Developing international perspectives on the curriculum for the MA Early Years Education programme

In this project we worked with staff and students on the MA Early Years cluster (MA Early Years Face to Face, MA Early Years Online and MA Primary) to develop an understanding of how we could approach developing a more international perspective on the programme. Our objectives were to consider how the programme could better draw on the personal and professional experience of all students and their understanding of their own local contexts in their home countries, and further consider how this could be translated into curriculum developments. We ran focus groups with staff and students on the programme as well as a student survey. Based on analysis of this feedback we developed two exemplar resources for two units on two modules, illustrating how an international perspective could be developed in the programme. We also came up with a set of recommendations. One of the best things about the project was that we gained a real sense of what students thought was important – for example that student diversity was a real resource for learning that could be made more use of in the curriculum for the programme. We also understood better the challenges perceived by staff – in particular the need to avoid tokenistic approaches and instead to focus on deeper learning that made use of staff diversity and the full staff knowledge base on international perspectives.

So a key thing we learned was that students and staff can work together and learn together as equals. One student noted, “..the whole process we were treated as equal members of the research team, whose insights were always seriously considered. As a result, it had an immense (positive) impact on my self-esteem as a novice researcher.” Another student said, “”definitely do it because It is an excellent opportunity to develop some research skills, improve your network and experience the program from a different perspective”. Adopting a co-production perspective from the start is really important but at the same time working initially to understand the strengths and limitations across the whole team and how we can work to support each other is also really important