Carol Aubrey

Early Mathematics Development and Later Achievement: Further Evidence

There is a growing international recognition of the importance of the early years of schooling as well as an interest being shown in the relationship of early education to later achievement. This article focuses on a cohort of English pupils who have been tracked through primary school during the first five years of the new National Numeracy Strategy. It reports a limited longitudinal study of young children’s early mathematical development, initially within three testing cycles: at the mid-point and towards the end of their reception year (at five years-of-age) and again at the mid-point of Year 1 (at six years-ofage). These cycles were located within the broader context of progress through to the end of Key Stage 1 (at seven years) and Key Stage 2 (at eleven years) on the basis of national standardised assessment tests (SATs). Results showed that children who bring into school early mathematical knowledge do appear to be advantaged in terms of their mathematical progress through primary school. Numerical attainment increases in importance across the primary years and practical problem solving remains an important element of this. This finding is significant given the current emphasis on numerical calculation in the English curriculum. It is concluded that without active intervention, it is likely that children with little mathematical knowledge at the beginning of formal schooling will remain low achievers throughout their primary years and, probably, beyond.

How Do they Manage? A Review of the Research on Leadership in Early Childhood

This article presents the findings from a review of literature on leadership in early childhood (EC). It identifies a paucity of research, despite a high potential for leadership activity in the early childhood field. It concludes that there is a clear need to identify what effective leadership practice is in terms of processes and outcomes within this field. It also concludes that theoretically based studies that allow different models and characteristics to be empirically tested are long overdue. The serious lack of leadership training is also highlighted by the literature review, which means that many early childhood managers could be significantly under-prepared for their role.

An Investigation of the Mathematical Knowledge and Competencies which Young Children Bring into School

This paper describes an investigation of the mathematical knowledge, strategies and representations of one small reception class of 16 children. The data suggest that children bring into school a range of competencies which pose some challenge to the conventional reception class curriculum. Further examination of childrens strategies suggests that, as in language acquisition, a rule-governed approach is operating from the start. The necessity to provide for children to move gradually through different stages of mathematical representation, where they can learn the interrelationships among ideas and link these to their own informal knowledge and strategies, is considered in the context of the National Curriculum.

Children’s early numeracy in England, Finland and People’s Republic of China

This research investigated the similarities and differences between countries in young children’s early numeracy skills related to age, culture, and gender. The participants were five‐year‐old children from Beijing (People’s Republic of China), England, and Finland. The rationale for the cross‐cultural comparison originates from research results with older children showing that Asian children outperform children from America or Europe, and from the lack of such information concerning younger children. The results showed that in all locations older children performed better than the younger children. Cultural differences were found: young children from Beijing outperformed those from England and Finland in overall early numeracy performance, as well as in sub‐tests for understanding of quantities and relations (i.e. relational skills), and counting skills. Finnish children had better scores than English children in the whole early numeracy scale and in the relational scale. The results are discussed in relation to culture, instruction in preschools, and learning support at home, as well as the effects of language characteristics. The culture’s appreciation of and approach to mathematics learning in early childhood is a plausible explanation for the cross‐cultural differences found in this study.

The development of children's early numeracy through key stage 1

This paper describes a limited longitudinal study of young childrens early numeracy development within three testing cycles, at the mid-point and towards the end of their reception year (at five years-of-age) and again at the mid-point of Year 1 (at six years-of-age), located within the broader context of progress through to Key Stage 1 SAT results (at seven years). Assessment was carried out using the Utrecht Early Mathematical Competence Test (Van Luit et al., 1994). This comprised eight sub-topics, five items in each, including comparison, classification, correspondence, seriation, counting, calculation and real-life number problem solving. Broadly, one set of sub-tests related to understanding of relations in shape, size, quantity and order, whilst a second set of sub-tests related to basic arithmetic. Three hundred pupils were selected from twenty-one schools, large and small, from rural and urban areas, with high and low concentrations of children eligible for free school meals and/or with special ...

The Development of Early Numeracy in Europe

This article describes a limited longitudinal European study of young children’s early numeracy development within three testing cycles, onaverage, at the mid-point and towards the end of their fifth to sixth year and again at the mid-point of their sixth to seventh year. Assessment was carried out using the Utrecht Early Numeracy Test (ENT) (Van Luit, Van de Rijt and Pennings, 1994). The multilevel modelling method of analysis used for the study provided an extension of multiple regression to incorporate the hierarchical structure of the data collected, with boys and girls of different social-economic status, nested within different institutions within different countries. The results showed that the ENT was a useful tool for international comparison. The finding that differences between countrieswere negligible was surprising bearing in mind that the English pupils werein formal schooling throughout the testing cycle, the Belgian, German, Greek and Dutch children from the mid-point, and the Slovene children, not at all.

How Do They Manage? An Investigation of Early Childhood Leadership

Early childhood (EC) leadership literature indicates few theoretically based studies identifying and testing different models and characteristics of leadership. Objectives were thus to identify, describe and analyse what leadership meant to key EC participants; to consider roles, responsibilities and characteristics; to investigate core components; to capture practice and judge how it was understood and enacted. A case-study approach used 12 sites and multiple data-gathering methods: questionnaires; interviews; and in-depth ‘day in the life’ video vignettes. Participants described their organizations as hierarchical in structure and traditional in strategic decision-making, yet collaborative in culture and operational functioning. Variation in leadership, management and administration patterns across settings indicated multiple leadership roles in diverse EC settings. Principal components analysis revealed that those with postgraduate qualifications favoured ‘leaders as guides’; those with professional heritages other than teaching leaned towards ‘leaders as strategists’; those with NVQ qualifications tended towards ‘leaders as motivators’; those with postgraduate qualifications also valued ‘leaders as business oriented’. New models of leadership are thus worthy of consideration. Leaders acknowledged difficulty in standing back and reflecting, recognizing an essential aspect of leadership was ongoing thinking and decision-making, inaccessible unless they ‘talked-aloud’ whilst engaging in professional practice. This suggests a need to increase self-understanding and alternative routes to problem-solving.

The confidence and competence in information and communication technologies of practitioners, parents and young children in the Early Years Foundation Stage

A review of evidence on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the early years was commissioned by the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency. Views of practitioners, parents and children were obtained and practitioner ICT audits completed. Most young children grow up in media-rich digital environments in which they actively engage. Family members and practitioners are positive and actively promote use of ICT through ongoing socio-cultural practices. There appears to be a gap between children’s access to and use of ICT at home and in early years settings, and between state-maintained and non-maintained sectors. Training implications are marked. Cost of purchase, maintenance and replacement of age-appropriate digital technology remains a challenge and the development of active pedagogy to maximise benefits of technological advances must generate imaginative solutions.

An Investigation of Teachers’ Mathematical Subject Knowledge and the Processes of Instruction in Reception Classes

Abstract This paper forms the last in a series of four papers which has described the way mathematical knowledge is presented and the way it is understood by teachers and children in reception classes. The aim here is to explore the co‐ordination and utilisation of teacher and pupil knowledge in the complex world of reception classrooms by following four such classrooms across the school year. An in‐depth analysis of a sample of five lessons from each of the four teachers concerned is provided as well as an account of their own reported experiences of learning mathematics, and their planning, teaching and assessing of mathematics in childrens reception year, obtained from subsequent interview. Consideration of the mathematical knowledge, skills and competences of a sample of 10 children from each setting is also made. Both interviews and informal discussions which took place during the year suggested that teachers’ understanding of their pupils was an accumulated, contextualised knowledge derived from ex...

An investigation of children's knowledge of mathematics at school entry and the knowledge their teachers hold about teaching and learning mathematics, about young learners and mathematical subject knowledge

Abstract This paper describes an investigation of the mathematical competencies that 48 young children brought into school and their teachers’ reported planning and implementation of the mathematics curriculum for the reception year. Competence was shown in counting, recognition of numerals, representation of quantity, simple addition, subtraction and social sharing, appropriate language of measurement, position in space and on a line, and selecting criteria to sort objects. The reception teachers claimed to plan integrated topic work and stressed the importance of play, flexibility and choice, with opportunities provided for practical activities in areas where children had already demonstrated competence. The content and sequence of the curriculum was derived from infant mathematics schemes which provided a rational analysis of subject knowledge. Little account was reported to be taken by class teachers of the nature and direction of young childrens developing knowledge of mathematics gained in problem‐...