Child Rearing & Development, Infants & Toddlers - Infants, Family & Child Health

Working with Babies and Children: From Birth to Three

Name: Working with Babies and Children: From Birth to Three
Author: Cathy Nutbrown
ISBN: 9781412946742

by Cathy Nutbrown, Jools Page

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Overview

This book is an essential companion for all who work with children under 3 years old. It makes current research accessible and provides practical support material for curriculum, learning, teaching, planning, and assessment. The authors focus on work in settings of all kinds to promote best practice and offer a high quality experience for the age range.

Synopsis

About the Author, Cathy Nutbrown

Cathy Nutbrown is Professor of Education and Director for Research at the School of Education, University of Sheffield. Her work has involved the role of artists in residence in early years settings; inclusion in the early years; children’s rights; curriculum development; early literacy work with parents; and the ethical issues of research involving young children. Cathy teaches on the Masters and Doctoral Programmes in Early Childhood Education. She began her career as a teacher of young children and has since worked in a range of settings and roles with children, parents, teachers and other early childhood educators.Cathy is committed to finding ways of working ‘with respect’ with young children, and sees the concept of quality in the context of what it means to develop curriculum and pedagogy in the early years with the ambition of working in a climate of ‘respectful education’. She is Editor in Chief of the Journal of Early Childhood Research and has authored several books with SAGE.

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Editorials

Peter Elfer

‘From the very first page, Cathy Nutbrown and Jools Page lay down the twin cornerstones of this fabulous book, the sheer brilliance of babies’ minds and the daunting challenges facing those who work with them professionally.

Babies do not get a good press. They may be photogenic but the phrase ‘left holding the baby’ reveals underlying attitudes! In early years work, the first months and years are often dismissed as the least professionally engaging or challenging. It would be easy to romantise this age phase. There is a much mess, mopping and repetition. However, the great contribution of this book is to tell a bigger story.

At the heart of much debate about the professional care of babies and young children is anxiety – is it harmful for such young children to be looked after outside the family? The book is reassuing on that score, revising attachment theory and updating its intepretation. Then there are the extraordinary insights into babies’ perceptual abilities, freshly woven into the story from disciplines beyond education - health, psychology and neuroscience.

This is a principled book, underpinned by a commitment to advocacy and respect for under threes. Yet it is practical too, rich in case vignettes and linked reflections. I hope it will come to be regarded as required reading by those with responsibility for children under three’ - Peter Elfer, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Studies, Roehampton University

Emeritus - Janet Moyles

‘This is a very well edited collection easily accessible to everyone involved in the early years, with the common thread being the holistic nature of very young children’s learning. Using the contents of the different chapters for reflection and analysis, those implementing the new Early Years Foundation Stage will be able to promote and enhance children’s development and learning experiences and certainly their own practices. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 1 in which the writer encourages readers to challenge their existing views about the Early Years Foundation Stage and to compare its contents and philosophies with other international curricula, and an equally strong and well-written Chapter 3 shows the writer’s excellent knowledge of baby and toddler social and inter-relational development. Both Chapters 11 and 12 meticulously outline the bases of, and rationale for, establishing relationships between practitioners and young children and their families. This book powerfully reminds readers of what is at the heart of their care and learning interactions with babies and young children.’ - Professor Emeritus Janet Moyles