Early years practitioners’ views on early personal, social and emotional development

Abstract

Current policy guidance stresses the need for early identification of obstacles to learning and appropriate intervention. New standards for learning (Early Years Foundation Stage) place personal, social and emotional development (PSED) as central to learning and development. This paper reports a survey and follow-up interviews with early years practitioners on early identification and intervention of young children with difficulties in PSED. As previous research with primary and secondary colleagues has shown, practitioners find low-level disturbance occurring most frequently. Although aggressive behaviour (hurting others, kicking, hitting and biting) is a concern, not attending or listening and immature social skills (lack of sharing and turn-taking, and inability to relate to other children) is a bigger challenge. Practitioners report a range of strategies for formally teaching relevant skills but point to the greater challenge of supporting recent immigrants where different cultural and social norms need to be understood.

Keywords:

• early years
• personal, social and emotional development
• practitioners’ views