The tortoise or the hare: the shaping of early years policy since 1900

The mechanical teaching in many infant schools seems to dull, rather than awaken, the little power of imagination and independent observation which these infants possess.

(Board of Education, 1905)

Introduction

This chapter provides historical background to the evolution of early childhood education, specifically but not exclusively, how nursery schools developed in England and how the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum came into existence. It briefly discusses the unique role of the Early Years Professional, renamed the Early Years Teacher from September 2013, a relatively new graduate status and a role that continues to undergo significant change as a result of the establishment of the coalition government. The chapter considers the origin of the Early Years Professional and how it is intrinsically linked to the evolution of early childhood education and care in England over the past one hundred years.

The education explosion of the 1900s

In the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, England moved steadily towards the creation of a systematic state education structure (Anning, 1991). It was a movement away from, though not entirely, the religious structures of learning, towards a health-focused system that offered a safe environment as well as a place of learning for the country's youngest children. Not so far detached from the present day, the 'instruction' that children received was at the heart of the new education landscape where children, who for so many centuries had been seen as nothing more than a wage-earning commodity for their parents, were now seen as a tax-paying commodity of their country. They were regarded as vessels to be filled with skills and knowledge, which in turn would transform England's prosperity and pay for the next generation. A generation who sought to

implant in their minds the principles of Religion and Morality, revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and as inculcated agreeably to the tenets of the Church of England; ultimately placing them in situations, either at sea, or on shore, as far as may be practicable, where those principles shall not be endangered, and the prospect of an honest livelihood secured.

(see Figure 1.1, from Constitution of the Asylum, 1836)

Even now in the twenty-first century, the debate over where is the best place for a young child to be educated is still raging. Over 100 years ago, that same discussion was being had in the corridors of power. Part 2 of the Acland Report (1908) states ver