Analysis of the Curriculum of Early Childhood Education in England Versus the Curriculum of Scotland - Essay Example

Early year’s curriculum in England and Scotland This essay gives an analysis of early years curriculum in England compared to Scotland curriculum. Historically, England’s government had little intervention in ensuring effective early childhood education and development (BRODIE, 2013:45). Nowadays, England’s government intervention in early childhood education has changed, and the government is ensuring that children experience significant early year’s education. In the year 1996, England’s government implemented an assessment framework of the early year’s education currently known as Early Learning Goals. This England framework is goal based and outlines large number of goals, which children should achieve in their early education. In this essay, there is an outline of comparison of England and Scotland framework of early education. This comparison gives different aspects on various themes. For instance, the education approach of early childhood in England focuses on the individual child- centered approach. On the other hand, in England all children in a class should adhere to uniform approach. In order to make a comparison between the two curriculum policies one needs to consider the aspect of flexibility. This flexibility includes teacher’s interpretation of the framework and guidelines, which appears to be the identifiable difference between these two curriculum policies. In Scotland, the mode of early year’s education, which applies, is 0-8 program while National curriculum is the mode, which applies in England, North Ireland, and Wales. There are some similarities between the process of National Curriculum guidance of England and Scotland. In both nations, curriculum activities follow a subject-oriented system (CLARK, 2012:14). In England, educational syllabuses followed decisions from isolated educational working groups, which include everything covering all curricular activities. Contrastingly, in Scotland each review group gave out its ideal decisions in which some were complex map of primary education. Another similarity between the two aspects of early years curriculum is how the isolated working groups were confident, had tight timetables, and fast introduction to pre-schools. Apart from these similarities, the England National Curriculum has been more effective and has more central development than Scotland 0-8 curriculum. A great difference has been due to political influence in England arising from involvement of government in Curriculum policy. However, due to lack of good approaches to National Curriculum assessment in the year 1988 through 1993 led to the establishment of slimmed down curriculum in the year 1995. During this time, the England National Curriculum differed fro Scotland (0-8) assessment program. This was due to the separation primary and secondary stages. There was first and second stage of the 0-8 Scotland Curriculum Assessment program (DELORENZI & ROBINSON, 2005:41). Stage 1and 2 involves five to seven years and seven to eleven years for primary schools and major stages 3 and 4, which involves eleven years to fourteen years and fourteen years to sixteen years for secondary schools. This Scottish form of 0-8 Curriculum and Assessment Program covers a longer time span compared to the England policy of early year’s curriculum. Another difference occurs when comparing the curriculum coverage at each stage of education. The Scotland 0-8 Curriculum and Assessment programme covers all the required concepts of curriculum with the exception of a core curriculum. On the other hand, the England National Curriculum concentrates on subjects such as mathematics, English, and Science as the key subjects. Subjects like technology, history, art, music, geography, and PE are the foundation subjects at first and second stage with an addition of a National language as foundation subject at the third stage. The nature of early years study program of the two systems is of a fussy interest. In En gland, teachers and education officers decides what is to be taught while, in Scotland, teachers must follow the 5-14 guidelines. The differences between England National Curriculum and Scotland Curriculum and Assessment program are relative with respect to children ho has SEN. In the year 1970, England and Wale’s early years education system was ahead by four years of Scotland to ensure that all children were to access similar education opportunities (GARVEY, 2010:9). The 1970 policy ensured that all children including the disabled ones had an access to equal education rights. This is not applicable with the Scotland’s Curriculum and Assessment program system. The nature of England education remains to be a surprise to many educationists, which is different from the Scottish one. In Scotland, the 0-8 system has adoption, which is close to general in curriculum authority in schools. In Scotland, there is a lot of pressure at local and central levels of education to make sure that all children access the 0-8 education frameworks. Earlier on, 0-8 educationists’ officials expressed a concern for students with disabilities to ensure that they access educational rights. These two educational systems can work better since they both have concern on all pupils. In the year 1994, the National Curriculum of England and Welsh established a code of practice with a set of needed standards for those students with SEN. Scotland system of education has no such code, although, there is EPSEN, which fulfils the same requirements. The main