Working with Babies and Children: From Birth to Three - Softcover

Nutbrown, Cathy; Page, Jools

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1412946743 ISBN 13: 9781412946742

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2008

Synopsis

This book is an essential companion for all who work with children under 3 years old. It makes current research accessible and provides practical support material for curriculum, learning, teaching, planning, and assessment. The authors focus on work in settings of all kinds to promote best practice and offer a high quality experience for the age range.

About this title

About the Author:

Professor Cathy Nutbrown is Head of the School of Education at the University of Sheffield, where she teaches and researches in the field of early childhood education.

Cathy began her career as a teacher of young children and has since worked in a range of settings and roles with children, parents, teachers, and other early childhood educators. Cathy is committed to finding ways of working ‘with respect’ with young children, and sees the concept of quality in the context of what it means to develop curriculum and pedagogy in the early years with the ambition of working in a climate of ‘respectful education’.

She established the University of Sheffield MA in Early Childhood Education in 1998 and a Doctoral Programme in Early Childhood Education in 2008. In 2010 she contributed to the Tickell Review of the Early Years Foundation In June 2012 she reported on her year-long independent review for government on early years and childcare qualifications (The Nutbrown Review). She is Editor-in-Chief of the SAGE Journal of Early Childhood Research and author of over fifty publications on aspects of early childhood education.

?Cathy Nutbrown will be discussing ideas from Early Childhood Educational Research in Doing Your Early Years Research Project, a SAGE Masterclass for early years students and practitioners in collaboration with Kathy Brodie. Find out more here.

Review:

‘From the very first page, Cathy Nutbrown and Jools Page lay down the twin cornerstones of this fabulous book, the sheer brilliance of babies’ minds and the daunting challenges facing those who work with them professionally.

Babies do not get a good press. They may be photogenic but the phrase ‘left holding the baby’ reveals underlying attitudes! In early years work, the first months and years are often dismissed as the least professionally engaging or challenging. It would be easy to romantise this age phase. There is a much mess, mopping and repetition. However, the great contribution of this book is to tell a bigger story.

At the heart of much debate about the professional care of babies and young children is anxiety – is it harmful for such young children to be looked after outside the family? The book is reassuing on that score, revising attachment theory and updating its intepretation. Then there are the extraordinary insights into babies’ perceptual abilities, freshly woven into the story from disciplines beyond education - health, psychology and neuroscience.

This is a principled book, underpinned by a commitment to advocacy and respect for under threes. Yet it is practical too, rich in case vignettes and linked reflections. I hope it will come to be regarded as required reading by those with responsibility for children under three’ - Peter Elfer, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies, Roehampton University

Author: Peter Elfer

‘This is a very well edited collection easily accessible to everyone involved in the early years, with the common thread being the holistic nature of very young children’s learning. Using the contents of the different chapters for reflection and analysis, those implementing the new Early Years Foundation Stage will be able to promote and enhance children’s development and learning experiences and certainly their own practices. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 1 in which the writer encourages readers to challenge their existing views about the Early Years Foundation Stage and to compare its contents and philosophies with other international curricula, and an equally strong and well-written Chapter 3 shows the writer’s excellent knowledge of baby and toddler social and inter-relational development. Both Chapters 11 and 12 meticulously outline the bases of, and rationale for, establishing relationships between practitioners and young children and their families. This book powerfully reminds readers of what is at the heart of their care and learning interactions with babies and young children.’ - Professor Emeritus Janet Moyles Author: Professor Emiritus Janet Moyles

About this edition

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1412946743
• ISBN 13: 9781412946742
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224