Furthermore, the number of children varies from 20 or so in playgroup and nursery classes to
100-200 in nursery schools, local authority day nurseries and fully integrated centres. The staff
numbers reflect the numbers of children and the extent of the services on offer to families and
other early years practitioners e.g. training support.
It is clear that EPPE has been able to locate moderate to excellent settings from among all types
of providers. However, there were many fewer settings to choose from in the top range for
playgroups and local authority day nurseries. Given the variation in staff pay, training and
development this is unsurprising. There is no level playing field. In spite of this we found our case
study centres were able to portray some or a good deal of quality characteristics in terms of their
ethos:-
a) All case study settings generally presented a warm, caring, safe, secure and supportive
approach to their children. All the settings engaged children in a range of different groupings,
individual and group play, group focused table top activities, interest areas and snacks and story
times.
b) All case study settings had a welcoming appearance. The displays on the whole reflected the
children’s work. Children were generally treated with respect. The centres were warm and
inviting places. Staff appeared calm and engaged well with the children. All these centres had
fairly good resources and, although not always ideal, space. However, the outdoor play
environments varied greatly.
Analysis of the quantitative findings with the qualitative case studies data
The case study analysis has gone a long way in providing explanations for the patterns and
associations between particular practices (as measured by the Early Childhood Environment
Rating Scales R and E, see Sylva et al., 1999b 1999c; Technical Paper 6 and 6a) and
developmental outcomes (see Technical Papers 8a and 8b). In our preliminary discussion, four
patterns of association were identified in terms of the ECERS quality ratings and the child
developmental outcomes scores for settings. Special attention and close analysis of the data
from systematic observations suggested that we should investigate each of the following
practices further:
• Adult-Child verbal Interactions.
• Differentiation and formative assessment.
• Discipline and adult support in talking through conflicts.
• Parental partnership with settings and the home education environment.
Adult-child interactions
We found that the ‘excellent’ settings encouraged relatively more ‘sustained shared thinking’. By
this we mean an episode in which, two or more individuals “work together” in an intellectual way
to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate activities, extend a narrative etc. Both parties
must contribute to the thinking and it must develop and extend thinking. However, we found that
this does not happen very frequently. In ‘excellent’ settings there were significantly more
‘sustained shared thinking’ interactions occurring between staff and children than in the ‘good’
settings. When this did occur, it extended children’s thinking. Our investigations of adult-child
interaction leads us to believe that periods of ‘sustained shared thinking’ are a necessary pre-
requisite for excellent early years practice, especially where this is also encouraged in the home
through parent support.
In ‘excellent’ case study settings, the importance of staff members extending child-initiated
interactions was also clearly identified. In fact, almost half of all of the child-initiated episodes
which contained intellectual challenge, included interventions from a staff member to extend the
child’s thinking. The evidence also suggests that adult ‘modelling’ is often combined with more
sustained periods of shared thinking, and that open-ended questioning is also associated with
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