Curriculum: Understanding what is 'crucial'

We know a lot about what makes good early years pedagogy, but what is it exactly that pedagogues should be teaching? Verity Campbell-Barr, Katherine Evans, Jan Georgeson, Sasha Tregenza identified key features of a good curriculum

We have often heard that attending high quality early years provision can improve a wide range of child outcomes, and this has been well researched and theorised both in the UK and internationally. Where there has been less focus, however, is on what makes a high-quality early years curriculum. What are the key features? How are they different from curricula for older children?

In the UK, there is a lack of a specific focus on the curriculum: the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) is a guidance document and not a curriculum document, Ofsted state that the EYFS is the ‘framework for the curriculum’, but ‘it is up to schools to decide how to expand, extend and broaden’ this (Gov.UK, 2023). However, in the first of a series of ‘research reviews for early years’, Ofsted (2022) have outlined their view of an early years curriculum.  Ofsted had already made the distinction between curriculum as ‘what is taught’ and pedagogy as ‘how it is taught’, but now Ofsted advocate a model of curriculum that is linked to progress where progress is defined as “knowing more and remembering more” (p10) and the role of educators is to plan for that progress with the careful sequencing of subject-based knowledge. 

The focus on ‘knowing’, ‘remembering’, ‘taught’ and ‘subject-based knowledge’ may send a chorus of alarm bells around the minds of those in the early years community. Early years education has long emphasised play-based and child-centred approaches that appear to sit awkwardly with this narrative of curriculum. However, with a lack of research into what is a high-quality early years education community, could such a objectionist chorus be justified?

What is a curriculum?

A curriculum typically sets out the knowledge and skills to be taught, with pedagogy being how the knowledge and skills are transmitted. For older children, this is commonly done in subject form: English, Maths, Sciences etc. reflecting theories of curriculum which are very structured and knowledge-based, with knowledge and skills parcelled up into discrete subjects to be taught. Other visions of curriculum cut across these subjects. However, even this type of integrated model does not fully reflect the uniqueness of an early years curriculum that we identified in the data, where the curriculum was presented as less prescriptive than emergent and iterative in its approach. There is a focus on knowledge and skills, as informed by models of child development, but outcomes related to these often occur in the moment, while building on children’s prior experiences. The ‘what is taught’ therefore has a clear sense of children’s progression, but will not be prescriptive and in subject form as is seen in curricula for other stages of education.

Our data identified a number of core features as being crucial to the construction of a curriculum:

• Following the needs and interests of the child
• The role of the environment
• Inclusion
• Working with families
• Observation and assessment
• Supporting children’s development
• The knowledge and expertise of educators

What was apparent from the research was just how important the knowledge and expertise of educators is in being able to put a high-quality early years curriculum in place. Educators utilise knowledge of child development in their interactions with children to support a personalised approach to learning, that differentiates this as an inclusive curriculum.

We found curriculum was seen as often developing in the moment, responding to the needs and interests of all children. However, there was also acknowledgement of how understanding the cultural contexts of children, their families, and the communities that they come from, would help shape a broader overview of the curriculum.

Recognising the different contexts and circumstances that children come from signalled the importance of parental partnership, but also emphasized the view of the curriculum as inclusive. Discussions of inclusion also identified the ways that educators would adapt and provide a range of learning opportunities in a way that was appropriate for children with different needs.

The environment is key to finding ways to respond to children’s different interests and needs in support of their learning. Educators use the environment and the resources in it to offer signals as to the activities that would take place, sometimes with specific learning outcomes in mind, but also in a way that could support children leading their own learning. There was therefore a strong awareness of child development in anticipation of ‘the next stage’ but informed by the needs and interests of the child.

As is reflected above, with the need for input from children, parents and the community, the curriculum was also identified as heavily collaborative. There is a collaboration between the child and the educator and the educator and families and the wider community. As one educator with whom we shared the findings said, ‘you’re a co-explorer’, demonstrating that the curriculum is not a passive following of the child, but a collaborative adventure in their learning journey.

Articulating in practice

Despite the identification of the core themes when considering the features of a high-quality early years curriculum, it was also evident that it was often hard to articulate what a high-quality early years education curriculum looks like. The research team often found that educators were uncertain about how to articulate what a high-quality early years curriculum was. Curriculum was very strongly evident in practice, but was less easy to articulate.

As one educator said, ‘a high-quality curriculum does need to be flexible and it should meet the children’s need above any other agendas. … I have got lots of information and lots of ideas in my head and read lots but it’s really hard to commit anything to paper. I don’t think there’s any expectation to have a paper copy [of the curriculum] but then I think there is. [it] depends on what you read.’

And yet when discussing examples from practice the educator went on to present how the curriculum emerges in the moment: ‘for some random reason a group of girls the other day got all the tissue paper out and started making dresses, and it’s just see where that goes and then you got the cutting of the sticky tape; you’ve got all the holding of the scissors … for that to happen and that learning opportunity to be maximised … you need every practitioner to be able to spot that learning opportunity’.

Because of this, we recommend that initial and continued professional development of educators needs to include content on curriculum, so that educators can be confident in articulating their aims for what children might learn, as well as comment on how this will happen. 

We also concluded that there was a need for a set of shared concepts to facilitate discussions on curriculum. Based on the data we identified a high-quality early years education curriculum as being emergent, expressive and contextual.