Highly Effective Leadership in Children’s CentresThe NFER have just published a new report which may be of interest to many site visitors. Highly Effective Leadership in Children's Centres was commissioned by the National College for School Leadership, and contains both a literature review and case studies. Eight core behaviours of effective leade…
Save ChildhoodThe Save Childhood Movement is an organisation which announced its official launch yesterday. There's no definitive mission statement on their website (at least as far as I can see) but essentially they're concerned with ideas about the erosion of childhood in the modern world, and the affect that t…
Suggested Reading for StudentsA regular enquiry from new Early Childhood or Early Years students is what books they should be buying when starting their course. So what follows is a collection of titles that you might want to consider obtaining if you're beginning your studies this September, although purchasing them all may be …
Nutbrown Review - Final ReportIt's a big day for the Early Years sector... today sees the publication of the final report of the Nutbrown Review (see previous post for details), which was launched by the Department of Education in October last year to examine qualifications and pathways in the Early Years. The Review has already…
Persistent Poverty and Children’s Cognitive DevelopmentAnother day, another child poverty report... This time it's been published by the Institute of Education and draws on data from the Millennium Cohort Study. The research argues that poverty affects children's educational abilities in two ways, in that it limits their access to resources, but also ha…
Ending Child Poverty by 2020The Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has just published a major new report which explores the progress made in ending child poverty by 2020, a pledge which all the major political parties have backed. The overall conclusion of the report is that major progress has been made towards reducing child p…
Social BookmarkingI've just contributed my first 'guest blog' to another site. Kathy Brodie is an Early Years Professional and Trainer who runs an excellent website which contains plenty of useful information and tips for students and professionals who work within the early years sector. The site is well worth a visi…
Hospital SchoolA few years ago I spent a lot of time helping a student who was trying to research the topic of children learning while they were in hospital - it was one of the more tricky subjects I've been asked about, and to be honest we struggled to find plenty of suitable material. But it's hardly a new area …
Balancing ActBeing a classroom teacher is often a balancing act. Teachers are often bombarded with the latest curriculum or teaching strategy that will solve all of their problems. In my effort to create a developmentally appropriate (DAP) classroom, I evaluated Creative Curriculum, Reggio Amelia, HighScope, ECR…
Early Years Professional StatusJust a quick post today - the Teaching Agency has just published the new standards which those who are looking to achieve Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) will have to meet. The standards are applicable from September and can be read by clicking here.…