Greatest Hits!

There's been very little to report in the last couple of weeks - perhaps all the policy makers and researchers are on holiday, hence the lack of new childcare and education reports. So before I go on my own break, here are links to some of the posts on this site that have attracted the most traffic over the last few months, in case you missed them the first time around:<br /><ul><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/support-materials-for-new-eyfs.html" target="_blank"><i>Support Materials for the New EYFS</i></a> gathers up the important documentation practitioners need to know about. The post should also be read in conjunction with <a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/early-years-foundation-stage-profile.html" target="_blank"><i>Early Years Foundation Stage Profile Handbook</i></a></li><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/early-years-education-in-uk-brief.html" target="_blank"><i>Early Years Education in the UK: a Brief History</i></a> points readers to the full text of influential early years and primary school reports on the Education in England website. The site also hosts the full text of the <a href="http://www.educationengland.org.uk/documents/warnock/index.html" target="_blank"><i>Warnock Report</i></a>, which is a topic that generates regular enquiries</li><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/childcare-provision-recent-history.html" target="_blank"><i>Childcare Provision: A Recent History</i></a> is a post from January which gathers together policy documents on childcare from the last couple of years. As childcare has been in the news a lot in the last few months, you may want to see what's subsequently been published by clicking on the Childcare link in the Hot Topics menu on the right of this page</li><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/childcare-in-france.html" target="_blank"><i>Childcare in France</i></a> was written in April following Liz Truss' comments that the UK should attempt to adopt a childcare model similar to the French system. The post attempts to point readers to informative resources which will allow them to make up their own minds about the topic</li><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/theorists-in-140.html" target="_blank"><i>Theorists in 140</i></a> explains the series I've been tweeting over the last year, as well as the entire collection of links I've put together</li><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/open-access-research-for-childhood.html" target="_blank"><i>Open Access Research for Childhood / Education</i></a> contains details of high quality, free sources of information</li><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/eyes-search.html" target="_blank"><i>EYES Search</i></a> contains an explanation about the customised search box on the right hand side of this page, and why researchers might find it useful</li><li><a href="http://bcftcschildhoodeducation.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/outdoor-play-learning.html" target="_blank"><i>Outdoor Play & Learning</i></a> gathers together useful links on an incredibly popular topic for student dissertations. I've just noticed that a couple of the links it contains are now broken, I'll attempt to get these fixed in the near future</li></ul>Happy reading!

Greatest Hits!

There's been very little to report in the last couple of weeks - perhaps all the policy makers and researchers are on holiday, hence the lack of new childcare and education reports. So before I go on my own break, here are links to some of the posts on this site that have attracted the most traffic …

Read more »

Early Developments

There's yet another early years report out today - this one is titled <i>Early Developments: Bridging the Gap Between Evidence and Policy in Early Years Education</i>, and has been published by the <a href="http://www.ippr.org/" target="_blank">Institute for Public Policy Research</a> (IPPR). While the report covers a number of different areas, it's primarily made headlines for its Ofsted is <span class="storyTop ">failing to deliver <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/exclusive-ofsted-chided-for-poor-childcare-judgements-8751005.html" target="_blank">accurate judgements on the standards of care</a> delivered by nurseries and childminders.</span><br /><br /><span class="storyTop "> To read the full report, <a href="http://www.ippr.org/images/media/files/publication/2013/08/early_developments_August2013_11073_11073.pdf" target="_blank">click here</a>.</span>

Early Developments

There's yet another early years report out today - this one is titled Early Developments: Bridging the Gap Between Evidence and Policy in Early Years Education, and has been published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). While the report covers a number of different areas, it's primar…

Read more »

Playday 2013

Today is <a href="http://www.playday.org.uk/" target="_blank">Playday</a>, an annual event where the importance of play to children's development is highlighted and celebrated. The website will tell you all about what's going on, and also contains the results of a specially commissioned opinion poll on children, parents and adults' <a href="http://www.playday.org.uk/playday-campaigns/2013-playful-places/playday-2013-opinion-poll.aspx" target="_blank">attitudes to outdoor play</a>. One finding is that some <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-23588941" target="_blank">parents fear letting their children play outside</a> for fear of upsetting their neighbours.<br /><br />If you're a Twitter user, you can also follow the day's events using the hashtag #playday2013 (as I type this it's currently trending). For further reading, the publisher Routledge is providing free access to a <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/page/playday-2013" target="_blank">collection of play-related articles</a> for a short time. Also, don't forget that you can look at all posts relating to play on this site by clicking on 'Play' in the 'Hot Topics' menu on the right of the page, or you can view <a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/davidrenfree/Play" target="_blank">my bookmarks</a> on the topic.

Playday 2013

Today is Playday, an annual event where the importance of play to children's development is highlighted and celebrated. The website will tell you all about what's going on, and also contains the results of a specially commissioned opinion poll on children, parents and adults' attitudes to outdoor pl…

Read more »