top of page

Effective Pedagogy

An effective early years educator devotes time to their own continual professional development in order to ensure that their skills, knowledge and understanding are current and effective.  Such educators develop a depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding that encompasses all aspects of provision, furthermore, they continually reflect on practice to ensure that practice develops in order to meet the changing needs of individual children.

​

Research informs us that the more skilled and qualified a staff team is, then a higher quality of care and education is experienced by children receiving the service.

 

There is compelling research which directly links children's attainment with the quality of the team providing the care and education; children who receive care and education from a less qualified and committed team have lower outcomes than those who are cared for and educated by teams who are committed to continual professional development, especially where these teams are led by qualified teachers.

​

The Early Years Foundation Stage

Whilst the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage makes no reference to pedagogy, the Inspection Framework does.  The Early Years Inspection Handbook for Ofsted Registered Provision (Ofsted, 2022, point 203) requires that:

​

  • Leaders ensure that they and practitioners receive focused and highly effective professional development. Practitioners’ subject, pedagogical content and knowledge consistently builds and develops over time, and this consistently translates into improvements in the teaching of the curriculum.

​

The above criteria must be fulfilled for settings to achieve and 'Outstanding' judgement in Leadership and Management.

​

The 'Components' of Effective Pedagogy'

​

Pedagogy can be broken down into 4 distinct components:

​

  1. Pedagogical Framing (or Framework)

  2. Pedagogical Interactions

  3. Pedagogical Content Knowledge

  4. Pedagogical Strategies

​

Hover over the boxes below to find out more.


Pedagogical Framing (or Framework)
-
Everything that happens in the background 
 

Pedagogical Framing (or Framework) refers to everything which goes on in the background, including any statutory requirements set by the governing authority which will vary from country to country.  Policies, legal  requirements, and approaches adopted by individual settings (e.g., Montessori, High/Scope etc,) will form the pedagogical framing which underpins how individual settings deliver their curriculum.  Another very important aspect of pedagogical framing is how settings support the training and development of their team.  Poor framing in this area of practice may undermine a teams ability to deliver a high quality  curriculum.
 


Pedagogical Interactions
-
It's all in the words - and they all
count!
 

Pedagogical Interactions refers to the quality of interactions children receive in their place of learning.  Back-and-forth interactions support children to learn to communicate and to hold conversations. Interactions should: stretch the intellect; promote speculation, curiosity and enquiry; and be predominantly cognitive rather than social, e.g., 'How did you graze your knee? What might help?' will provoke thought whereas 'Are you okay?' only expects a yes / no response and could even encourage unnecessary self-pity thereby undermining resilience and the ability to overcome challenges and set-backs.


Pedagogical Content Knowledge
-
You have to know about it in order to teach it!

Pedagogical Content Knowledge refers to what you know about the subject you are teaching.  Not to make too finer point of it but if the children you teach know more about dinosaurs than you then you need to up your game!  Always ask yourself 'what do I need to learn about the subject I am about to teach?'  You cannot begin to stretch a child's knowledge and understanding  if you have not equipped yourself with the knowledge and skills to do so.
Another point is to 'keep it real' and to distinguish between fact, fiction and fantasy.  If you are teaching children about 'space' then find out about space (fact), read stories which could be possible but are not true (fiction) and have fun with 'Aliens in Underpants' (fantasy)!


Pedagogical Strategies
-
These are the teaching strategies you use in order to teach!

Pedagogical Strategies refers to the diverse and wide ranging  strategies you use in order to support and facilitate learning and development.  Whether you are using teaching strategies such as: demonstrating; communicating;, facilitating; role-modelling;, assessing; or listening you are using teaching strategies which facilitate learning.  
You will also use pedagogical strategies to manage behaviour and to promote problem solving, for example during social conflicts. or to promote self-regulation. 
It is incredibly important for all early years educators to understand that everything they do has an educational impact on the children they educate.  Poor teaching leads to poor learning which should not be accepted and which should be challenged by leaders and managers.

© 2022 by FutureWorks Education Ltd.  

bottom of page