The Aim:
The aim of the England-Malta Early Childhood Collaborative Project, which was set up in January, 2022 is to address early years issues, concepts and realities in England and Malta. It also aims to conduct small-scale research in the field of early childhood education and care while identifying commonalities or differences between the two countries in their early years’ agenda, policy and practice. The England-Malta Early Childhood Project meets regularly online to engage in discussions about contemporary issues that relate to both our countries. As a result of these thought-provoking discussions, the idea to put our conversations into writing developed with the aim to tease out further thoughts, interests and research. Below you will find our writings in form of Blogs, and/or links to our
collaborative publications.
The Team
The England-Malta Early Childhood Collaborative Project is made up of three academics from three different institutions: Dr Liz Chesworth from the University of Sheffield, England, Dr Josephine Deguara from the University of Malta, Malta and Dr Shirley-Ann Gauci from the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, Malta. Josephine and Shirley got to know Liz when they were reading for their PhD with the University of Sheffield, with Liz being Shirley-Ann’s supervisor. Prof Cathy Nutbrown was crucial in facilitating the setting up of this project. All three collaborators have early childhood education and care as their common research interest.
DR LIZ CHESWORTH is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the University of Sheffield, England. She has worked in the field of early childhood education for 30 years, during which she has taught and undertaken research in nurseries, children’s centres, primary schools and universities. Liz’s research focuses upon contemporary play cultures and dynamic approaches to curriculum in early childhood. She is currently a co-investigator on research funded by the Lego Foundation which aims to identify the ways in which children’s well-being is related to their digital play experiences at home. Liz has recently led two funded projects in which she collaborated with early years educators to identify strategies for curriculum decision-making that are responsive to young children’s diverse interests and lived experiences. Her research on curriculum has received national and international attention and has led to invited keynote presentations and consultancy work.
DR JOSEPHINE DEGUARA is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood and Primary Education, within the Faculty of Education, University of Malta. She has occupied different roles in researching, teaching and working with young children and educators in Early Childhood and Primary Education. Her research interest focuses mainly on curriculum philosophy, policy and practice in early childhood. She is interested in curriculum reform and implementation, and how changes in beliefs and realities are reflected and translated in class through pedagogy, play and learning experiences. She is also interested in participatory research with children and explores different methodological ways that give voice to children. More specifically she is interested in drawing as a tool for data collection and children’s multimodal ways of creating and communicating meaning.
DR SHIRLEY ANN GAUCI is Senior Lecturer in Early Years at the Malta College of Arts,Science and Technology and a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta. She has been involved in the education of young children for the past 23 years; as a class teacher, deputy headteacher and Head of School. Shirley’s research focuses on the pedagogy of thinking in early years, specifically on how relational pedagogy, meaningful dialogues, co-construction and emergent curriculum can assist in advancing thinking skills in young children. She is also interested in working theories, school leadership and educational change.
The England-Malta Early Childhood Collaborative Project: Curriculum Blog
Introduction
Substantial global investment in Early Childhood Education (ECE) has mobilised political interest as to what should constitute 'curriculum' for our youngest learners. We are a group of academics from Malta (Josephine and Shirley) and England (Liz), with a common interest in ECE and a shared concern for how policy is mobilised within early childhood settings. Over the past few months, we have been sharing our experiences and perspectives about how the curriculum is being developed in our countries. Aware of the obvious colonial connection (Bugeja, 2015) in education between England and Malta, our aim has been to explore, question and problematise the challenges faced by the sector while critically analysing how each country frames and addresses curriculum development for its youngest citizens. In this blog post, we draw upon our conversations to show how Malta and England have developed distinct policy responses to curriculum in the early years. We identify and unwrap parallelisms and disparities between the two countries to propose an agenda for future research and scholarship in ECE curriculum decision-making.
The English Context
In England, curriculum for young children is enacted within an increasingly regulated space. As Wood (2019, p785) notes, ‘ECE has been a relative latecomer to the intensification of education policies’ yet since the introduction of a distinct phase of education for children aged 3-5 in 2000, young children’s learning has come to be located within a standardised, outcomes-driven policy agenda. This agenda is associated with global attention upon the early years as a cost-effective means to reduce poverty and raise educational standards (OECD, 2017; World Bank, 2018). On the surface these priorities may appear benevolent yet their mobilisation within neoliberal policymaking has fuelled top-down pressures to formalise and standardise the ECE curriculum, and position children as investments for future economic productivity (Roberts-Holmes and Moss, 2021).
Since the Education Act of 2002 extended the statutory curriculum to include children under five, the English government has played an increasingly active role in defining and evaluating curriculum expectations for young children. Curriculum requirements in the early years have been through several iterations, the most recent of which are set out in the 0-5 Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (DfE 2021). The EYFS includes statutory ‘Characteristics of Effective Teaching and Learning’ (DfE, 2021, p6) - playing and exploring, active learning and creating and thinking critically - which seemingly align with holistic and responsive approaches to curriculum decision-making. Yet at the same time, the EYFS sets out nationally prescribed Early Learning Goals (ELGs) that children are expected to attain by the age of five. The ELGs have thus become the means by which educators are held accountable for children’s progress towards standardised achievement outcomes. Fuelled by a culture of accountability, educators are tasked with navigating a policy landscape in which the prime purpose of the curriculum is to prepare children for formal schooling. This has resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum (Wood, 2020), intensified by the role of the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), the body with responsibility for inspecting and regulating educational provision in England.
