Children's opportunities for outdoor play have declined (Nash, D. 2018. "The Construction of the Decline of Children's Outdoor Play as a Social Problem in the UK." Canterbury: Canterbury Christ Church University) whilst opportunities for online play are increasing (Berrett, B., J. Murphy, and J. Sullivan. 2012. "Administrator…

This article arose from teaching Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) Students both undergraduate and postgraduate, and working alongside EYTS Mentors who viewed the roles through varied lenses. The impact of student feedback, their experience and observations on practice prompted this review of EYTS, their professional status and professional…

Over 1.5 billion children from around the world were affected by school or university closures during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and distance learning was introduced for many pupils. The article presents the results of a survey conducted among Polish teachers of early education (N = 239), which aimed at answering an important…

This study explored which restrictive and/or punitive behaviour management practices are most frequently used by Greek early childhood educators in an attempt to control children's inappropriate behaviours and the personal or professional characteristics that could affect Greek educators' use of such practices. The sample consisted of 105 early…

Songs seem popular for achieving educational purposes other than teaching music in early education, despite scant evidence to support this 'folk pedagogy'. To investigate why teachers use songs, this mixed-methods study explored teachers' self-reported purposes for using songs in an online questionnaire (n = 103) and semi-structured interviews (n…

The transition to school is a critical period for children and families. Successful transition predicts later school achievement and socio-emotional outcomes with sustained long-term benefits. Educational disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meant that support for the transition of children from nursery to school was limited. The study…

This study investigates financial literacy among early childhood teachers in the US. A survey was used to measure the financial literacy among early childhood teachers in New Jersey, USA (N = 152). Financial literacy was found to be low among early childhood teachers (52% correct score) and only marginally higher than high school students.…

Recent workforce reform in England has sought to increase opportunities for practitioners who work outside the maintained (school) sector to gain graduate status. Whilst these opportunities have generally been welcomed within the sector, this has created dichotomous tensions for the ECEC workforce. The traditional construction of the ECEC…

This study examined Turkish early childhood teachers' playfulness and their support of playfulness in classrooms. An explanatory mixed method design was utilised with a convenience sample of 485 teachers in the quantitative portion and 20 teachers in the qualitative portion. The quantitative data was collected through the Adult Playfulness Trait…

The experience of transition into school has been shown to correlate with later school outcomes, with a successful experience resulting in later positive academic and social outcomes. Children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) face more challenging transitions. Teacher attitudes and expectations of children with SEN play a key role in…

In this paper, we report the first findings of a study that sheds light upon the way early childhood education schools in Greece responded to the COVID-19 lockdown conditions. Specifically, we explore through content analysis and semi-structured interviews: (a) the way 16 early childhood education schools in Athens (8 public and 8 private) first…

This study explored the gaps between new kindergarten curriculum and engagement of personnel in real settings of Myanmar. We applied qualitative multi-level analysis through semi-structured interviews with 41 participants (curriculum team members, regional/township administrative staffs, school principals, in-service kindergarten teachers,…

This article reports on a research project which investigated early years practitioners' perspectives of best practice and effective provision in relation to the Understanding the World area of learning of the Early Years Foundation Stage. This area of learning focuses on 'People and Communities', 'The World', and 'Technology'. A mixed-methods…

The COVID-19 crisis highlights how vital childcare is and demonstrates the importance of the often undervalued work of early childhood educators. This mixed methods exploratory study presents how early childhood professionals (n = 75) navigated alternate remote teaching formats and served young children and their families during the COVID-19…

The purpose of this study is to compare the beliefs about ethics and ethical practices among early childhood teachers in India and the USA. Ninety-one teachers completed the Teacher's Beliefs about Ethics and Ethical Practices Survey (India = 52, US = 39). The survey comprised of 15 Likert-type statements in four areas: Ethical responsibilities to…