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
Comparison of pre-school environments by type of provision
Turning to the differences in the environment according to type of provision. Figure 5.2 shows
that the three types of provision managed by the LEA had significantly higher scores for total
ECERS-R when compared to other types of provision. The trends in the ECERS-R total scores
are fairly consistent throughout the sub-scale scores. Of the six pre-school types, playgroups had
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