better cognitive achievement. However, open-ended questions made up only 5.1% of the
questioning used in even these ‘excellent’ settings.
In the ‘excellent’ settings, the balance of who initiated the activities, staff or child, was very equal,
revealing that the pedagogy of the excellent settings encourages children to initiate activities as
often as the staff. Also, staff in excellent settings, regularly extend child initiated activities, but
did not dominate them. The children in reception classes experienced a different balance of
initiation, with a much greater emphasis upon staff initiated episodes. In all of the case study
settings we found that the children spent most of their time in small groups. Our observations,
however, show that ‘sustained shared thinking’ was most likely to occur when children were
interacting 1:1 with an adult or with a single peer partner. Freely chosen play activities often
provided the best opportunities for adults to extend children’s thinking. Adults need therefore, to
create opportunities to extend child-initiated play as well as teacher-initiated group work, as both
have been found to be important vehicles for promoting learning.
We found that level 5 qualified staff (almost all trained teachers in our study) provided children
with more experience of academic activities (especially language and mathematics) and they
encouraged children to engage in activities with higher cognitive challenge. While we found that
the most highly qualified staff also provided the most direct teaching (instruction through
demonstration, explanation, questioning, modelling etc.) we found that they were the most
effective in their interactions with the children, using the most ‘sustained shared thinking’.
Furthermore, we found that less well qualified staff were significantly better pedagogues when
they worked alongside qualified teachers.
Differentiation and formative assessment
The analysis of teacher observations suggests a positive association between curriculum
differentiation, formative assessment, and the process of selecting activities to provide the
optimum cognitive challenge, and ‘sustained shared thinking'. The practice of adults 'modelling'
(or demonstrating) positive attitudes, behaviours, and appropriate use of language, has also
been identified as a valuable pedagogic strategy to be employed in early childhood. The best of
our case study settings kept good records and engaged with parents about their child’s progress
on a weekly or monthly basis. However, we found little evidence of detailed formative feedback
to children during their engagement with tasks.
Discipline and adult support in talking through conflicts
The excellent settings adopted discipline/behaviour policies that involve staff in supporting
children in rationalising and talking through their conflicts. In other words a more problem solving
approach was adopted. Three settings with very positive social and behavioural outcomes had
this practical approach supported by a strong behaviour management policy with which all the
staff were conversant. In settings that were less effective in this respect, our observations
showed that there was often no follow up on children's misbehaviour or conflicts and, on many
occasions, children were ‘distracted’ or simply told to stop.
Parental partnership
The case studies indicate that where a special relationship in terms of shared educational aims
had been developed with parents, and pedagogic efforts were made by parents at home to
support children, sound learning took place even in the absence of consistently good pedagogic
practice in the pre-school setting. The excellent settings shared child-related information
between parents and staff, and parents were often involved in decision making about their child’s
learning programme. This level of communication was particularly the case in private day
nurseries. While settings providing for the needs of children from the higher socio-economic
groups benefited especially from this, the potential benefit of adopting a combined approach
(good pedagogic practice within the setting and support for the home learning environment) in
settings serving more disadvantaged areas is also clear. In more disadvantaged areas, staff in
settings had to be pro-active in influencing and supporting the home education environment in
order to support children’s learning. The evidence suggests that the ‘excellent' settings in
disadvantaged areas recognise the importance of, and were pro-active in encouraging strong
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