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Highscope was developed by Dr David Weikart in America, in the early 1960's.
He discovered that children living in deprived neighbourhoods were achieving low scores as a lack of opportunity rather than low intelligence levels. Early intervention was seen as the best way to improve this. In 1962 the Perry Preschool Project was set up. Through debate the staff devised the basic framework of the Highscope curriculum, at its core was active learning & the belief that children learn through their own key experiences, gained from the world around them and their own discoveries. The project also felt that parents played a key role in their children's learning.
Dr. Weikart & his team continued to develop the Highscope approach & in 1970 the Highscope Educational Research Foundation was founded.
The five elements of Highscope learning are:
- The quality of adult – child interaction, there is a philosophy of shared control between adult & child.
- Highscope has both child-initiated time (plan-do-review) & adult-initiated (small group times) where support can be given to children.
- Practitioners are trained in the approach & are able to learn from the children through key experiences.
- A high level of parental engagement, through two-way information sharing & sharing of child observation records.
- A discipline/behaviour policy, which supports children in rationalising & talking through conflict. The use of encouragement & a problem solving approach to conflict between children is promoted.
Highscope links neatly with the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), a framework for children, from birth to the end of their reception year education.
Highscope practitioners will use the early learning goals within the EYFS alongside the key development indicators & observations & interests of the children, to inform their planning of activities for the children in their care.
Sense of Self:
- Expressing initiative
- Distinguishing 'me' from others
solving problems encountered in exploration & play.
- Doing things for themselves.
Social Relations:
- Forming attachment to a primary caregiver.
- Building relationships with other adults.
- Building relationships with peers.
- Expressing emotions.
- Showing empathy toward the feelings & needs of others.
- Developing social play.
Creative Representation:
- Imitating & pretending.
- Exploring building & art materials.
- Responding to & identifying pictures & photographs.
Movement:
- Moving parts of the body.
- Moving the whole body
- Moving with objects
- Feeling & expressing steady beat.
Music:
- Listening to music
- Responding to music
- Exploring & imitating sounds
- Exploring vocal pitch sounds
Communication & Language:
- Listening & responding
- Communicating nonverbally
- Participating in communication give & take
- Communicating verbally
- Exploring picture books & magazines
- Enjoying stories, rhymes & songs.
Exploring Objects:
- Exploring objects with the hands, feet, mouth, eyes, ears & nose.
- Discovering object permanence.
- Exploring & noticing how things are the same or different.
Early Quantity & Number:
- Experiencing 'more'
- Experiencing one-to-one correspondence
- Experiencing the number of things
Space:
- Exploring & noticing the location of things
- Observing people & things from various perspectives
- Filling && emptying, putting in & taking out.
- Taking things apart & fitting them together.
Time:
- Anticipating familiar events
- Noticing the beginning & ending of time intervals
- Experiencing 'fast' and 'slow'
- Repeating an action to make something happen again, experiencing cause & effect.
Approaches to Learning
- Making & expressing choices, plans & decisions
- Solving problems encountered in play.
Language, Literacy & Communication
- Talking with others about personally meaningful experiences.
- Describing objects, events & relations.
- Having fun with language: listening to stories & poems, making up stories & rhymes.
- Writing in various way: drawing, scribbling & using letter like forms, invented spelling & conventional forms
- Reading in various ways: reading storybooks, signs & symbols, and one's own writing
- Dictating stories
Social & Emotional Development
- Taking care of one's own needs
- Expressing feelings in words
- Building relationships with children & adults
- Creating & experiencing collaborative play
- Dealing with social conflict
Physical Development, Health, and Well-Being
- Moving in nonlocomotor ways (bending, twisting, rocking)
- Moving in locomotorways (running, jumping, hopping)
- Moving with objects
- Expressing creativity in movement
- Describing movement
- Acting upon movement directions
- Feeling & expressing steady beat
- Moving in sequences to a common beat
Mathematics:
- Seriation – comparing attributes (longer/shorter, bigger/smaller)
- Arranging several things one after another in a series or pattern &
describing the relationships (big/bigger/biggest)
- Fitting one ordered set of objects to another through trial &
error (small cup & small saucer)
- Number – comparing the numbers of things in two sets to
determine 'more', 'fewer', 'same number'
- Arranging two sets of objects in one-one correspondence
- Counting objects
- Space – filling & emptying
- Fitting things together & taking them apart
- Changing the shape & arrangement of objects (wrapping, twisting,
stretching)
- Observing people, places & things from different spatial
viewpoints
- Experiencing & describing positions, directions & distances in the
play space, building & neighbourhood
Science & Technology Classification
– recognising objects by sight, sound, touch, taste & smell
- Exploring & describing similarities, differences & the attributes
of things
- Distinguishing & describing shapes
- Sorting & matching
- Using & describing something in several ways
- Holding more than one attribute in mind at a time
- Distinguishing between 'some' and 'all'
- Describing characteristics something does not possess or what
class it does not belong to
Time
– starting & stopping an action on signal
- Experiencing & describing rates of movement
- Experiencing & comparing time intervals
- Anticipating, remembering & describing sequences of events
Social Studies
- Participating in group routines
- Being sensitive to the feelings, interests & needs of others
Visual Art
- Relating models, pictures & photographs to real places & things
- Making models out of clay, blocks & other materials
- Drawing & painting
Dramatic Art
- Imitating actions & sounds
- Pretending & role playing
Music
- Moving to music
- Exploring & identifying sounds
- Exploring the singing voice
- Developing melody
- Singing songs
- Playing simple musical instruments
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