The need for reflection is widely written about and positioned as a key aspect of continuing professional development. This paper examines the manner in which practitioners are encouraged to be reflective within the English system and the barriers they face. It questions whether such a complex, reaffirming system can allow for genuine critical engagement, how we come to buy into our models of thinking and their impact upon our understanding of learners and their skills. The paper highlights the importance of reflection particularly in relation to issues of inclusion, and explores the challenges using recent ethnographic research with families of young children with a label of Down syndrome. It challenges our focus upon the individual and through a socio-cultural model of development demonstrates the need for practitioners to reflect upon the developing context which we create and out of which we are created.

Exploring Barriers to Reflection and Learning--Developing a Perspective Lens.

Preschool provision in Northern Ireland is government funded and quality assured in all statutory sector settings (nursery schools and units) and in many voluntary/private sector settings (playgroups and daycare facilities). However, three unresolved policy issues continue to divide the sectors: the choices between a teacher or pedagogue role model, graduate or vocational level training, and a competency or reflective model of training. This paper aims to explore the reflections of a sample of students from both graduate and vocational early years training courses on the content and effectiveness of their training in order to inform the broader early years professionalism debate. The design of the research combines quantitative and qualitative approaches, with the data collection methods consisting of questionnaire survey (n = 282) and semi‐structured interviews (n = 22). Findings reveal broad agreement on the part of students, literature and government policy on the essential elements of early years trai...

Preparing for educare: student perspectives on early years training in Northern Ireland

This article discusses a Transition Programme to support the inclusion of mature students in Higher Education. The Transition Programme was designed and it is currently provided by a Higher Educati...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13603124.2019.1657592

A hope to trust. Educational leadership to support mature students’ inclusion in higher education: an experience from Surrey, England

This thesis is a practitioner based inquiry into how I can support the development of reflective dispositions within Early Childhood Studies (ECS) undergraduate students. The students involved in this research were all level 4 (first year, new entrants) who started their studies at an English University in September 2009. 
The study takes a Social Constructivist approach through pedagogical action research and was informed by a Reflective Methodology. My own beliefs regarding ontology lie in the notion that there is no one truth; that is multifaceted and that truths are ‘socially constructed multiple realities’ (Patton, 2002, p. 134). This is what Denzin and Lincoln (2008, p. 32) refer to as ‘relativist ontology’. It used qualitative methods to explore my own experiences and the experiences of students in establishing an understanding of expectations to use reflective practice to inform their developing professionalism. My own reflective journey has been a central part of this project and has enabled me to identify how my practice can be improved to enhance the development of a reflective culture within the Centre for Early Childhood in my institution. 
Reflective lenses of self, colleagues, students and literature have been used to create an understanding of the existing landscape of reflective practice within this particular context. Focus Group Discussion Forums (FGDF); reflective accounts; peer observation and Post-it Note response were all methods used to collect the data. A grounded theory approach to the data analysis was used which was both an inductive and deductive process. 
The findings of this research have been both enlightening and confirmatory. The pedagogical cultural differences between most new ECS students’ previous educational experiences, and those introduced when they start their programme in HE, entails a shift from a predominantly transmission approach to one of transformative learning. This requires an understanding of the tutor team to create an environment that is conducive to supporting students through this transition that is underpinned by Social Constructivist concepts.
The data highlights that strategies already used within the ECS programme are complementary to this transition; however, it also highlights that tutors’ assumptions about students’ capabilities to demonstrate reflective practice is sometimes unreasonable. 
This research journey and the findings from the data of this project have enabled me to identify some key considerations when supporting the development of reflective dispositions within ECS students and in enabling a ‘Reflective Community of Early Childhood Practice’. These considerations include: 
•	Transitional needs of students 
•	Becoming professionally self-aware and developing a professional artistry 
•	The significance of practical experience and its relationship to theoretical perspectives 
•	Opportunities for collaboration within a community of practice 

The other significant finding from this inquiry is that of self-discovery and identifying that my own reflective limitations require consideration. My adaptation of Brookfield’s (1995) four lens theory, which includes a new ‘fifth dimension’ that uses a ‘peripheral socio-cultural lens’ to widen and enrich the critical reflective process, has been created. 
Post viva voce examination has prompted an additional section to this thesis (Section 6). This post script is a critically reflective piece from my perspective as a researcher. Applying my own theory of a wider perspective through a Socio Cultural peripheral lens (Figure 7) which has allowed me to explicitly communicate the significance of this project and demonstrate the relationships between the arguments I make and the impact of these within the early childhood sector and within extended fields of professional practice.

How Can I Support Early Childhood Studies Undergraduate Students To Develop Reflective Dispositions

'Take off your Mask': Professional identities and professional development of part-time instructors

Being Reflective: Encouraging and Teaching Reflective Practice

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Being Reflective: Encouraging and Teaching Reflective Practice