Policy Developments 1990-2004 - Centre for Early Childhood ...

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Section 4Policy Developments 1990-2004intervention and to indicate howeffectiveness and efficiency may beenhanced. (DES, 1999a:124)The White Paper favours a singleevaluation system, or single evaluator, toassess all these components. Moreover, therole of the evaluator would also incorporatea supportive element:…in addition to their inspection role,inspectors will be available tosupport providers and suggest waysof remedying deficiencies. (DES,1999a:123)The establishment of an Early ChildhoodEducation Agency (ECEA) was proposed bythe White Paper to fulfil the manyobjectives and recommendations citedtherein. As outlined in the Introduction, theCECDE was established in October 2002 asa seed agency to the ECEA. The corefunction of the CECDE is the developmentof an NFQ. This is stated in our Programmeof Work (CECDE, 2001) and the process forits realisation outlined in our ResearchStrategy (CECDE, 2003a).The CECDE has also completed somebaseline research (see Section 6 for moredetail) in the form of An Audit of Researchon Early Childhood Care and Education inIreland 1990-2003 (CECDE, 2003b),where a chapter is dedicated to the themeof quality in Irish research. In addition, OnTarget? An Audit of Provision of ServicesTargeting Disadvantage and SpecialNeeds among Children from Birth to SixYears in Ireland (CECDE, 2004a) has alsobeen compiled. The outcomes of a nationalconsultation process on the issue of quality,Talking About Quality, have beenpublished (CECDE, 2004b). Perspectiveson Childhood (CECDE, Forthcoming A) isin the process of being developed. MakingConnections, A Review of InternationalPolicy, Practice and Research Relating toQuality in Early Childhood Care andEducation (CECDE, Forthcoming B) will bepublished in late 2004.Pupils within the infant classes followed theNew Curriculum of 1971 until theintroduction of the Primary SchoolCurriculum (DES, 1999b). This built onmany of the child-centred and holisticphilosophies underpinning the previouscurriculum. The curriculum is presented ina suite of 23 curricular books outlining theaims, objectives, content, concepts andassessment of each curricular area. In theIntroduction to the Primary SchoolCurriculum 1999, “Quality inEducation” is listed as the first key issue inprimary education. The curriculumadvances the rights of children in thisregard:Each child is entitled to the bestpossible quality of education and itis the responsibility of the state toprovide for this through theeducation system. Curriculum is animportant determinant of quality ineducation, and the standards oflearning children achieve throughtheir engagement with it will be ameasure of its effectiveness. (DES,1999b:26 Introduction).Early childhood education is also a keyissue in primary education considering thenumber of four and five - year olds withinthe education system (DES, 1999b:30Introduction). Inherent in the curriculumfor the infant classes is the flexibility toaccommodate the multiple levels ofattainment of children in all aspects ofdevelopment on entry to schooling. Play isa core feature of the curriculum whilelanguage is central to the programmefollowed in the infant classes. In addition,the role of assessment is stressed as anintegral element of the curriculum “…toensure quality in education.” (DES,1999b:17 Introduction)There are six main areas within thecurriculum:1. Language2. Mathematics26
Section 4Policy Developments 1990-20043. Social, Environmental and ScientificEducation (SESE)4. Arts Education5. Physical Education6. Social, Personal and HealthEducation (SPHE)Each of these areas has relevance to theinfant classes and the components andaspects of the curriculum for these classesare delineated. In support of theintroduction of the Revised Curriculum theDES distributed Your Child’s Learning– Guidelines for Parents (DES, 1999c),outlining the key features of the curriculumand ways in which parents and schoolscould collaborate regarding theimplementation of the curriculum.Draft curricular guidelines for children withspecial needs in the primary school wereissued as consultation documents in 2002(NCCA, 2002a-o), following an earlierdiscussion document, SpecialEducational Needs – CurricularNeeds (NCCA, 1999). This earlierdocument acknowledged the limitedtraining opportunities for practitionerspertaining to special needs, at both preserviceand in-service levels, and thenegative impact this has on the provision ofquality services (NCCA, 1999). Childrenwith special needs have additionalrequirements within the education systemand a high level of flexibility and continuityis required within curricular planning. Thisconsultation document was used to informthe production of Draft CurricularGuidelines and facilitated a wider forum forthe input of stakeholders in this regard.The Draft Curricular Guidelines(NCCA, 2002 a-o) draw on the most recentnational and international best practice andresearch to support the planning andimplementation of the curriculum forstudents with general disabilities. Theintention is that the guidelines are to beused in conjunction with and tocomplement the mainstream curriculum.The guidelines are divided into threedistinct categories; for children with mildgeneral learning disabilities (NCCA, 2002ai),for children with moderate learningdisabilities (NCCA, 2002j-l) and forchildren with severe and profound generallearning disabilities (NCCA, 2002m-o).Each category contains a number ofbooklets; including Guidelines forTeachers and guidelines on an array ofcurricular areas including Mathematics,Communications and Language, ArtsEducation and SPHE. The draft guidelineswere open to comment and review and willbe revised and finalised following a periodof consultation.In addition to the above, The NationalCouncil for Curriculum and Assessment(NCCA) has recently launched Towards aFramework for Early Learning - AConsultative Document (NCCA, 2004).This is an important developmentconsidering the emphasis placed on thecurriculum in achieving quality:The development of a nationalframework is an important step inhelping to provide all children withappropriately enriching, challengingand enjoyable learningopportunities from birth to sixyears. (NCCA, 2004:14)This is a background paper for consultationin the process of devising a nationalframework for early years learning. TheFramework has four main aims:To support the development of allchildren 0-6 as confident and competentlearners;To emphasise the important role ofparents/guardians;To guide parents/childminders/practitioners in planning and providingappropriate learning experiences;To support existing good practices inearly learning (NCCA, 2004:13).27
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