Introduction

In the rapidly changing educational scene, it is easy to be blinkered by the pace of change and flood of documents, and to fail to heed earlier warnings and insights from research. The early education and care of young children has had a high profile in recent years with all political parties in the United Kingdom and in many other countries. This expansion in education and care for children under 5 years of age, and in out-of-hours care for children in schools, has in part been driven by a desire to encourage more mothers of young children to enter the workforce or train to do so. Many of those concerned with early education feel that balance and breadth in the curriculum in the early years in primary schools is being sacrificed in attempts to raise standards in literacy and numeracy and by the demand for primary schools in England and elementary schools in some other countries to be accountable and rank high in league tables. We can perhaps take comfort that some curricular guidelines and other documents have aimed at improving the quality and breadth of education and care for children from an early age.