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Firstschool Offers A Safe, Constructive And Significant Haven For Children, ...

Firstschool offers a safe, constructive and significant haven for children, bringing a quality into pre-school environments. The problem of childcare for parents on low income or in a workless situation, is not exclusive to one country, it is a global problem, and is a major consideration towards education.
In the UK this problem is being addressed by the Government taking on a ten-year strategy for childcare, published in 2004, which is now subject to Parliamentary Approval in 2006 (Education & Skills, 2006). It is the Government's response to a fundamental challenge facing Britain in the need to ensure available, affordable, and high quality childcare in the 21st Century.
The problems that face the teaching of Language and Literacy are highlighted here in examples from the UK and in the USA, yet it is recognised as a global problem. Many studies have been carried out over years, highlighting the contribution of high quality early education, which tends to be more targeted at disadvantage children. This underlines the concern of literacy problems in later years, which is being addressed now for the education standards of tomorrow.
In the US long term studies in early childcare NICHD (1991) highlighted the fact of high-quality childcare was found to give a better cognitive and language ability than children in low-quality care. It also found that children who spent more time in childcare were seen to display behavioural problems, such as aggressive tendencies at 4.5 years onwards, than children in less care. The largest and most lasting academic gains were seen in disadvantaged children.
For the UK the Department for Educational Studies (DfES) funded the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education a longitudinal study in 1996, it was an evaluation for children of 3 to 7 years of age in pre-school through into primary from different social backgrounds. The summary in Findings from the Early Primary Years (EPPE Summary 2004) where collected data was about the children, parents, home environment and the pre-school they attended, and proved that cognitive and social effects were positive going into primary.
The findings of the study showed that parent's education and social class remained as predictors of intellectual and social development, and that very long periods of pre-school were connected with anti-social behavioral problems. This fact was attributed to the presence of non-parental childcare before three years of age. The education level of the child's mother was also seen to be a major factor in the child's performance.
Major findings from the pre-school period included that of disadvantaged children benefit significantly from good pre-school experience, especially when they are with a mixture of children from different backgrounds.


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