Strathclyde Early Childhood Education HubPrevious projects

The project funded by the Education Scotland Enhancing Professional Learning in STEM Grant, is a dual Knowledge Exchange and research evaluation, whereby researchers will work with key practitioners to consider the ways in which early level Science can be delivered in playful, exploratory and pedagogically appropriate ways. The researchers will collaborate with children, parents and practitioners across three different early learning and childcare settings and early primary classes. The project seeks to bridge theory and practice by better understanding the current state of play regarding early science learning and where additional support and training is required to foster creative play focused around science concept learning.

Phase 1: 1st October 2021 – March 2022

Phase 2 (tentative): October 2022 – March 2023

Researchers involved: 

A knowledge exchange project to support early years teachers in Renfrewshire to undertake their own practitioner enquiry. This project, led by Prof Kate Wall and Dr Lorna Arnott, uses a well-established coaching model, to engage two cohorts of teachers in better understanding and exploring their practice to address young learner’s needs in their setting. The input is based around four inputs: 1) an introduction to the pragmatics of practitioner enquiry including how to ensure it is doable within normal working hours; 2) identifying and developing questions for enquiry; 3) collecting evidence in a playful and pedagogically appropriate way; and 4) identifying key learning and disseminating. The project will end with a celebratory sharing event where practitioners can share with each other and more widely the outcomes of their practitioner enquiry

Researchers involved: 

  • Kate Wall
  • Lorna Arnott
  • Renfrewshire Council

The research focuses on a highly topical area of interest – young children’s learning with digital technologies - aligning with the University’s vision to deliver world-leading research, to be bold and innovative. It is of global significance as concerns about children’s interactions with technologies, and how education should link with technologies, are perpetuated.

This initial scoping exercise will systematically map the narrative that parents and practitioners are receiving from research, policy and grey literature, around how technologies should feature in children’s playful interactions in early childhood contexts. This research funded by the University’s Faculty Grant Scheme will contextualise a larger scale project to empirically explore the place of Multimodal Lifeworlds for learning in early childhood education.

Researchers involved: 

  • Dr Lorna Arnott
  • Prof Nicola Yelland
  • Dr Maria Dardanou
  • Dr Sarika Kewalramani
  • Kenvil Souza

The aim of this research is to evaluate Scottish Ballet’s Safe to Be Me ® programme. The programme uses dance and embodied approaches to support children and young people to understand and embrace diverse identities and support ongoing cultures of inclusion. The programme focuses on five key areas – challenging racism, ableism, bigotry, homophobia and transphobia in primary and secondary schools across Scotland.

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Project Dates: Nov 2022- September 2023

Researchers involved:

Kate Wall and Lorna Arnott are completing a practitioner enquiry based evaluation of the Starcatchers arts-based intervention aimed at the deployment cycle in Scots Corner Early Learning and Childcare Centre. Funded by the MoD the project aims to explore all transitions, but particularly those experienced by children whose parent or parents are involved in regular deployment. Staff, children, and families will be involved in a year-long artist residency with movement and music specialist Skye Reynolds, exploring how creative movement, and being creative in general, can help with emotional literacy feelings. Lorna and Kate are working with staff to develop practitioner enquiry projects to engage with context sensitive related to the ongoing arts-based activity and data from these projects will be used to explore the impact of the intervention more generally. 

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Researchers involved: