This report (no7) focuses on the well-being
of children and young people in the world's advanced economies
and provides the first comprehensive assessment. The six
dimensions taken to measure the well- being of children
- material well-being, health and safety, education, peer
and family relationships, behaviours and risks, and young
people's own subjective sense of well-being - offer a picture
of the lives of children, and no single dimension can stand
as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole.
The landmark report shows that among all
of the 21 OECD countries there are improvements to be made
and that no single OECD country leads in all six of the
areas.
Out of 21 nations, the UK ranked bottom in
average scores across the six dimensions of child well-being,
scoring lowest in assessments for relationships, behaviours
and risks, and subjective well-being.
Children in the Netherlands have the best
quality of life, followed by Sweden and Denmark.
UNICEF (2007). Child poverty in perspective:
An overview of child well-being in rich countries, Innocenti
Report Card 7. Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.
Download this report from: www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/
Early development of children's intellectual,
social and physical abilities has the potential to affect
their long term achievement, beyond the initial introduction
to the classroom, through their school lives and into adulthood.
A greater understanding of the processes at work in these
early years and their role in later success is therefore
important to ensure that resources are appropriately targeted.
Past research has shown that early cognitive attainment
is strongly related to later academic success.
But we are also interested in the benefit that children
gain from arriving at school with particular personal characteristics
and the relationship which these may have to cognitive development.
We also seek to explore the role of development (as opposed
to innate capability) in the pre-school years. Data from
the 1970 British Cohort Study is used to examine the importance
of early measures of children's cognitive ability and behavioural
development for their subsequent school and labour market
achievement.
Our results suggest that, of the various measures used in
this study, the most powerful predictor of later academic
and labour market success is the ability of children to
copy basic designs. However, we do not ignore the influence
of behavioural factors and highlight the particular importance
of skills related to attention with respect to these outcomes.
The results clearly show that early development of both
cognitive and behavioural skills have a role in subsequent
achievement. In this respect, we believe that the findings
in this report add to the debate on the appropriate balance
between cognitive and non-cognitive skills at different
ages and for different groups of children. In particular,
failure to place sufficient emphasis on cognitive development
may run counter to the interests of children from low SES
groups. We believe that pedagogy should continue to address
ways in which cognitive and non-cognitive abilities can
support one another and how the interactions between these
different groups of skills can best be harnessed for different
groups of children.
Feinstein, L. & Duckworth, K. (2006).
Development in the early years: its importance for school
performance and adult outcomes. London: Centre for Research
on the Wider Benefits of Learning.
Download the full report from: www.learningbenefits.net/Publications/
The effective provision of pre-school education
(EPPE) project: Final report
This project investigated the effects of pre-school education
and care on children's development for children aged 3-7 years old.
A wide range of information was collected from 3,000 children who were
recruited at age 3+ and studied longitudinally until the end of Key
Stage 1. Data were collected on children's developmental profiles, background
characteristics related to their parents, the child's home learning
environment, and the pre-school settings children attended. A sample
of "home" children were recruited to the study at entry of
school for comparison with the pre-school group. This project also explored
the characteristics of effective practice and pedagogy through intensive
case studies of settings where children had positive outcomes.
Some of the key findings over the pre-school period
were:
- Impact of attending pre-school
- When compared to no pre-school education at all, pre-school
enhances all-round development in children
- An earlier start (under age of 3) is related to better intellectual
development
- Full-time attendance resulted in better gains for children
than part-time provision
- Disadvantaged children benefit from quality pre-school experiences
- Effects of quality and specific practices in pre-school
- High quality pre-schooling is related to better intellectual
and social development for children
- Settings in which staff have higher qualifications have higher
quality scores and their children make more progress
- Quality indicators include warm interactive relationships
with children, having a trained teacher as manager and a good
proportion of trained teachers on staff
- Importance of home learning
- For all children, the quality of the home learning is more
important for intellectual and social development than parental
occupation, education or income. Some of the activities
that parents can undertake with their pre-school children include:
reading with the child, teaching songs and nursery rhymes, visiting
the library, and taking children on visits.
Some of the key findings at the end of Key Stage 1
were:
- The beneficial effects of pre-school remained evident throughout
Key Stage 1, although some outcomes were not as strong as they had
been at school entry
- The number of months a child attended pre-school continued to
have an effect on their progress throughout Key Stage 1, although
this effect was stronger for academic skills than for social behavioural
development
- Pre-school quality was significantly related to children's
scores on standardised tests of reading and mathematics at age 6.
At age 7, the relationship between quality and academic attainment
was somewhat weaker, but still evident.
- Individual pre-schools varied in their 'effectiveness' for influencing
a child's development. However, the advantages for a child's development
of attending a particularly 'effective' pre-school centre persists
up to age 7.
- The effect of home learning activities continues to be evident
in children's developmental profiles at the end of Key Stage 1.
An analysis of settings that promoted children's developmental
outcomes showed six areas that are particularly important with children
aged 3 to 5 years:
- the quality of adult-child verbal interactions
- initiation of activities - the balance of who initiates the activities
-staff or child - needs to be equal
- knowledge and understanding of the curriculum
- knowledge about how young children learn
- adult skills to support children - need for qualified staff
- there were more intellectual gains in centres that encouraged
high levels of parent engagement in their children's learning
- the most effective settings adopted policies in which staff supported
children in rationalising and talking through their conflicts.
Overall, this project found that a child's duration (in
months) at pre-school was related to their intellectual
gains at school entry and again at the end of Key Stage
1. In particular, an early start at pre-school (between
2 and 3 years) was linked with better intellectual attainment
and being more sociable with other children.
Sylva,K., Melhuish,E., Sammons,P., Siraj-Blatchford,I.
& Taggart, B. (2004). Effective provision of pre-school education
(EPPE) project: Final Report. London: DfES.
Download the research report (pdf) from www.dfes.gov.uk.
A summary entitled Findings from the Early Primary Years
can be downloaded from www.surestart.gov.uk.
Further
information on the EPPE project
Sixth survey of parents and their
use of early years services
This report by Natcen on behalf of the DfES examines the
use of early years services by parents and three to four-year-olds,
with reference to parents' involvement with their child's pre-school
learning and their perception of the provision on offer. This survey
found that the majority of parents believed nursery education to help
their child's academic development, in particular with respect to their
recognition of letters and numbers and their enjoyment of books. White
parents, those with English as a first language , parents with higher
household incomes and parents with qualifications above GCSE level,
were all more likely to report that nursery schooling has a positive
effect on their child's learning. 39% of parents said that they would
like to receive more information and advice, particularly regarding
helping their child in recognising letters, words or writing and using
a computer. Those needing further information or advice on helping their
child correlated with parents of low-household income, low qualification
level and ethnic minority status.
Bell, A. & Finch, S. (2004). Sixth survey of parents
of three and four year old children and their use of early years service.
London: DfES.
Download the report from www.dfes.gov.uk
The impact of early schooling
on subsequent literacy and numeracy performance - Estimates from a policy
induced 'natural' experiment
This Australian paper describes a natural experiment
that occurred in South Australia in the 1980s on the effect of schooling
on literacy and numeracy performance of school students in their middle
years of secondary school. During the 1980s the Early Years of School
policy changed the way in which a subset of students progressed through
junior primary school by providing an additional year of schooling.
Two waves of longitudinal data show that an additional year of junior
primary school increased the numeracy and literacy performance in mid-secondary
school significantly (by about half of a standard deviation). The benefits
were the same for boys and girls and were the same for low and high
school achievers.
Ryan, C. (2004). The impact of early schooling on subsequent
literacy and numeracy performance - Estimates from a policy induced
'natural' experiment. Discussion paper no. 470. Canberra: Centre for
Economic Policy Research, Australian National University.
Download the discussion paper from http://cepr.anu.edu.au
Birth to three matters
This literature review was undertaken to support the Government's
framework Birth to Three Matters. Some of the key findings of this review
are:
(1) Young children develop and learn holistically and their
emotional and social development seems to form the bedrock of other
developmental areas.
(2) Babies come into the world primed for attachment to warm, familiar
carers, who will usually be mothers, fathers, grandparents, older
brothers and sisters
(3) These attachments form the basis for subsequent relationships,
and for a person's sense of self and self-assurance. Those children
who have had experienced warm attachments and positive responses become
socially adept, self-assured, independent and interdependent, higher
achievers in their life
(4) Parents who express negative narratives concerning their own early
relationships with their parents need support to overcome perpetuating
such patterns to form joyful, mutually loving relationships with their
babies and small children
(5) Babies are born with the ability to perceive differences in languages
and they can recognise the sounds used in the languages spoken in
their homes
(6) Between 12 and 36 months of age, young children grasp what is
and is not culturally acceptable behaviour and speech, and this is
the result of being involved in interactions during the first year
of life, where one is treated as if one is a person who understands
and can respond
(7) Babies seem to be tuned to learn from, with and about firstly
the people and the cultural environment around them, followed by the
material environment
(8) Play in which the baby or child takes the lead and makes choices
is a process that fosters cognitive development
(9) Language and thought are developmentally linked, they each depend
on and also promote the development of the other
(10) Children 'make sense' of and 'transform' knowledge, experiences
and events through imaginative and creative activity
(11) Children's developing memories and use of narrative help them
make sense of their lives
(12) They want to share and express their ideas playfully through
dancing, singing, music, talking , painting etc.
David, T., Gouch, K., Powell, S. and Abbott, L. (2003).
Birth to three matters: A review of the literature. London: DfES.
Download the report from: www.dfes.gov.uk
A systematic review of effective literacy teaching
in the 4-14 age range of mainstream schooling
This review by the EPPI-Centre aimed to assemble, examine,
appraise and synthesise the evidence on the nature of effective literacy
teaching in the 4 to 14 age range of mainstream schooling. Overall,
12 studies were analysed in detail, which indicated that teachers of
literacy have a wide and varied repertoire of teaching practices and
approaches. The "effective" teacher of literacy uses an eclectic
collection of methods that represent a balance between the direct teaching
of skills and more holistic approaches. They balance direct skills teaching
with more authentic, contextually-grounded literacy activities. The
report concludes with implications for policy, practice and research.
Hall, K. & Harding, A. (2003). A systematic review
of effective literacy teaching in the 4 to 14 age range of mainstream
schooling. London: EPPI-Centre, Social Science Research Unit, Institute
of Education.
Download the report at eppi.ioe.ac.uk
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