difference between the coded and EPSEN is characteristic of later due to the beginning of England Act in the year 1993. The Philosophy background early year’s curriculum in England Individualism Unlike other nations, in England, early childhood education basis on the children’s interests and on the teachers respect for the different needs of the children. England National curriculum depends on the education curriculum chosen by the child himself, rather than imposed by parents or teacher. Early childhood teachers have a vast respect to children as individuals. They believe that children possess an inherent inspiration towards education. This motivational theory of early childhood education is similar to learning of doing theory. Children have the freedom of choosing their curriculum since teachers believe that a child experiences an effective learning if they have the freedom of curriculum self-choosing and self-directing. Free Play In England’s early childhood education, playing is as an essential part of educating a child. This is due to the belief that, children learn a lot more through free playing and interaction with others. According to many England educationists, free playing is the key to a successful learning in early childhood. Although free playing in early childhood education is an effective thing, it also has some weakness. Findings shows that free playing does not result to effective child development. This is because many children lack adult-child interaction during free play whereas supervised free playing is much effective. In England, all academies must implement all the requirements of early year’s foundation act since 2006. The school must also comply with the Local Authority set rule and regulations. In the final year of early year’s curriculum, all the teachers should be through with each child’s assessment. The Local Authority in England does all the funding for early childhood education. Scotland, on the other hand, all the academies should participate in the early year’s national assessment. Schools in Scotland do not participate formally, but what they do is to download the Foundation Stage Profile from the website. In addition, the head teachers of all early year’s foundation provision must ensure that the early year’s foundation setting matches the requirements needed, as well as completing the early year’s foundation profile and adhering to the Local Authority rules and activities. The head teachers have a number of duties, which include ensuring that all the children complete foundation stage profile with quality data. They should also ensure that there is provision to meet the requirements of children with disabilities. Foundation data should be returned to the Local Authority at the right time, and present such profile results to the School’s Board of Directors to influence them comply with the data requirements. Teachers also should provide parents with their children end year’s progress report forms. The Local Authority, however, ensures that all Early Year’s foundation stage providers should meet all set requirements. It is also Local Authority’s duty to arrange training sessions and provide necessary advice to the Early Year’s foundation stage providers. It is the duty of Local Authority to ensure that the Early Year’s foundation providers provide an accurate assessment to the children. All the academies should have a computerized system for easy submission of end years profile data. Early years Foundation stage profile in England In England, there is an Early Year’s Foundation profile Handbook, which contains detailed guideline on what children should cover before completion of the Foundation Profile. Head teacher should ensure that all those involved with the profile handbook have a full understanding of it. Children who complete the foundation stage profile should be five years old and if a child is young, he should continue with the stage until he attains the required age maximum. EYFS Providers should ensure that the system they use for submission of profile data enables practitioners to record profile data of each child. The providers and the Local Authority should prefer the system to be in use. For instance, spreadsheet is the most preferable because it saves data for many children as well as producing reports. Common assessment and reporting framework The name of a child is not necessary from the profile settings, which are not in the government’s funding receipt. The Local Authority should only submit children’s data to the child’s Department, which receives government funding and allocates it to the schools accordingly during the summer term. If any child happens to join the school before the summer holiday, then the officials should report the child’s report to the Local Authority. If any child starts new setting during the second term, then the setting should report the child’s report to the Local Authority. Early year’s foundation stage The Unique Child This principal states that each child is a competent learner with a lot of confident and capable of doing what he or she want. The principal concentrates on the child’s uniqueness and claims that every practitioner should take time to observe and understand what makes a particular child unique. As a child grows, the practitioner is supposed to start capturing meaningful experiences of such individuals. The EYFS expects every practitioner to put much effort on their previous practices by self-evaluation to improve the quality of their uniqueness. This means that teachers must be aware of their unique qualities so that they can embark on their