ABSTRACT
By ‘early years’ in this book I mean children aged between 3 and 5 years, though the principles will be relevant both to children younger than this – the Early Years Foundation Stage in England starts from birth – and to teachers working with children up to age 7, who are included in the Foundation Stage in Wales. Because early years education tends to be holistic and play-based it readily lends itself to creativity, so there is perhaps less tension for practitioners between policy and practice than there might be for teachers in primary schools. Indeed, the UK government has actively encouraged creativity in early years settings: ‘We will ensure that creativity continues to be of fundamental importance in the Early Years Foundation Stage. We will also examine ways of recognising and rewarding practitioners and settings which demonstrate particularly effective creative practice’ (DCMS/DfES 2006: 6). Nevertheless, the challenge to managers of early years settings is to find ways to support practitioners’ creativity through ‘giving permission’ to innovate and take risks with their practice. There may also be a challenge in recognising where scientific learning is going on in the setting, since it does not form part of official early years curricula. Yet I believe that children can and do learn science from a very early age – whether or not it is identified as such – and that therefore early years practitioners need to make this scientific learning experience as creative as possible.
