The Stories We Share: Using Narrative Assessment to Build Communities of Literacy Participants in early Childhood Centres

2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Hatherly
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Literacy Learning ◽  
Assessment For Learning ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Learning And Teaching ◽  
Narrative Assessment ◽  
Literacy Learners ◽  
Te Whāriki

As the documented assessment of children becomes a taken-for-granted function of ‘what teachers do’, concerns are rightly raised about the time involved and the usefulness of this to enhance learning and teaching. This article draws on data collected as part of the development of Kei Tua o te Pae, Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars (Ministry of Education, 2004), a New Zealand resource designed to engage teachers in reflection about assessment practices within the framework of Te Whāriki. It tells the story—the author's story—of the ways in which documented assessment using techniques more associated with storytelling than with observation, invites participation of children, families and teachers and thereby becomes the means through which a community of literacy-learners and participants is developed. It is argued that, given the increasing pressure on centres to provide for literacy, documented assessments offer many possibilities for not just describing but also constructing literacy learning in meaningful contexts.

scholarly journals Early childhood care and education in the cultural context of aotearoa (New Zealand)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Cultural Constructs ◽  
Narrative Assessment ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Care ◽  
Childhood Care ◽  
Te Whāriki

© 2018 Taylor and Francis. Early childhood care and education in Aotearoa (New Zealand) has been celebrated through the international interest in the innovative sociocultural curriculum, Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996). This document is now 20 years old, and is at the time of writing being updated by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. 1 In this chapter, a brief overview of the historical and cultural contexts of early childhood care and education leads into a discussion of some key cultural constructs and values that are recognised in Te Whāriki; in particular, those of the Indigenous people, the Māori. Discussion of the narrative assessment models that were developed to support the implementation of Te Whāriki is followed by an outline of implications for teacher education. The chapter ends with some reflections on aspirations for the future of early childhood care and education in Aotearoa.

scholarly journals Early childhood assessment in Aotearoa New Zealand: Critical perspectives and fresh openings

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Arndt ◽  
Marek Tesar
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Narrative Assessment ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Learning Stories ◽  
Curriculum Framework ◽  
Te Whāriki

Abstract This paper engages with assessment practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. Te Whāriki, the internationally recognized early childhood curriculum framework, lies at the root of contemporary narrative assessment practices, and the concept of learning stories. We outline historical and societal underpinnings of these practices, and elevate the essence of assessment through learning stories and their particular ontological and epistemological aims and purposes. The paper emphasizes early childhood teaching and learning as a complex relational, inter-subjective, material, moral and political practice. It adopts a critical lens and begins from the premise that early childhood teachers are in the best position to make decisions about teaching and learning in their localized, contextualized settings, with and for the children with whom they share it. We examine the notion of effectiveness and ‘what works’ in assessment, with an emphasis on the importance of allowing for uncertainty, and for the invisible elements in children’s learning. Te Whāriki and learning stories are positioned as strong underpinnings of culturally and morally open, rich and complex assessment, to be constantly renegotiated within each local context, in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond.

scholarly journals Assessment in New Zealand Early Childhood Education:  A Foucauldian Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Emma Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Assessment For Learning ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Narrative Assessment ◽  
Regulatory Effects ◽  
The Government ◽  
Foucauldian Analysis

<p>This thesis aims to problematise and denaturalise the current dominant, empowerment infused early childhood education (ece) assessment discourse in Aoteaora New Zealand through a Foucauldian discourse analysis. It addresses a two-part question: How is contemporary ece assessment constructed in New Zealand, and, what is effected by this construction? Texts about contemporary ece assessment in New Zealand written by local ece scholars and practitioners as well as narrative assessment examples drawn from the Ministry of Education (2004) Kei Tua o te Pae, Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars resource provide data for the analysis. The analysis is conducted in procedurally specified as well as open, associative, and playful modes. Contemporary ece assessment in New Zealand is found to be constructed as a new, post-developmental, morally desirable and secular salvation practice that is underpinned by principles of social justice, plurality and diversity. However, a consideration of key discursive truth-objects and their mobilisation within narrative assessments suggests that ece assessment may be implementing a boundless and normalising regime for the government of selves and others, and producing significant regulatory effects for children, teachers and whānau/ family. It is argued that ece assessment, as a technology of government, works to construct self responsible, self optimising, and permanently performing child-subjects. Such norms for self government map closely onto those that are promoted within neoliberal governmentalities. Ece assessment can therefore, at least in part, be understood as both a technique and effect of neoliberal rationalities of government. The ongoing status and dominant construction of ece assessment as an empowering, socially just practice is seen to be problematic. It stifles debate about early childhood spaces, and it is implicated in the constraint of multiple possibilities for the government of selves and others.</p>

scholarly journals Early childhood care and education in the cultural context of Aotearoa (New Zealand)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Cultural Constructs ◽  
Narrative Assessment ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Care ◽  
Childhood Care ◽  
Te Whāriki

