Taking the ‘early yearsy’ route: resistance and professionalism in the enactment of assessment policy in early childhood in England

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how early years teachers respond to policy, using the case of Baseline Assessment, a new statutory assessment introduced to Reception classes (age 4–5) in England in 2015. Using interview and survey data collected during the period when the policy was introduced, the paper examines how teachers engaged in different forms of resistance to this unpopular policy reform. It is argued that as early years professionals Reception teachers draw on and draw strength from specifically early childhood-based knowledge and understandings, such as the emphasis on the whole child and an ethics of care, which provide them with justifications for resisting policy. This resistance is thus part of their identity as early years professionals and allows for a particular positionality within the school. However, it is also argued that sometimes taking the apparently resistant ‘early yearsy’ route can actually facilitate policy; this is discussed as compliant resistance.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy
• assessment
• baseline
• early years
• teacher professionalism
• resistance

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for the support of the NEU and the contribution of my co-researcher Guy Roberts-Holmes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I do this for ease of reading, aware that there are also teachers in Nursery classes in primary schools, and in other early years settings that would consider themselves to be ‘early years teachers’. The teachers I refer to here would all have qualified teacher status (QTS).

2. Interestingly, for some questions where the provider is an important factor, such as those about workload and impact on the classroom, the responses disaggregated by provider are broadly consistent.

3. I have written previously about the problematic nature of this ‘knowledge’ in relation to social inequalities (see Bradbury 2013); I do not have space to discuss this in depth here.

Additional information

Funding

This research project was funded by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and the National Union of Teachers (now combined as the National Education Union).