Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scales - Curricular Extension

As the ECERS-R was developed in the United States of America and intended for use in both
care and educational settings, the EPPE team thought it necessary to devise a second early
childhood environment rating scale which was focused on provision in England as well as good
practice in catering for diversity, hence the ECERS-R was supplemented by a new rating scale
(ECERS-E, Sylva, Siraj-Blatchford, & Taggart, 2003), devised by the EPPE team based on the
Desirable Learning Outcomes (QCA/DfEE 1996) for 3 and 4 year-olds and pedagogical practices
associated with it (Siraj-Blatchford and Wong, 1999). The ECERS-E was devised after wide
consultation with experts and piloted extensively, and consists of 4 sub-scales: literacy,
mathematics, science and environment, and diversity. Both the ECERS-R and ECERS-E are
based on a conceptual framework that takes account of pedagogical processes and curriculum.

The Regional Research Officer responsible for each region carried out both ECERS ratings. The
research officers had, in every instance, experience of assessing children for at least 6 months in
the centre before carrying out the ECERS observation and ratings. Moreover, each observer put
aside a full day to complete the ECERS. This was necessary because the two rating scales
contained very detailed information about curricular provision, pedagogy, planning, resources
and relationships.

The overall profile of quality

The histogram below shows how the scores for the total ECERS-R and ECERS-E scales were
distributed across all centres. It clearly shows that the scores on ECERS-E are lower
overall than the scores for ECERS-R. Only the ECERS-E subscale literacy is on the same
level as the ECERS-R subscales. This reflects the overall greater attention given to those
aspects of the environment measures by ECERS-R and the comparative neglect overall
given to the curriculum issues covered by ECERS-E.

Figure 5.1 ECERS-R and ECERS-E sub-scale scores across all centres

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