• Welcome to Early Years Education 2019-20 academic year

    A very warm welcome to The Early Years Education Department for all our new students joining us in 2019 and of course, all our returning students – welcome back! The Department offers a suite of programmes that provide high quality learning and training experiences to those who wish to work with young children in a…

  • Assessment in the Early Years: are we trading play for points? Student’s voice

    By Alex Giubertoni, final year student on Early Years Education Foundation Degree  Since the Froebelian era, play has been at the heart of young children’s learning and understanding in their earliest years. It is a way of taking the minds of young ones and investing them with knowledge and understanding about the world around them…

  • Assessment overload play depravation- student’s voice

    By Annabel Lewis, final year student on the BA Early Childhood Studies programme. Early years is a pivotal stage of a child’s development, where learning is constantly taking place (Volchegorskaya and Nogina, 2014). The practitioner’s role requires the shaping and guiding of such learning in order for it to be meaningful and useful within children’s…

  • ‘Assessment overload’ – play depravation?

    ‘’I didn’t have time to play today. I wrote my name, I did some sums, I read my book to the teacher and wrote some sentences with full stops and speech marks. I painted a self-portrait and did lots of other things, but I didn’t have time to play today, or yesterday. Hopefully I will…