Evaluation of the Early Years Foundation Phase in Wales

Author(s):

Chris Taylor(presenting / submitting)Miran Rhys Sam Waldron Rhys Davies Sally Power

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

11. Educational Improvement and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper (Copy for Joint Session)

Session Information

11 SES 12 JS, Systemic Approaches in Educational Monitoring

Paper Session Joint Session with NW 09 and NW 11

Time:

2014-09-05

09:00-10:30

Room:

B012 Anfiteatro

Chair:

Samuel Gento

Contribution

In recent years there has been growing recognition for the importance of the first few years of a child’s life in helping to determine and shape their future educational achievements and life chances. Subsequently, many counties across Europe and the rest of the World have developed new and innovative curriculum for early years education. Despite this, there are few studies to fully evaluate the impact of these reforms on educational outcomes. Typically this is difficult to achieve because most early years education reforms are introduced nationally and are rarely piloted or implemented in stages.

Following political devolution in 1999 the Welsh Government was given powers to decide how its education system could differ from the education systems of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Very early on in this political process early years education was seen as a key instrument of reform to achieve its overarching ambition of becoming a ‘Learning Country’(NAfW 2001), with the dual aim of raising standards and mitigating the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on educational achievement.

The Foundation Phase was, therefore, introduced by the Welsh Government as its flagship policy for early years education (for 3 to 7-year-old children) (Welsh Assembly Government 2008). Marking a radical departure from the more formal, competency-based approach associated with the previous Key Stage 1 National Curriculum, it advocates a developmental, experiential, play-based approach to teaching and learning. Drawing on evidence from good early years programmes in Scandinavia, Reggio Emilia and New Zealand (Te Whãriki) that indicate the adoption of an overly formal curriculum and extensive formal teaching before the age of six or seven can result in lower standards of attainment in the longer term, it promotes an experiential, play-based approach to learning for children aged three to seven. It emphasises the centrality of the child and the significance of children’s wellbeing and advocates a balance of child-initiated and practitioner-directed (or practitioner-initiated) activities within stimulating indoor and outdoor environments (Maynard et al 2013).

The official aims for the Foundation Phase were to raise children’s standards of achievement, enhance their positive attitudes to learning, address their developing needs, enable them to benefit from educational opportunities later in their lives, and help them become active citizens within their communities.

The Foundation Phase was introduced to primary (elementary or kindergarten) schools in three stages. First, to 22 ‘pilot’ schools in 2004/05. Second, in 2007/08, the Foundation Phase was implemented in a further 22 schools, referred to as Early Start schools – chosen because they served relatively disadvantaged communities and pupils. Finally, in 2008/09, the Foundation Phase was rolled-out to all remaining primary schools in Wales, with children born in 2004/05 being the first cohort to be in receipt of the Foundation Phase. These schools are referred to as the Final Roll-out schools. In addition to the phased roll-out to different schools, each school introduced the Foundation Phase to one cohort at a time, starting with children in nursery and/or reception classes (i.e. children aged 3 to 4 years).

The ‘staged’ implementation of the Foundation Phase has meant that the outcomes of children who followed the new curriculum could be compared with children following the previous Key Stage 1 National Curriculum. Thus providing the opportunity to undertake a detailed evaluation of the impacts of the new early years reform.

Method

Using a stepped wedge design (Brown and Lilford 2006; Hussey and Hughes 2007) for this evaluation we have used national administrative data (known as the National Pupil Database - NPD) to examine what impact, if any, the new Foundation Phase curriculum has had on a number of measured outcomes. Four outcomes were selected to reflect the key features of the Foundation Phase: i. Attendance in school ii. Unauthorised absence iii. National teacher assessments at end of Year 2 (children aged seven years) iv. National teacher assessments at end of Year 6 (children aged eleven years) Because of the way the Foundation Phase has been introduced in schools, there are two main ways in which analysis of the NPD can be undertaken. First, it provides the opportunity to compare outcomes before and after the introduction of the Foundation Phase by comparing outcomes for children in different cohorts. Although this provides fairly straightforward analysis, the main limitation of this approach is that we are not comparing children who followed the Foundation Phase with its predecessor, KS1, in the same academic year. However, the second approach to the analysis utilises the sequential roll-out of the Foundation Phase, outlined above, to allow us to compare outcomes for children who followed the Foundation Phase with outcomes for children who followed KS1, from the same academic year. For more details about the stepped wedge design of this approach see Taylor et al (2012). We then examine any differences in the relative characteristics of pupils within the three different sets of schools, based on their stage of implementing the Foundation Phase. The available data includes information on age, gender, ethnicity, Free School Meal (FSM) entitlement and whether or not they have any Special Educational Needs (SEN). It is important that any differences in the characteristics of pupils within these schools are subsequently taken into account when examining available outcome data. To further reduce the influence of any selection bias in the staged roll-out of the Foundation Phase, we also attempt to combine the two analytical approaches above. So not only are we interested in comparing outcomes of children in different schools in the same academic year, we also examine how outcomes of children from different cohorts but in the same schools change before and after the introduction of the Foundation Phase.

Expected Outcomes

The paper presents findings relating to a number of key outcomes; including (a) rates and nature of absenteeism, (b) teachers assessments made at Year 2 (i.e. at the end of the Foundation Phase) and (c) teachers assessments made at the end of primary school. At the outset, it is important to stress the limitations of the analysis. Firstly, the impact of the Foundation Phase is to lead to changes in a broad range of outcomes that cannot be captured by narrowly defined ‘bottom line’ outcome measures that are collected via teacher assessments. Secondly, whilst the analysis aimed to take advantage of the sequential roll-out of the Foundation Phase so that ‘like with like’ comparisons can be made, the content and structure of the analysis has ultimately been determined by the availability of data. With these caveats in mind, several key findings emerge. First the analysis reveals that the introduction of the Foundation Phase is not associated with any reduction in inequalities of achievement between particular sub-groups, such as those by gender, ethnicity and socio-economic background. The persistence of inequalities is observed in terms of both absenteeism and attainment. Second, the available evidence does not suggest that the introduction of the Foundation Phase has been associated with any significant improvement in pupil attendance. Third, comparisons between teacher assessments at the end of Year 2 were not reliable since the assessments for the Foundation Phase and its predecessor the Key Stage 1 National Curriculum were not the same. But fourthly, we do find evidence that the relative performance of early cohorts of Foundation Phase pupils who attended the first ‘pilot’ schools do seem to make greater significant progress by the time they reach the end of primary school (when aged 11 years) than equivalent children who did not follow the Foundation Phase.

References

Brown, C.A. and Lilford, R.J. (2006) The stepped wedge trial design: a systematic review, BMC Medical Research Methodology, 6, 54. Hussey, M.A. and Hughes, J.P. (2007) Design and analysis of stepped wedge cluster randomised trials, Contemporary Clinical Trials, 28, 2, 182-191. Maynard, T., Taylor, C., Waldron, S., Rhys, M., Smith, R., Power, S. and Clement, J. (2013) Evaluating the Foundation Phase: Policy Logic Model and Programme Theory, Social Research no. 37/2012, Cardiff: Welsh Government. NAfW (2001) The Learning Country, Cardiff: National Assembly for Wales. Taylor, C. et al. (2013) Evaluating the Foundation Phase: Annual Report 2011-12, Social Research no. 43/2012, Cardiff: Welsh Government. Welsh Assembly Government (2008) Foundation Phase Framework for Children’s Learning for 3 to 7-year-olds in Wales, Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government.