www.thebabyroom.blog

To get to grips with the current landscape of quality for children under the age of two, we have conducted a desktop review as part of our project on advancing quality in the baby room. Interesting findings are emerging from the literature about how quality is understood, measured, and supported for babies. We’ve found that quality is often understood through the lens of a specific area of practice. Some studies dive deep into exploring and articulating quality in one specific area of practice, such as attachment theory, teacher education, or outdoor provision, and consider what quality means for that topic. Here are a few examples:

• Dolby et al. (2023) presents conceptualisations of quality driven by attachment theory. The article presents attachment as the basis for healthy development and learning, and suggests that professional development should first and foremost help teachers foster strong and healthy attachments with children.
• Some articles describe quality through the lens of workforce wellbeing. Henry, Hatfield, and Chandler (2023) push for workforce wellbeing to be valued as fundamental to quality in ECEC. Valuing workforce wellbeing includes reducing work-based stress and fostering supportive factors for educators. When the ECEC workforce is in distress, it leads to classrooms in distress, contributing to low quality environments for babies and educators alike. 
• Josephidou, Kemp, and Durrant (2021) and Kemp and Josephidou (2023) present outdoor provision as crucial for children under the age of two and suggest we need to develop a better understanding of what quality looks like in outdoor provision for the youngest children.

These studies, with their focus on quality in a specific area of practice, contribute a unique and bright contribution to the early years sector, broadening our thinking around what quality means for babies. With diverse lenses on quality, it becomes clear that quality is not a reference to a singular, static thing: it is dynamic and gathers in dozens of voices and ideas.

However, with so many ideas in the mix, our team is wondering how to consolidate these different views of quality into a wider vision. We want to know what quality looks and feels like in the baby room as a whole, not just in specific areas of practice in the baby room.

So, how do these parts come together? Can they come together? We’re excited to share more about the ideas feeding into the sector’s vision of quality through upcoming blogposts and our first report that discusses the desktop review findings.

Over to you!

• What other topics in ECEC provide a specific view of what quality looks like?
• How can specific views of quality contribute to an overarching, holistic vision of quality?

References

Dolby, R. et al. (2023) ‘Supporting educators’ emotional work with infants and their families around transitions at the start of the day’, Early years (London, England), 43(3), pp. 576–589. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2023.2235911.

Henry, A.J.L., Hatfield, B.E. and Chandler, K.D. (2023) ‘Toddler teacher job strain, resources, and classroom quality’, International journal of early years education, 31(4), pp. 844–858. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2021.1892596.

Josephidou, J., Kemp, N. and Durrant, I. (2021) ‘Outdoor provision for babies and toddlers: exploring the practice/policy/research nexus in English ECEC settings’, European early childhood education research journal, 29(6), pp. 925–941. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2021.1985555.

Kemp, N. and Josephidou, J. (2023) ‘Babies and toddlers outdoors: a narrative review of the literature on provision for under twos in ECEC settings’, Early years (London, England), 43(1), pp. 137–150. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2021.1915962.