Early Years International Conference and AGM 2008

Friday 13th June 2008

Key Notes

'Powerful little learners: growing characters fit for the times'

Speaker: Professor Guy Claxton

Early year's education is about laying the foundations of character. So we have to think carefully about what kinds of characters we want children to grow up to be. The answers to these questions are neither timeless nor obvious. We have to look at the real world, and identify the capacities that are needed to flourish in that kind of world. I argue that the key traits are curiosity, courage, attentiveness, tinkering, imagination, reason, conviviality and self-awareness. In this talk I will explain what there capacities involve, why they are so important, and how their foundations are to be laid.

Guy Claxton is one of the UK's leading experts on practical ways of developing young people's learning and creative capacities. He is the author of over 20 books on learning and the mind, including Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less (1997), Wise Up: The Challenge of Lifelong Learning (1999), The Wayward Mind (2005) and The Creative Thinking Plan (with Bill Lucas, 2007). He holds degrees from Cambridge and Oxford, and is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and an Academician of the UK Academy of Social Sciences. Guy Claxton's work impacts on education policy and practice at local, national and international levels. He is currently Assistant Director for Learning at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust. Internationally, Guy has been a member of the OECD High Level Forum on Education and the Brain, and has recently spoken at conferences in Spain, Sweden, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the US. His highly successful Building Learning Power approach has been developed through four years' action research with 200 teachers in Cardiff, a year with 70 early years practitioners in Oxfordshire, and student-led learning-to-learn networks in South Devon. Guy Claxton is Professor of the Learning Sciences at the University of Bristol Graduate School of Education. He lives in Sussex.

Designing Highly Effective Pre-school Programmes

Speaker: Dr Larry Schweinhart

Continuing enthusiasm for publicly funded preschool programs comes from evidence that early childhood experience influences the development of brain architecture and that some preschool programs have beneficial long-term effects and solid return on investment. However, most recent studies of preschool programs find only modest short-term effects on children's literacy and social skills and parents' behaviour, making long-term effects questionable. Five ingredients of the programs found to be highly effective stand out as definitive and serve as rules for how to design such programs: (1) serve children living in low-income families; (2) have enough qualified teachers and provide them with ongoing support; (3) use a validated. interactive child development curriculum; (4) spend substantial time with parents; and (5) confirm program implementation and effects on children's development.

Larry Schweinhart is an early childhood program researcher and speaker throughout the United States and in other countries. He has conducted research at the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michigan, since 1975 and served as its president since 2003. He has directed the High/Scope Perry Preschool Study through age 40, the Michigan School Readiness Program Evaluation, High/Scope's Head Start Quality Research Centre, and the development and validation of the High/Scope Child Observation Record. Dr. Schweinhart received his Ph.D. in Education from Indiana University in 1975. He and his wife have two children and three grandchildren.