Principles under pressure: student teachers' perspectives on final teaching practice in early childhood classrooms

Abstract

Global concerns about what constitutes an appropriate curriculum and pedagogy for young children inevitably raises questions for teacher educators and the content of teacher education programmes. These concerns have been particularly visible in England following recent policy initiatives and the resultant ‘academic shovedown’ and ‘high stakes’ performativity culture in schools. Against this background, this article reports on a qualitative study of student teachers' experiences of their final teaching practice, identifying pressure from a range of sources to deliver a more formalised curriculum than they were prepared for in their university-based courses. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner among others, we consider the socio-political and -cultural sources of pressure linked through human agency, and the implications of these for teacher educators. The study argues that student teachers of young children may be faced with cognitive and emotional dissonance between the content of university-based training on the one hand, which promotes a developmentally appropriate, play-based approach in keeping with the Early Years Foundation Stage (the statutory curricular framework in England), and the reality of pedagogical practice in early years settings on the other.

Keywords:

• early childhood
• teacher education
• developmentally appropriate curriculum
• pressure
• performativity
• dissonance

Notes

1. The ‘reception class’, a term with a particular currency in the UK, is positioned as the first class of primary school although it is subject to the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Current policy allows for children to be admitted to reception classes in the term after their fourth birthday although they are not of statutory school age until the term after their fifth birthday.

2. Standard Attainment Tasks taken at end of Key Stage 1 (when children are age 6 or 7 years).