© 2018 Taylor and Francis. Early childhood care and education in Aotearoa (New Zealand) has been celebrated through the international interest in the innovative sociocultural curriculum, Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996). This document is now 20 years old, and is at the time of writing being updated by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. 1 In this chapter, a brief overview of the historical and cultural contexts of early childhood care and education leads into a discussion of some key cultural constructs and values that are recognised in Te Whāriki; in particular, those of the Indigenous people, the Māori. Discussion of the narrative assessment models that were developed to support the implementation of Te Whāriki is followed by an outline of implications for teacher education. The chapter ends with some reflections on aspirations for the future of early childhood care and education in Aotearoa.

scholarly journals Early childhood care and education in the cultural context of aotearoa (New Zealand)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Ritchie
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Cultural Constructs ◽  
Narrative Assessment ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Care ◽  
Childhood Care ◽  
Te Whāriki

© 2018 Taylor and Francis. Early childhood care and education in Aotearoa (New Zealand) has been celebrated through the international interest in the innovative sociocultural curriculum, Te Whāriki: He whāriki mātauranga mō ngā mokopuna o Aotearoa (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996). This document is now 20 years old, and is at the time of writing being updated by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. 1 In this chapter, a brief overview of the historical and cultural contexts of early childhood care and education leads into a discussion of some key cultural constructs and values that are recognised in Te Whāriki; in particular, those of the Indigenous people, the Māori. Discussion of the narrative assessment models that were developed to support the implementation of Te Whāriki is followed by an outline of implications for teacher education. The chapter ends with some reflections on aspirations for the future of early childhood care and education in Aotearoa.

scholarly journals Assessment in New Zealand Early Childhood Education:  A Foucauldian Analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Emma Buchanan
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Assessment For Learning ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Narrative Assessment ◽  
Regulatory Effects ◽  
The Government ◽  
Foucauldian Analysis

<p>This thesis aims to problematise and denaturalise the current dominant, empowerment infused early childhood education (ece) assessment discourse in Aoteaora New Zealand through a Foucauldian discourse analysis. It addresses a two-part question: How is contemporary ece assessment constructed in New Zealand, and, what is effected by this construction? Texts about contemporary ece assessment in New Zealand written by local ece scholars and practitioners as well as narrative assessment examples drawn from the Ministry of Education (2004) Kei Tua o te Pae, Assessment for Learning: Early Childhood Exemplars resource provide data for the analysis. The analysis is conducted in procedurally specified as well as open, associative, and playful modes. Contemporary ece assessment in New Zealand is found to be constructed as a new, post-developmental, morally desirable and secular salvation practice that is underpinned by principles of social justice, plurality and diversity. However, a consideration of key discursive truth-objects and their mobilisation within narrative assessments suggests that ece assessment may be implementing a boundless and normalising regime for the government of selves and others, and producing significant regulatory effects for children, teachers and whānau/ family. It is argued that ece assessment, as a technology of government, works to construct self responsible, self optimising, and permanently performing child-subjects. Such norms for self government map closely onto those that are promoted within neoliberal governmentalities. Ece assessment can therefore, at least in part, be understood as both a technique and effect of neoliberal rationalities of government. The ongoing status and dominant construction of ece assessment as an empowering, socially just practice is seen to be problematic. It stifles debate about early childhood spaces, and it is implicated in the constraint of multiple possibilities for the government of selves and others.</p>

scholarly journals New Zealand early childhood curriculum: The politics of collaboration

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-70
Author(s):  
Sandy Farquhar
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Community Collaboration ◽  
Early Childhood Curriculum ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Collaborative Development ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Official Curriculum ◽  
And Control ◽  
Te Whāriki

Abstract The New Zealand early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education [MoE],1996), is frequently hailed as a community inspired curriculum, praised nationally and internationally for its collaborative development, emancipatory spirit and bicultural approach. In its best form community can be collaborative, consultative, democratic, responsive and inclusive. But community and collaboration can also be about exclusion, alienation and loss. This paper engages with Te Whāriki as a contestable political document. It explores this much acclaimed early childhood curriculum within a politics of community, collaboration and control. Driving the direction of the paper is a call for a revitalised understanding of curriculum as practices of freedom, raising issues of how to work with difference and complexity in a democratic and ethical manner. The paper concludes that although official curriculum is unavoidably about control, there is a world of difference in the ways such control might be exercised. The real curriculum exists where teachers are working with children - it is in the everyday micro-practices that impacts are felt and freedoms played out.

Children’s ‘working theories’ as curriculum outcomes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Peters ◽  
Keryn Davis ◽  
Ruta McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
Early Childhood Curriculum ◽  
Complex Thinking ◽  
Young Learners ◽  
Early Childhood Settings ◽  
Te Whāriki ◽  
Sense Of Wonder

This chapter explores how children make sense of their world through the development and refinement of ‘working theories’. Working theories are a key item for young learners, and are emphasized in the New Zealand early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki. Children’s working theories develop in environments where they have opportunities to engage in complex thinking with others, observe, listen, participate, and discuss, within the context of topics and activities. It is through interactions and activities that children begin to own the ideas and beliefs of their culture and begin to make sense of their worlds. However, fostering this learning in early childhood settings is not always easy, and requires skilled adults who can respond appropriately. We explore and discuss the nature of children’s working theories and ways in which adult–child interactions can enhance or inhibit a sense of wonder and curiosity.

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