Many governments have launched the top-down early childhood curriculum (ECC) reforms to enhance the accountability of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services. The present discourse analysis of latest ECC policies across four diverse but representative countries -- Australia, China, New Zealand, and Singapore -- aims to examine the…

One of the critical challenges that faces societies today is how to educate children and young people to cope with the ever demanding contexts in which they live. This education must include the relationships and support that facilitate socio-emotional development. This writing explores the work of Pestalozzi, a pioneering pedagogue, who, over two…

This article draws on current literature leading to the development of a holistic framework to support practitioners in observation and assessment of childrens evolving inquiry skills. Evidence from the 2011 Trends in International Maths and Science Study (TIMSS) in England identifies a decline of year five student achievement in science. A…

The purpose of our study was to compare the effectiveness of two song-teaching methods: holistic and phrase-by-phrase. Thirty-two first-grade children (n = 32) from two music classes in an urban elementary school were taught two folksongs. The first class (n = 16) was taught one song through the phrase-by-phrase method and another song through the…