Ofsted are powerful players in England’s educational landscape and use their high-stakes inspection regime to label and rank schools and settings. In a standardised and outcomes-driven climate, Ofsted (2018) defines the curriculum in terms of a delivery model that comprises ‘intent, implementation and impact’. Kay’s (2022) critical discourse analysis shows how Ofsted consequently acts to reinforce the political agenda by imposing compliance with a policy narrative that privileges formal teaching and instrumental learning outcomes. Ofsted has recently published its Early Years Curriculum Review, Best start in life, which is the latest installment of a curriculum story in which Ofsted’s influence looks set to intensify. The review has been critiqued by educators, academics and early years organisations who have expressed concern about the control exerted by Ofsted and their refusal to recognise ‘the fluid and flexible processes of learning and development and how practitioners develop curricula accordingly.’ Children are consequently positioned as passive recipients of curriculum content in which predetermined learning outcomes are privileged over children’s diverse interests (Chesworth, 2016; 2019) and cultural repertoires (Rogoff et al., 2015). We believe that this enactment of curriculum fuels deficit framings of diversity and difference, and fails to recognise that all children, no matter their life circumstances, are eager and capable learners. Furthermore, Osted frames curriculum decision-making as a technical exercise and thereby fails to recognise the complex and relational processes that comprise teaching and learning in ECE.
The Maltese context
Resonating with the English context, ECE in Malta has historically been considered an addendum to the education system, resulting in haphazard development and autodidactic practices. Comparably, Maltese ECE policies developed slowly, erratically and marred by inadequate investment and a poor ‘overall vision’ (Sollars, 2020, p616). Consequently, the ‘sector evolved in a context that was devoid of an informed pedagogical framework’ (Sollars, 2018, p.337), and which was frequently considered as ‘remote preparation for entry into primary school’ (Sollars, 2018, p.343).
As with other colonised countries, the Maltese education system was extremely centralised and selective (Spiteri, 2020). Following European Union membership in 2014, the sector gained more attention, resulting in ‘decentralisation and globalisation of ideas’ (Bezzina, 2015, p.526), reflected amongst others, in the publication of four policy documents (Sollars, 2018) including the current National Curriculum Framework for All [NCF] (MEDE, 2012) that initiated a shift towards a holistic, emergent and child-centred curriculum. The NCF (MEDE, 2012) for ECE, is a responsive and holistic curriculum, bestowing autonomy on educators to design tailor-made programmes that meet the children’s authentic interests and abilities. However, this degree of freedom generated uncertainty and ambiguity, proving to be challenging to educators who for decades, were accustomed to centrally-imposed prescriptive practices.
Consequently, MEDE (2015) published the Learning Outcomes Framework [LOF], providing a set of outcomes as indicators and delineating a list of achievements related to each learning outcome, that are relatively flexible; not rigidly tied to ages or stages. Albeit, it still identifies four levels to be reached by the end of the ECE cycle, therefore, creating some form of expectancy for children to achieve. As Biermeier (2015, p.74) argues, an outcomes framework may hinder ‘spontaneous inquiry, stealing potential moments of learning’, thus, it can be incompatible with an emergent curriculum. Consequently, policy discourse analysis by Gauci (2019) using Hyatt’s (2013) framework indicates that the LOF (MEDE, 2015) may be closer to the EYFS (DfE, 2021) than presumed. The LOF’s implementation (Directorate for Learning and Assessment Programmes, 054/2018), was introduced following sporadic training (CoPE)[1] (MEDE, 2018) and with limited in-class support for kindergarten educators. Recent research (Baldacchino, 2021; Vella, 2021; Scerri 2022[2]), argues that educators are not only dissatisfied with inadequate consultation and centrally-imposed reform, but also consider curriculum reform as superficial. This makes us question whether, the LOF (MEDE, 2015), the limited training and support and the latest Church Schools’ position (2022) that seems to accentuate the teaching of literacy and numeracy in ECE, may be inadvertently shifting the NCF’s (MEDE, 2012) interpretation closer to the EYFS (DfE, 2021), possibly resonating with our colonial mentality. We question if this scenario denotes the possibility of backtracking towards the ‘formalisation of pedagogy and curriculum’ (Kay, 2022, p.172). The ‘discursively constructed narrative of ‘what works’’(Kay, 2022, p.172), justified in OfSTED’s (2017) document, seems to echo itself in the underlying discourse currently heard through the grapevine in Maltese education contexts.
Hence, curriculum reform appears to be lost in transition in the Maltese context. Educators seem to be in a state of limbo regarding how to implement an open and emergent curriculum, which may be alien to their colonised mentality (Baldacchino, 2018; Gauci, 2019). Perhaps early years educators were not ready for a reculturing process (Miller, 2005) that is necessary for ‘questioning traditions, shaking cultural beliefs and modifying practices’ (Sollars, 2018, p.10).
Conclusion
In this blog, we have shown how a complex interweaving of social, historical and political factors have exerted a powerful influence upon curriculum decision making for young children in Malta and England. We have shown how these global and local factors act together to produce tensions and contradictions regarding what should constitute ‘curriculum’ in the early years. In attempting to address this dilemma, both countries have drawn upon seemingly opposing orientations arising from traditional frameworks of curriculum delivery, contemporary ‘what works’ economic agendas and child-centred ideology. This has led to challenges and uncertainties for the ECE workforce who are charged with implementing the curriculum in an increasingly volatile space. Future research agendas need to engage with educators and children to understand how policy can be mediated to generate responsive and emergent approaches to curriculum that lead to the outcomes desired by a society whilst foregrounding children’s agency, capabilities and interests. Research of this nature would offer valuable, on-the-ground insights to inform the development of initial training and continued professional development programmes for early years educators.
References
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