Early Years

Dr Jacky Tyrie has been working with Dr Cathryn Knight (Bristol University) and Ioanna Bakopoulou (Bristol University) on an online survey with early years practitioners and managers around the long-term impacts and lessons learnt from COVID-19. The survey went live in January 2023.

Professor Janet Goodall is currently working with Save the Children on a project entitled ‘Starting Strong’. This project takes into account the views of children, parents and school staff around transition into primary school. This process is an important milestone in the lives of children but is not well researched. Dr Gisselle Tur Porres (Lecturer in Early Childhood) is leading a MASI Basecamp project with Dr Helen Lewis (CO-I), Dr Emily Marchant (CO-I) and Dr Julie Peconi (Health Data Science, Swansea University) and working with an interdisciplinary team from the DECS and the Institute of Life Sciences. The project, ‘SUN-CHAT: SUN safety Conversations about Healthy Attitudes to Tanning: exploring perceptions of school children and their parents/carers’, explores perceptions of school children and their parents/carers about Healthy Attitudes to Tanning.

Professor Janet Goodall is working with Manchester Metropolitan University, Lancaster University, the University of Strathclyde, and Queen’s University Belfast in a project funded by the ESRC which examines how very young children (0-3) learn language.

Dr Gisselle Tur Porres, Dr Michelle Brinn (Co-I), and Dr Pete King (Co-I) have worked with The Welsh Government on ensuring extensive professional learning is available across the non-maintained sector to support the implementation of Curriculum for Wales. This project was a collaborative effort between Bangor University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, University of South Wales, Swansea University, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Wrexham Glyndŵr University, ComIT (Communication Intervention Team) within the Sensory and Communication Support Service (SenCom) of Torfaen County Borough Council, the Welsh Government and the Welsh Government’s Advisory Group.

In December 2022 Dr Jacky Tyrie was awarded (with colleagues around Wales) an ESCR bid for £650,000 to undertake the project “Embedding children's participation rights in pedagogical practice in lower primary classrooms in Wales”. As part of this research the Children’s Participation in Schools website is now live and offers information about the research and the topic more broadly.

The team at their first project meeting (l-r) Dr Alison Murphy, University of Wales Trinity Saint David; Dr Sarah Chicken, UWE, Bristol (Principal Investigator); Dr Jennifer Clement, Cardiff Metropolitan University; Professor Jane Williams, Swansea University; Dr Jane Waters-Davies, University of Wales Trinity Saint David; Dr Jacky Tyrie, Swansea University.

Ames, P., Tur Porres, G., & González Díez, J. (2022). Estudiar las infancias en América Latina: ideas y debates para un campo emergente. [Studying childhoods in Latin America: ideas and debates for an emerging field]. Confluenze. Rivista Di Studi Iberoamericani, 13(2), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2036-0967/14249.

Chicken, S., and J. Tyrie. Can you hear me? (in press) Problematising the enactment of UNCRC Article 12 in Welsh Early Years Classrooms, exploring the challenges of 'children's voice'. IJCR. (under review).

Goodall, J., (2022). A framework for family engagement : Going beyond the Epstein Framework, Wales Journal of Education 24(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.16922/wje.24.2.5.

Goodall, J., & Greasley, S. (2022). Developing inclusive school communities through parental engagement in their children’s learning. In K. Black-Hawkins & A. Grinham-Smith (Eds.), Expanding possibilities for Inclusive Learning (Vol. 3). Routledge.

Ires Correa, W. & Tur Porres, G. (2022). Cuerpo, infancia y escuela: un encuentro necesario [Body, childhood and school: a necessary dialogue]. En J. González Díez & V. Gámez Ceruelo, Familias, géneros y diversidades: reflexiones para la educación [Families, genders and diversities: reflections for education] (pp. 235-254). EU: Editorial UNAE, Casa Editorial del GAD Cuenca Coordinación.

King P. & S,. Newstead (2022). Childcare Worker’s Understanding of the Play Cycle Theory: Can a Focus on “Process not Product” Contribute to Quality Childcare Experiences?, Child Care in Practice, 28:2, 164-177, DOI: 10.1080/13575279.2019.1680532.

Lewis, H.; MacDonald, N. & Tur Porres, G. (2022). Early childhood education and care in Wales: A curriculum for the non-maintained sector with children at the centre of practice. Early Education Journal, 98, 8-10.

Murphy, A., Tyrie, J., Waters-Davies, J., Chicken, S., & Clement, J. (2022). Foundation Phase teachers' understandings and enactment of participation in school settings in Wales. Inclusive Pedagogies for Early Childhood Education: Respecting and Responding to Differences in Learning, 111.

Tur Porres, G. & Ires Correa, W. (2023). Developing emancipatory online learning environments in quality teacher education. In J. Madalińska-Michalak (ed.). Quality in Teaching and Teacher Education. International Perspectives from a Changing World (pp.147-165). Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004536609_008.

Tyrie., J. Knight., C. and M., Borras (2021). Delphi Study on the impact of COVID-19 on children under age 5. Welsh Government. 82/2021 https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/statistics-and-research/2021-12/delphi-study-to-understand-options-available-that-will-help-to-identify-address-or-mitigate-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-children-under-age-5.pdf.