Improving early education through high-quality interactions

Improving the quality of early education matters: it’s positive for every child, and especially important for socio-economically disadvantaged children.

In fact, research evidence tells us that high-quality early education is one of the best ways to ensure that children can thrive and succeed in school and beyond, regardless of their background.

The Education Policy Institute (EPI) report that by the end of the Reception year, children who are experiencing disadvantage are, on average, 4.6 months behind other children in their learning. The EPI use eligibility for Free School Meals as an approximate measure of disadvantage, and further report that this gap doubles, on average, by the end of primary school and doubles again by the end of secondary school. However, high-quality early education and childcare settings provide one of the earliest opportunities to impact children’s life chances positively.

Importantly, there are several well-evidenced programmes which can help to reduce some of those gaps. Examples include the Nuffield Early Language Intervention (a targeted programme to improve young children's language skills in Reception) and Maths Champions (a professional development programmeA programme is a package of support, including professional development, that helps early years educators to improve particular areas of practice and children’s outcomes. to increase educators’ knowledge, awareness and confidence in supporting early mathematics in nurseries). Both support accelerated progress during children’s early years. Interventions work best when they work alongside and support the development of high-quality provision throughout the day.

Supporting the learning of a large group of children in early years settings and school nursery and reception classes is undoubtedly a challenge. So, it’s promising to note that there are two well-evidenced strategies which educators can use moment-by-moment to improve children’s enjoyment and achievement in their early years. Best of all, these two strategies are already part of most educators’ practice. They are:

• Back-and-forth conversation with children to promote their communication and extend their thinking and learning
• Using scaffolding so that children can succeed in a task which is currently too difficult for them to do on their own

These two approaches are at the heart of high-quality interactions which promote children’s learning. They are underpinned by warm, caring relationships and interactions, and in turn they can promote children’s wellbeing and mental health.

Research evidence tells us that developing these high-quality interactions is crucial to every aspect of practice in the early years. High-quality interactions with children are also a guiding principle for all effective professional development in the early years. You can find out more about this in our Guide to Effective Professional Development in the Early Years.

All children are powerful learners. Before starting in an early years setting, some children have already experienced many sustained and supportive interactions with adults that promote their learning and development. For example, plenty of early play and conversation, sharing books and singing songs.

However, children who have experienced fewer sustained and supportive interactions might have shorter attention spans. They might have fewer interests or be less confident communicators. Educators may need to take more time and care in developing warm and supportive relationships with them.

However, research evidence suggests that sometimes the opposite happens. The Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) report found that ‘children who are “struggling” learners receive the most behaviour management interactions from adults, while very capable learners and those who are learning ‘as expected’ receive more social talk and caring interactions from the adults in their settings’.

One way to act on this research evidence is to prioritise support and attention to children who seem harder to engage. One way of doing this is through building episodes of ‘shared attention’.

Educators can create episodes of ‘shared attention’ by showing genuine interest in a child’s play. They might get down to the child’s level and let the child lead the way. Educators can also create exciting activities that naturally draw children over.

The ShREC approach gives practical advice on how to promote shared attention and back-and-forth conversation in the early years.

Increasing the number of conversational turns children experience is important. However, this isn’t sufficient to ensure that all children become confident and capable talkers and learners.

Research evidence suggests that the quality of conversation matters most, not just the quantity. High-quality language approaches include:

• Shared or interactive reading, where the book is a focus for conversation between educators and children.
• Discussions which go ‘beyond the here and now’. These might include discussing what happened in the past, or what might happen in the future. Or they might be imagination-rich discussions during pretend play.
• Conversations where educators introduce new words to children in a natural way (teaching and modelling vocabulary). This enables them to expand their vocabulary.
• Promoting talk about learning: educators use talk to help children plan, monitor and reflect on their thinking and learning.
• Sustained shared thinking (SST): an approach described in the REPEY
  Project, which found that episodes of SST were a common characteristic of practice in high-quality early years settings. The REPEY report defines SST as:
  • ‘An episode in which two or more individuals “work together” in an intellectual way to solve a problem, clarify a concept, evaluate activities, extend a narrative etc. Both parties must contribute to the thinking and it must develop and extend.’

You can find out more about these approaches for children aged three to five years old in our Preparing for Literacy Guidance Report.

‘Scaffolding’ is one of the most important interactions that promotes learning. It can only happen during an episode of shared attention, once you have positioned yourself at the child's level and are paying close attention to what they are focusing on.

Imagine a child is struggling with a jigsaw. They just can’t get one of the pieces into the right place. You could show them how to put the piece in its place. Or you could leave them to keep trying, to struggle on alone. But there is also another way, beyond leaving them to go it alone or doing it for them: this third way is called ‘scaffolding’.

Like everything else on the pedagogical continuum, scaffolding is an approach to use thoughtfully, when it’s the right time

Scaffolding involves providing temporary support for a child during a task, to adjust the level of challenge. This can include educators helping with elements of the task that are too difficult for the child to accomplish on their own. That means the child can concentrate on what they can do and gradually complete a challenging task. Or, an educator may provide support which makes a simpler task more challenging for the child.

Successful scaffolding enables educators to provide a level of challenge for children that is ‘just right’. This is the ‘Goldilocks principle’: not too much and not too little. It depends on the following conditions:

• Shared attention between the child and educator
• The educator knowing the child well: what they can and can’t do, and how to help them if they get frustrated or switched off
• The child knowing what the end goal is, and how to be successful
• Positivity: warm and encouraging educators who help the child to believe ‘I can do this’

Managing the range of choices can be part of the scaffolding approach. When there are too many options or ways to do something, children can become overwhelmed. They might struggle to achieve an end goal. Educators can respond by limiting the range of options and providing feedback which helps children to focus on what they can do.

The aim of the STAIRS approach is to provide educators with a simple and memorable set of strategies to embed research evidence into everyday practice.

High-quality interactions are a guiding principle for work in the early years. These interactions are essential in:

• Encouraging children to take part in back-and-forth conversations (ShREC)
• Teaching children new vocabulary and using language that isn’t everyday talk, but goes ‘beyond the here and now’
• Extending children’s thinking (SST)
• Scaffolding children’s thinking and developing their independent learning (STAIRS)

It doesn’t matter which area of practice is the focus. Effective professional development for educators in the early years will always have quality interactions at its core.