How data impacts on early years educators

evirtuose 2011. Valenciennes, Franc

Neoliberalism’s moment

There’s a lot of talk in early childhood education and care today about ‘outcomes’ and ‘quality’, ‘testing’ and ‘assessment’, ‘interventions’ and ‘programmes’, the ‘evidence-based’ and ‘best practice’, ‘investment’ and ‘human capital’, ‘preparation’ and ‘readiness’, ‘markets and marketing’. To propose a relationship between neoliberalism and education is not original; much has been written about the deep penetration of neoliberalism into this field. Most of the work, though, has focused on compulsory and higher education, neoliberalism in the school and the university. Competition, choice and calculation are central themes of neoliberalism, and these operate through the medium of the market and transactions in it between buyers and sellers. While it is too soon to comprehend the full impact and future consequences of Covid-19, people felt the need to acknowledge its significance to the narrative, so have added a last minute ‘pandemic postscript’

Now is the time! Confronting neo-liberalism in early childhood

© The Author(s) 2021. Over the last 30 years, neo-liberalism has permeated early childhood, as all other aspects of life. Having introduced what neo-liberalism is, the article looks at some of its effects on early childhood education and care, including markets, imaginaries and governance. It argues that though neo-liberalism is a powerful force, it is resistible and replaceable – and that now is the time to be developing alternatives to existing policies, grounding them in ideas that contest neo-liberalism

The Government needs to catch up with early years professionals

Last month, at the height of the pandemic, we were asked by the STA (Standards and Testing Agency) to review Test Items for its third attempt at Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) in September 2023

Creating an Ofsted story: the role of early years assessment data in schools' narratives of progress

This paper explores the growing importance of measures of progress in judgements of schools’ effectiveness in England, with a focus on the role of the early years (settings for children aged 2–5) in providing data for these measures. Qualitative data from a research project involving three diverse school-based and pre-compulsory early years settings are used to explore how teachers and school leaders prioritise the collection of data in their every-day practice, in order to show how children make continual progress. The need for a narrative of progress as children move up through the primary school, an ‘Ofsted story’ for the school inspection service, is discussed alongside recent policy which requires a 'baseline' assessment at age four. We argue that there is a reification of progress in schools and early years settings, and that this changes the status of early years within the sector

The datafication of early years education and its impact upon pedagogy

This article raises important questions about whether the increasing control of early years education through performance data is genuinely a means for school improvement. This composite article, examines the pervasiveness of attainment data in early years education professional activity, its impact on early years teachers’ consciousness and identity and the narrowing and instrumentalisation of early years pedagogy. The authors argue that, rather than improving quality, the current obsession with performance data and its stretch down the age range has the potential to undermine the foundations for children’s personal development and learning. The article also points to the ways in which a triage effect has led to the neglect of some children in order to push targeted children over specific performativity hurdles. The discussion applies Foucault to the early education sector in England and builds upon other early childhood researchers such as Moss

Engineering evaluations and studies. Volume 3: Exhibit C

High rate multiplexes asymmetry and jitter, data-dependent amplitude variations, and transition density are discussed