future goals. Positive relationships For children to grow to be good citizens, they have to be brought up in a good parent and key people relationship. Having a good child environmental relationship is paramount to a practitioner who wishes to flourish. For one to be an effective learner, they should not grow in afraid and worried relationship but in a relationship where they can share their thoughts and goals. When practitioners know that they will receive encouragements that they will add value to their ideas, they will develop a positive relationship. This is more important because mistakes are identified in a positive light. Enabling environments According to Early Year’s Foundation stage of England, environment is the key factor for an effective child learning and development. Environment in early year’s education is termed as a teacher. The environment should offer sufficient opportunities for the children in order to be deeply involved, and be able to solve problems. It should be inspirational one, which will provoke the child’s learning and imaginations. The environment should enable any child to be in a position to make appropriate material and resource choices. Children should have a free space where they can play and test their skills. Learning and development This principal emphasizes that children learn from whatever they undertake. Children in their early years should be educated in a well planned, play based environments, capabilities, and interests. It claims that children are vigorous learners and should have opportunities to explore their experiences. The principal also states that all early years learning environments are connected and the connection should be balanced. On the other hand, Scotland focuses on principals such as rights of a child, relationships, responsive care, and respect. All the teachers working with young babies should be aware of these four key principals. Rights of the child Parents and teachers should consider children’s rights in a number of ways such economic, social, and political. According to UNCRC of Scotland, parents and teachers should value children rights by respecting their views. Scotland’s legislation governs the respect of children’s rights. Scotland emphasizes that children are active citizens and they determine their rights from the way other people treat them. Respect Children’s views are influenced by their family relatives and the community. Parents and teachers should portray respect to the children since their respect comes from the kind of lessons they learn from the people they interact. They need a sense of appreciations and belonging for them to be good participants in the community. Relationships Children are left to form their own relationships. The kind of relationship a child grows in determines his or her future life. Therefore, parents and teachers should be careful with the kind of relationships children associates themselves. A good relationship with teachers and parents ensures moral characters to the child. Responsive care This principal means understanding that children are unique and should be respected. Teachers and parents should respect children’s views. The principal concentrates on the child’s uniqueness and claims that every practitioner should take time to observe and understand what makes a particular child unique. As a child grows, the practitioner is supposed to start capturing meaningful experiences of such individuals. The EYFS expects every practitioner to put much effort on their previous practices by self-evaluation to improve the quality of their uniqueness. This means that practitioners need to be aware of their unique qualities so that they can embark on their future goals. In conclusion, this essay has analyzed the comparison of England and Scotland form of Early Year’s Curriculum system. It is noted that the traditional Early Childhood Education in England was child-based, which is in contrast with the current subject-based and teacher directed system. Compared to other nations, England early year’s education is of more significant. This is because of the government intervention to the early childhood education, which ensures that schools receive funding to enable all children access equal rights to education. However, the implementation of the new Curriculum Framework has resulted to high educational standards. This new education system emphasizes not only integrated education but also numeric and literacy learning. The government intervention and inspection of early childhood education has changed the traditional form of early childhood education to a new significant one. Bibliography BRODIE, K. (2013). Observation, assessment and planning in the early years: bringing it all together. CLARK, R. M., & MURRAY, J. (2012). Reconceptualizing leadership in the early years. Maidenhead, Open University Press. DELORENZI, S., REED, J., & ROBINSON, P. (2005). Maintaining momentum: promoting social mobility and life chances from early years to adulthood. London, IPPR. GARVEY, D. (2010). Leadership for quality in early years and play work: supporting your team to achieve better outcomes for children and families. London, National Children's Bureau. OBERHUEMER, P., SCHREYER, I., & NEUMAN, M. J. (2010). Professionals in early childhood education and care systems: European profiles and perspectives. SIRAJ-BLATCHFORD, I., & MANNI, L. (2007). Effective leadership in the early years sector: the ELEYS study. London, Institute of Education, University of London. TASSONI, P., & HUCKER, K. (2005). Planning play and the early years. Oxford, Heinemann. Read More