Children's wishes

Through the use of a projective technique, the three greatest wishes of 7-year-old and 10-year-old children were analysed. The sample under study included 227 girls and 256 boys attending five primary state schools in Malta. Each child had to think of three wishes which in his/her opinion would be suggested by the child of the same sex in the story. Significance was obtained when considering age as a variable. When considering sex differences, it was found that boys and girls conform to wishes and needs related to their sex whereas certain wishes are associated with one sex group only.peer-reviewe

Social and emotional competence : are preventive programmes necessary in early childhood education and care?

Just as young children begin to develop a wide range of skills, attitudes and behaviours during the early years, the development of social and emotional competence is also rooted in early childhood. Yet, whilst some argue that this competence is nurtured through preventive programmes (Schonert-Reichl 2004), this paper argues against the need for preventive programmes as long as the adults caring for young children are themselves experiencing positive relationships and can be role models providing a stable and positive effect on children during what must be one of their most crucial and vulnerable periods of their life. The paper juxtaposes various interpretations of quality education and care in the early years and emphasises good practice which can promote social and emotional competence without the need to resort to formal, preventive programmes. Assuming that positive and appropriate approaches to early childhood education and care are promoted within homes as well as within formal early years settings, there can be a natural development of emotional and social competence.peer-reviewe

Early childhood workforce profiles across Europe. 33 country reports with key contextual data

Administrative responsibility for childcare services catering for under threes was transferred from the Department for Social Welfare Standards, within the then Ministry for the Family & Social Solidarity, to the Ministry for Education and Employment on July 1st 2016. This was a laud-able move which brought all services associated to early childhood education and care under one entity. However, thus far this has resulted in it being merely an administrative shift, where childcare services have been added on to the responsibilities of staff within various departments at the Ministry for Education.Shifting the administration of childcare settings to the Ministry for Education was in part motivated by the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) (MEDE 2012) which foresaw an early years cycle that promotes the education and care for 0 to 7 year-olds. Bringing all services under one ministry had also been a recommendation in policy documents (MEDE 2013) in line with one of the OECD (2001) conclusions. However, in what appears to be an absence of a conceptual understanding of what the early years cycle implies in relation to the potential benefits of high-quality settings requiring highly trained staff skilled in managing, leading and working with young children and families, a decade later the ECEC services in Malta still comprise three distinct stages, namely:1. Non-compulsory childcare services for under threes2. Non-compulsory kindergarten settings for 3 to 5 year-olds and3. The first two years of compulsory school, for 5 to 7 year-olds, traditionally and currently still part of the six-year compulsory primary cyclepeer-reviewe

System of early education/care and professionalisation in Malta

Malta is the largest of the archipelago of five islands in the middle of the Mediterranean. With a land mass of 316 square kilometres, an estimated population of 404,306 and 1,282 persons per square kilometre, Malta is the most densely populated country in Europe, (NSO, 2006a). Some 50.4% of the population is made up of women; about 3.2% are foreign citizens. There are no fluctuations in the population owing to migration1 and the increase in population is attributed to the difference in births and deaths. Considering the initiatives taken in the field of early childhood education and care in Malta over the past decade, ECEC is on the agenda of two government ministries: the Ministry of Family and Social Solidarity (MFSS) as well as the Ministry of Education, Youth and Employment (MEYE). The reason for the divide and interest in two sectors arises from the fact that child-care centres fall under the responsibility of the MFSS, whereas KG and compulsory schooling are the responsibility of the MEYE. Compulsory schooling starts at the age of 5. KG provision is widely available for 3 and 4 year-olds. Although this is not compulsory, some 98% of children attend KG regularly. Child-care centres are the most recent early childhood service in the Maltese society with the earlier ones starting their operation in the mid-90s. Child-care centres typically cater for children between the ages of 3 months to 3 years. Putting children into care at the age of three months links to the 13 weeks paid maternity leave which mothers are entitled to. However, there are also instances where babies younger than three months are already in care because of the mother’s work commitments. Moving infants from childcare centres to KG centres occurs around the age of three as this is the first year of admission to Kindergarten.peer-reviewe

