Chapter 1 The Changing Nature of Childhood

The challenges Teachers and early years practitioners currently face a range of challenges working with young children, especially those who have few positive learning experiences in their homes prior to entering early years settings. The nature and quality of children’s early language experiences learned at home will impact on their future learning. Frequently, early years practitioners and teachers need to create environments that compensate for poor learning experiences at home.

Starting school: How well do boys do? In July 2016 the charity Save the Children announced on their website that in 2015 in England, some 80,000 boys had begun school: ‘struggling to express themselves, speak in full sentences, or understand simple instructions from parents, teachers and friends’. They called it ‘England’s Lost Boys’. (http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/get- involved/campaigns/early-years) The charity expressed concern that many of these children would never catch up, with the result that there could be potentially devastating consequences for their futures and, as they grew older, they could struggle at school, thus leading to poorer prospects for later employment.

Assessing children’s learning Identification and assessment of children’s individual learning needs must go far beyond simply looking for what might be ‘wrong’ with the child; assessment should also focus upon the learning environments that are being created by adults. Why, for example, do children learn more effectively with some adults and in certain situations more than others? Attempts at understanding what constitutes effective teaching and learning in schools and thereby accurate identification and assessment can be found in the work of Hattie (2008) and Marzano (2007) see Chapter 4.