Revealing practice through 12 Case Studies
Through analysing the progress of children during the pre-school period, researchers identified
individual settings that promoted children’s developmental outcomes beyond what would be
expected given the child’s developmental profile at age 3 and their social background. EPPE
conducted intensive case studies in 12 centres identified in the middle and upper range of
effectiveness. ‘Effectiveness’ was based on the amount of progress children made at each
centre, after controlling for pre-test and social background. The purpose of the case studies was
to explore the practices that might explain why children fared so well in some of them. This has
important implications for all those working directly with young children as it describes practices
linked to children’s developmental gains (see EPPE Technical Paper 10, Siraj-Blatchford et al,
2003).
The case studies identified six areas that are particularly important when working with children
aged 3 to 5 years.
1. The quality of adult-child verbal interactions. More ‘sustained shared thinking’ was observed in
settings where children made the most progress. ‘Sustained shared thinking’ occurs when two or
more individuals ‘work together’ in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept,
evaluate an activity, extend a narrative etc. Both parties must contribute to the thinking and it
must develop and extend the understanding. It was more likely to occur when children were
interacting 1:1 with an adult or with a single peer partner and during focussed group work. In
addition to sustained shared thinking, staff engaged in open-ended questioning in the settings
where children made the most progress and provided formative feedback to children during
activities. Adult ‘modelling’ skills or appropriate behaviour was often combined with sustained
periods of shared thinking; open-ended questioning and modelling were also associated with
better cognitive achievement.
RECOMMENDATION: Encourage episodes of ‘sustained shared thinking’ with the children
2. Initiation of activities. In effective settings, the balance of who initiated the activities, staff or
child, was about equal. Similarly in effective settings the extent to which staff members extended
child-initiated interactions was important. Almost half the child-initiated episodes that contained
intellectual challenge included interventions from a staff member to extend the child’s thinking.
Freely chosen play activities often provided the best opportunities for adults to extend children’s
thinking. It may be that extending child-initiated play, coupled with the provision of teacher-
initiated group work, are the most effective vehicles for learning. Children’s cognitive outcomes
appear to be directly related to the quantity and quality of the teacher/adult planned and initiated
focused group work.
RECOMMENDATION: Work towards an equal balance of child and adult initiated activity.
3. Knowledge and understanding of the curriculum. Pre-school workers’ knowledge of the
particular curriculum area that is being addressed is vital. Curriculum knowledge is just as
important in the early years as it is at any later stage of education
4. Knowledge about how young children learn: The knowledge of child development underpins
sound practice but is often weak among early years staff. This gap could be reduced through
initial training and continuous professional development. Staff, need a good grasp of the
appropriate pedagogy for a child’s understanding and interests to develop fully. There has been
a long debate about the extent to which pre-school education should be formal or informal, often
summarised by the extent to which the curriculum is ‘play’ based. EPPE concludes that in most
effective centres ‘play’ environments were used to provide the basis of instructive learning.
However, the most effective pedagogy combine both ‘teaching’ and providing freely chosen yet
potentially instructive play activities Effective pedagogy for young children is less formal than for
primary school but its curricular aims can be both academic as well as social/behavioural.
RECOMMENDATION for 3 and 4: Ensure staff have both curriculum knowledge as well as
knowledge and understanding of child development. Improve the child development content of
both initial and continuing professional development courses.
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