10 COMMON PRINCIPLES OF EARLY YEARS EDUCATION

1. The best way to prepare children for their adult life is to give
them what they need as children
2. Children are whole people who have feelings, ideas and
relationships with others, and who need to be physically,
mentally, morally and spiritually healthy.
3. Subjects such as mathematics and art cannot be separated;
young children learn in an integrated way and not in neat,
tidy compartments.
4. Children learn best when they are given appropriate
responsibility, allowed to make errors, decisions and choices,
and respected as autonomous learners.
5. Self-discipline is emphasised. Indeed, this is the only kind of
discipline worth having. Reward systems are very short-term
and do not work in the long-term. Children need their efforts
to be valued.
6. There are times when children are especially able to learn
particular things.
7. What children can do (rather that what they cannot do) is the
starting point of a child’s education.
8. Imagination, creativity and all kinds of symbolic behaviour
(reading, writing, drawing, dancing, music, mathematical
numbers, algebra, role play and talking) develop and emerge
when conditions are favourable.
9. Relationships with other people (both adults and children) are
of central importance in a child’s life.
10. Quality education is about three things: the child, the context
in which learning takes place, and the knowledge and
understanding which the child develops and learns.

Tina Bruce
http://www.nicurriculum.org.uk/docs/foundation_stage/learning_through_play_ey.pdf