The Way Forward

* How can we ensure that all young children have access to a high quality education?

* What does an appropriate curriculum for children between birth and age 6 look like in practice?

* How best can nursery nurses, playgroup leaders, teachers and childminders work with parents to enhance children's education?

This sympathetic and accessible text seeks to answer these questions and to provide guidance for adults working with young children in a variety of formal and informal settings. The book focuses on improving the effectiveness of early education. The authors emphasise that children from birth to age six have particular developmental needs and argue that those working with young children are most likely to meet these needs if they approach their work developmentally. This means offering children educational opportunities within the framework of an integrated and developmentally appropriate curriculum. In this way, young children will acquire social skills, attitudes and dispositions, as well as subject knowledge, in ways which more closely match their individual capabilities and levels of attainment.

The book will be valuable reading for all concerned with the care and education of young children - parents, teachers, nursery nurses, childminders and playgroup leaders.

Vicky Hurst has been a nursery teacher and a lecturer in early childhood education. She is the founder and chair of the Early Years Curriculum Group and recently co-ordinated the Quality in Diversity Project to establish a common framework for early learning for all practitioners working with children from birth to 8 in the voluntary, independent and maintained sectors.

Jenefer Joseph has been a reception teacher and a nursery school head teacher. She was Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education at the University of Hertfordshire, where she devised and taught the Advanced Diploma in Early Childhood Education. She has taught in South Africa, India, USA, Malaysia and Cameroon, and is currently an Early Years Consultant.