, it is an inclusive project from its very conception. Broad developmental milestones with no defined subject matter make HighScope a unique curriculum model. Its plan-do-review sequence precedes other curricula that follow the same method. High-quality early childhood education enables disadvantaged children to achieve greater success in school and community, which is the premise of the HighScope model.
Both the Singapore and HighScope curriculum models emphasise active participatory learning. This is based on Paiget’s theory of the child as an active learner. While the HighScope focuses on poverty as a barrier to inclusion and learning, the Singapore model practices inclusion by permitting much importance of the mother tongues. Both models emphasise two-way information flow between parents and teachers. The USA allows numerous curriculum models to be followed within its pre-schools fostering a different kind of diversity, democracy and openness. Whereas the Singapore model includes insights from many different models and seeks to set a standard in the entire country. The Singapore model is relaxed in the age consideration for children, allowing them to enrol in school by six, making it unique. This is because other models such as the EYFS focus on age 5 which had evoked extensive criticism. Both the Singapore and HighScope models focus on the school-readiness of the child although with somewhat different emphasis. Both models follow observation-based assessment, with teachers asking questions not to assess but to improve language and communication skills. On the whole, there are similarities in areas of learning, assessment, inclusion objectives and links to theory, although the history of the two curricula is different. In one, the civil rights movement of the 1960s is an influencer, while the other is as recent as 2003 and is a post-colonial country with a phenomenal approach to multiculturalism. If each could add other’s focus on poverty-alleviation and mother-tongue emphasis, each curriculum would only become more inclusive.
References
Adler, M.A. & Lenz, K., 2017. Father Involvement in the Early Years: An International Comparison of Policy and Practice. Bristol: Policy Press.
Ang, L., 2013. The Early Years Curriculum: The UK context and beyond. Routledg.
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Bennett, T., 2017. Play is essential, but it takes work for children to succeed in the real world. [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/
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Department for Education (UK), 2017. Statutory Framework for theEarly Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). Setting the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to five. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework–2 [Accessed 28 April 2017].
Engel, L., 2017. Next Steps. Nursery World, 4(17), pp.28-29.
Ministry of Education Singapore, 2012. Nurturing Early Learners: A Curriculum Framework for Kindergartens in Singapore. [Online] Available at: https://www.moe.gov.sg/docs/default-source/document/education/preschool/files/
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Mohammed, R., 2013. The challenges of implementing an early years curriculum: a practitioner’s perspective. In Ang, L. he early years curriculum: The UK context and beyond. Routledge.
Perepa, P., 2013. Implications of special needs and multiculturalism for the early years curriculum. In Ang, L. The early years curriculum: The UK context and beyond. Routledge.
Weston, C., 2013. Providing an inclusive early years curriculum through physical learning. In Ang, L. The early years curriculum: The UK context and beyond. Routledge.
