The Think Equal Early Years Education Revolution
- - Investing in Early Childhood is the gateway to sustainable development.
- - Theoretical and academic early years frameworks do not meet the urgent need of teachers who have not been trained in the missing subject of Social and Emotional Learning. They need tangible tools.
- - These plug and play tools exist; designed by global experts, inexpensive, evidence based and world changing!
Schedule Information:
12:00pm | Wednesday 20th March
Session Description
Revolutions change the status quo. Think Equal’s revolution seeks to change a world in which discrimination, inequality, violence and mental ill-health have become normalised. As part of the momentum of this early years education system change, 3 out of the 30 countries we work in have now mandated the programme alongside numeracy and literacy for every single child in their country. In Greater Manchester alone some 45,000 children are being given the foundations they need for positive life outcomes, funded by NHS Mental Health in Schools, The Violence Reduction Unit of the Police and Regional Authority School Readiness funding.
Your Questions Answered
During the live Summit we put your questions to Leslee Udwin and Ruby Jewitt – here’s what they had to say:
Why do you think early years is frequently ignored in our field?
I think there are three interconnected reasons. Firstly, it is a universal problem that no sense of urgency is given to prevention, we instead tend to invest in short term solutions to crisis after crisis, there is a lack of long term thinking. Secondly, because policy and much of the financing for early years education is governmental, there is no incentive for governments to prioritise the long term outcomes of prevention, as the political party reaping the benefits of their early preventative investments in 10+ years may not be their own. Finally, I think that there is still a long way to go universally (from parents to policy makers) in the way that early years education is viewed, there is not enough importance given to the early brain building years as foundations for the rest of our lives.