ABSTRACT
Although we accept the European Union definition of early childhood as stretching from birth to eight, in this chapter we are referring to children in the relatively narrow age range of three to five years. Nevertheless, the principles we will outline are relevant both to children younger than this – the Early Years Foundation Stage in England and Te Whāriki in New Zealand both start from birth – and to teachers working with children up to age seven, who are included in the Foundation Phase in Wales. Because early years education tends to be holistic, play-based and less tightly prescribed than curricula for older age groups, it readily lends itself to creative possibilities and there is perhaps less tension for practitioners between policy and practice than there might be for teachers in the later stages of primary education. 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 to encourage creativity in the classroom. 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 we believe that young children can and do learn science by interacting with the world and others around them – whether or not it is labelled ‘science’ – and that therefore early years practitioners have a unique opportunity to lead the way in developing creative science pedagogies.
