How ethical encounters with young children are embedded holistically throughout practice in the Inspiring Foundations (IF) Team of maintained nursery schools
by Sarah Dixon-Jones, Vikki Wynn and Becky Cozens
The team at Inspiring Foundations have developed their approach significantly in recent years, developing their own bespoke curriculum along with gaining confidence in articulating what makes their federation of nursery schools unique. Increasingly the team are receiving requests to share their practice and support others in progressing their own approaches further. This is leading to many discussions regarding research being undertaken by the team, if it is truly research and how best to capture what is happening. What is evident to the leadership team and those more widely involved with the setting is that ethical encounters are an essential part of not only the research but throughout practice at Inspiring Foundations. The researchers along with the leadership team wanted to explore what this means to the team and how it is integrated within practice and beyond.
The Federation is heavily influenced by Reggio Emilia and the notion of being co-researchers alongside the children and families. We are confident that ethical practice is fully integrated in the unique provision and bespoke curriculum yet during discussions with the wider team around research, this is not explicitly addressed. The leadership team have a strong desire to have all practitioners lead in their own learning just as the children do. To explore research fully, it is necessary for all within the setting to understand the underpinning ethical considerations, perhaps extending this further to develop their own code of ethics that reflect what is embedded in practice that align with the Early Education Code of Ethics (2011) and the EECERA Ethical Code (2024). This is possible through the ongoing participatory pedagogy within a praxeological paradigm (Lyndon et al, 2019) via ongoing reflection, documentation and pedagogical mediation. Continuous reflection supports ethical practice throughout the study with an awareness of the nature of participatory research and potential power imbalances within the setting. The team are able to opt in to be a part of the study at each point and contribute to the discussions.
In previous findings regarding the terminology used by the team to explore their pedagogical approach, there was a clear difference between that which is the dominant discourse relating to early years education, which is a more technician style of language (Moss, 2019, p.81) and that used by the team in the federation which was significantly more ‘emotional’ and ‘emancipatory’, similar to that of Reggio Emilia. However, initial findings when exploring ethics in general with the team demonstrate a preference to revert to the use of technician style language, compared to their use of language when speaking about their wider curriculum (as shown below in Figure 1).
Figure 1. Extractions of terminology used to describe ethics from data gathered during staff meetings (58 terms in total, numbers in brackets show the times the specific term was repeated).
Perhaps some of the responses in Figure 1 suggest the team revert back to this technician style of language due to uncertainties in their own confidence in relation to ethics in practice. The team want to build on their existing knowledge of ethical practice to ensure they can clearly articulate this within their approach and research. While we can clearly identify the aspects of ethical practice, being able to have discussions about them are not as commonplace. As recognised by Lyndon(2023), ‘ethics within the field of early childhood and care (ECEC) is all-encompassing; it is embedded within the very fabric of our profession’, therefore discussions regarding ethics should not happen only in conjunction with research.
During some initial interviews with members of the wider team, it was evident that once speaking about their practice in general, their ideas around ethics moved beyond that of only technician:
Ethics… ‘probably something that is in your everyday practice, isn’t it? But, I think, it’s trying to put it into words.’
‘Ethics. It’s just, I think, the way we believe and want to do it (practice) but in that consistent way of ethics. Like, there’s no point in having one way of thinking and doing it another way. I think it’s our belief, isn’t it. And in practice, it’s just obvious daily and you know, the culture of what you expect and what you would expect of others… and stuff like that.’
Throughout the data gathered so far, what is emerging is a pattern that ethics is integrated throughout everyday practice but is challenging to consistently articulate this. Continuing with discussions with the whole team and developing the federations own code of ethics will be a positive way forward to provide the team with language that effectively captures their consistently ethical encounters with young children.
Sarah Dixon-Jones – Executive Head Teacher at Inspiring Foundations – sarah.dixon-jones@schools.sunderland.gov.uk Instagram @Inspiring Foundations
Vikki Wynn – Senior Lecturer at the University of Sunderland – vikki.wynn@sunderland.ac.uk or via X @VikkiWynn1; Instagram @uospgceeyt
Becky Cozens – Lecturer at the University of Sunderland – rebecca.cozens@sunderland.ac.uk or via X @BeckyCozensECS; Instagram @uospgceeyt
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