Issues in multi-literacy

This collection of case studies offers the reader different but equally important perspectives to be considered in teaching second or subsequent literacies to relatively young learners. It is important to examine what and how teachers present learning material to the students. However, what learners make of the teaching context and how the formal situation prepares children to make use of their second/subsequent literacy achievement beyond the classroom context are crucial issues if language learning is indeed a requirement which fosters communication among different communities and cultures.peer-reviewe

English as a second language in a Maltese early years setting

This article explores the learning experiences of a cohort of children acquiring English as a second language within a Maltese kindergarten setting. In this qualitative case study, data was collected through classroom observations, interviews with practitioners and questionnaires completed by parents. This case study provides insights into factors which impacted on language learning for this particular cohort of children. Results indicate that formally structured and adult-led language activities were organized daily with minimal opportunities for children’s active engagement through interactions with adults and peers or child-centred activities. In conclusion, recommendations are made to address policy and practice appropriate for second language learning in early years.peer-reviewe

When the bell rings, you can talk : experiencing the preschool to school transition

Although starting formal schooling is acknowledged as a major milestone in children’s educational journey, within the Maltese education system little is known about transition practices from kindergarten/preschool to school. Successful transitions depend on relationships and practices which contribute towards facilitating the process for children and their families. This study focused on transitions as experienced by parents, children and staff in one early years setting. Organizational matters, pedagogical practices, adult-child relationships and peer relationships within kindergarten and school were reviewed through questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions conducted with thirty-five parents, three kindergarten (preschool) practitioners, three teachers and two members of the senior management team. Thirty-three five-year-old children in their first year of compulsory school participated in three group activities, including a storytelling session, puppet play and a visit to the preschool. Although participants benefitted from a transition process with activities involving children, parents and practitioners, more initiatives can be adopted to support and strengthen children’s experiences.peer-reviewe

Professional inductions of teachers in Europe and elsewhere

In the following paper, background information about the education system as well as detailed information about the B.Ed. (Hons.) degree programmes is given. Since there are differences between primary and secondary schooling, the paper is broadly divided into two sections for ease of presentation.peer-reviewe

Early childhood work-force profiles across Europe. 33 country reports with key contextual data

The focal key points covered by this research report commence primarily by forwarding the important historical milestones of Early childhood education in Malta, highlighting the steps accomplished under the British colonial rule. Furthermore, relevant information covers the general objectives and legislative framework within the Maltese educational context, as well as curricular frameworks, including recent priority policies such as digital education and standards.peer-reviewe

Blogs : web journals in language education

This publication is the outcome of an ECML project which, over the course of three years, investigated the design of educational blogging platforms and their use in the language classroom. The accompanying CD-Rom includes the entire corpus of blogs produced during the project – the good, the bad, the ugly and the indifferent. Mining this heap of verbiage turns up many fascinating gems. This booklet describes our experiences of working with language teachers and students taking their first steps in blogging, and should be of interest primarily to teacher trainers and language teachers who wish to harness the educational power of the “writable Web”. There are many excellent free blogging hosting services available to the adventurous teacher – Blogger, WordPress and Class Blogmeister all welcome educational users. If the teacher can rely on technical help and the school has access to its own Web server or has shared server space, then the blogging platform included on the CD-Rom can be freely installed for use by any number of teachers and students. The software runs on an IIS-based server (IIS 5 or above with ASP, MS Access and certain other optional modules that are documented on the CD-Rom). Since the installation itself is not just a point-and-click affair, some degree of configuration is necessary to suite the server set-up, and therefore some technical expertise in Web server administration and scripting is required. Once set-up, of course, the platform is accessible using any Web browser and should require little or no maintenance. Although fully functional (it has in fact been in use for over a year by more than 600 teachers and students), the platform is still in the early stages of development. It is released under a GNU General Public License1 to encourage software developers to extend and enhance it. Foremost in the development road map for this platform is the design of a proper data abstraction layer, integration with a variety of popular DBMS back-ends (especially MySQL), implementation of a proper blogging API, and porting the platform over to PHP. Finally, thanks are due to all the teachers and hundreds of students, both in Europe and Brazil, who bravely struggled with the idiosyncrasies of the software as it underwent one revision after another. Thanks are also due to the ECML for their support throughout the project, and especially all the staff at the ECML for always making us look forward to our next visit to the wonderful city of Graz.peer-reviewe