A perspective. Anne Meade

PhD in ECE, and registered teacher with ECE and school teaching qualifications

Aspirations for children:

To grow up and competent and confident learners and communicators, healthy in mind, body and spirit, secure in a sense of belonging and in the knowledge that they make a valued contribution to society.” (Te Whāriki, 1996, p. 9)

To become “strong individuals with mana.” (Tilly Reedy)

photo

Design schema: a woven mat, Māori style weaving The

principles (in dark green) provide pedagogical guidance. The curriculum strands are shown in pale green.

An example of pedagogical guidance.

Programmes for infants must provide:

One-to-one responsive interactions An adult who’s consistently responsible for each infant Sociable, loving and physically responsive adults who

tune into an infant’s needs Programmes adjust to the infant’s rhythm Partnership between parents and other adults

involved. (Excerpts, Te Whāriki, p. 22. Influenced by Pikler principles.)

Learning leads development

Developing the symbolic life of the child

Learning by active participation. the highest form of learning.

Photos from Daisies EE&C Centre, with permission

Te Whāriki outcome: the child develops abilities and interests in a range of domains – spatial, visual, linguistic, physical, musical, logical or mathematical, personal, and social – which build on the children’s strengths. (Contribution)

Te Whāriki outcome: children learn strategies for active exploration, thinking, and reasoning. (Exploration) Children develop skills in using the counting system and mathematical symbols and concepts. (Communication)

The ECE Taskforce in NZ (2012) identified persistent issues in its implementation for: Māori and Pacific children, and Children with special educational needs.

Other critiques include: An overemphasis on recording dispositional

outcomes at the expense of ‘working theories’ ERO’s evaluation reports show, e.g., enacted

curricula are often a truncated whāriki One approach – narrative assessment – dominates Progressions in learning are seldom explicit in

documentation of learning.

Implementing Te Whāriki curricula and pedagogy – room for improvement

Some associated issues:

Pedagogical narratives are variable in reality

No tools have been developed for analysing narrative assessments for the purpose of evaluating curriculum implementation in classrooms or in Associations (across ECE services)

Lack of ability and/or willingness by teachers/educators to use different (screening) tools to identify whether early intervention is needed.

HOWEVER, there are no easy ways to address such issues via policy at the system level.

To me, the report on Working with Te Whāriki (ERO, 2013) indicates that many ECE educators need more professional knowledge to:

work with Te Whāriki, a non-prescriptive curriculum framework, and design their own curriculum that is fit-for-purpose for those families who are enrolled

implement a rich, broad, complex curriculum for all

report the learning progress and outcomes to parents regularly, as well as to schools when the child transitions to school.

Challenges in developing systems measures include:

How would we assess: strengthening of mana?

Would ECE for 3 and 4 year olds be privileged at the expense of infants and toddlers if measures of learning outcomes were used before starting school?

Who could or would develop indicators for valued outcomes like, “Has strategies for active exploration”?

How would we ensure that assessments don’t put positive dispositions toward learning at risk?

What about the “tapestry for life”? (Tilly Reedy)

The framework for assessing ECE outcomes focuses on strengthening learning and it links to key competencies in the school curriculum

Work was started on indicators about contexts and child success to measure progress in languages, literacy and communication (LLC), for example:

Child extends his/her LLC repertoire – broader, deeper and more complex.

I am an advocate for advancing this work.