Early Years

The Early Years Group (EYRG) currently has 16 members on the mailing list and a sub-set of this number who attend meetings/active in the group. The group includes Lecturers and research students (PhD and EdD), researchers and Early Years Practitioners. It is proposed that there will be both an internal and external mailing list for members. It is hoped that this mix of expertise will lend itself to a collegial and supportive environment. Researchers have varying expertise across methodological approaches, which will enrich the activities of the group. In the course of our research we will engage with some innovative methods to enable us to work respectfully and ethically with very young children. We also have links with other groups in areas such as humanistic perspectives.

We have many group members who are new to the field of research. Our aims for the first year reflect this:

1. Establish and run regular meetings.
2. Facilitate and support academic writing.
3. Seek external funding for research.
4. Begin to work collaboratively within and across groups on the initiation of potential projects.
5. Contribute to seminars, within and across research groups and within the School of Education.

Current Projects

• Partnership: perspectives on the research, parent, practitioner trichotomy in the Early Years.
• Child Language in Preschool Settings; Support and Development.
• Representation of Fatherhood in young children’s literature.
• Creative Writing for young children.
• Early writing readiness – tensions regarding EYFS/child development approaches/inclusion policies and neuro-diversity.
• Developmentally appropriate approaches to early writing intervention.
• Children’s literature in early reading experiences.
• Supporting parents in the home with reading for pleasure.
• Writing Transitions: from Doctoral Writing to Journal Publication.

Events

We are hosting a HSS Funded research event in January 2018 entitled: Partnership: perspectives on the research, parent, practitioner trichotomy in the Early Years. A forum for discussion centred on partnership with a view to designing a research project with Early Years settings at a later date. Professor Eva Lloyd from University of East London will give a Key Note presentation.

Networks

• Early Childhood Studies Degree Network
• British Education Research Association Early Childhood Special Interest Group
• The UK Literacy Association
• TACTYC
• EECERA
• Early Education
• Collaboration with Leibniz University, Hanover

Academic staff with related research interests