Freshers' week

Brain training in the nursery

The government wants top graduates to go into early years teaching. They could find it suits them perfectly
Laura House, a graduate participating in the Teach First programme
Laura House, a graduate participating in the Teach First programme at St Mary Magdalen primary school, London. Photograph: Teri Pengilley

There is a commonly held myth that working with little children is not a job for the brainy. It is thought to suit people who like children but aren't academic.

Yet an ever-growing stack of research shows the importance of children's earliest educational experiences to their chances in life. Overwhelmingly, the best pre-schools have better qualified staff.

One government response to this evidence has been to announce plans for a pilot "Teach First" type of scheme to place top graduates in early years settings in disadvantaged areas. No details are available yet. It sounds like a good idea, but why would someone with a double first from Oxford want to work with under-fives? What makes early childhood education an intellectual pursuit?

"It's the most compelling job in the world," says Iram Siraj-Blatchford, professor of early childhood education at the University of London's Institute of Education. "Within 15 or 20 minutes you are challenged in every way possible, by the children, the circumstances and the families - in the most delightful way."

High-level skills

An early years teacher needs the highest level of communication skills, a wide spectrum of knowledge and a passion for social justice, "to care about the kids who have no one to bat on their behalf".

When it comes to job satisfaction for a graduate, nothing beats working in early years, says Siraj-Blatchford. "It takes all your intellectual resources to bring a shy child out of themselves. Winning a lawsuit might be a thrill, but it doesn't last." An early years practitioner can help transform children's lives, and watch them change and develop week by week.

For the academic-minded, early childhood education is built on a venerable foundation of theory and research from the likes of Lev Vygotsky, the Russian developmental psychologist of the early 20th century, and Jean Piaget, who came later. "We have all the brain studies, all the theorists," says Bernadette Duffy, head of the flagship Thomas Coram Early Childhood Centre in Camden. Modern neuroscience is showing how, at the age when children's brains are developing so rapidly, there is the greatest potential for teachers to help shape that development.

Such findings support the insights of Vygotsky and Piaget, who both highlighted the relationship between teacher and child in the learning process. "It is through others that we become ourselves," said Vygotsky. He described the way an adult can support a child on to the next step: "What a child can do in co-operation today, he can do alone tomorrow." Piaget rejected the idea of fixed intelligence. Instead, he argued, it was actively created by the individual's interaction with the environment.

The Reggio Emilia approach to early education, developed in Italy, sees children as strong and powerful, not as empty vessels. They have the need and the right to interact and communicate with each other and with caring, respectful adults.

Early years teachers have the opportunity to do mini-research projects, says Duffy. And the breadth of knowledge of a Mastermind contestant can be applied while encouraging children to co-operate, think for themselves and articulate their ideas.

"For instance, one of the children thought the tree moving made the wind blow, so that led to a scientific discussion. Then another child said, why does the wind blow on the beach where there aren't any trees?" says Duffy.

Laura Graham-Matheson, a PGCE student at the Institute of Education, with a BA from the School of Oriental and African Studies and a master's in art history, wants to teach reception. "I think small children are fascinating. They know so much already and they're little sponges," she says.

The job is "about really understanding what they need in order to learn, and how you can encourage them to do so in a situation where they can pick and choose what they want to do." She adds, "I'm really interested in creativity - not just the arts. Through creativity they can tackle the unknown."

Currently, Teach First is a secondary programme, but it has a primary pilot. Laura House, who graduated from Cambridge last year with a double-star first, is teaching infants at St Mary Magdalen, the all-through academy in Islington. She, too, finds working with young children intellectually engaging and creative.

"So much of the teaching is about reflection and improving on your practice," she says. It demands good multi-tasking skills, and the need to be inventive is "so fun".

Many a high-powered career has been built on a foundation of early childhood education. Pat Jefferson, recently retired director of children's services in Lancashire, spent much of her career in the sector. Jefferson says she began teaching top juniors in a very disadvantaged area on Tyneside, and "I wondered why it had become so difficult for children to access the learning available to them. I went to work in the early years so I could understand how children learn." Jefferson says she has applied what she learned there, both from the children and other practitioners, in every job she has had since.

Nearly all the experts agree that an early years Teach First can only be a boon. "Obviously we want to get the very best people working with the youngest children where it makes the most difference," says Duffy.

Emotional intelligence

A dissenting voice comes from Toxic Childhood author Sue Palmer, a campaigner against the early years foundation stage, which opponents fear is bringing the strictures of school to the under-fives. "Working in early years is not the same as teaching," she says. "It's more about facilitating children's development." Palmer praises the "emotional intelligence" of many childminders who "really understand how to be with kids". She fears that Cambridge graduates would bring a dry, systemising sort of intelligence and try to teach too methodically. "We are looking for intellectual solutions to something which is not an intellectual problem," she says.

Siraj-Blatchford says social justice demands that children from deprived backgrounds should have access to the brightest carers and educators. "It's not an accident that a mother's educational level is probably the highest predictor of a child's outcomes. Why shouldn't it be true of any primary carer?" she asks.

"There's a tendency to assume a kind of dualism, that you're either intellectual or caring," says Peter Moss, professor of early childhood provision at the Institute of Education. "That idea needs to be completely scotched."

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