Play and Learning in the Early Years for Inclusion

Play and Learning in the Early Years for Inclusion – PLEYInWorking collaboratively in an international context

Wanda Baranowska, Gill McGillivray and Adela Elena Popa,

with Karen Argent, Chris Collett, Deborah Harris, Justyna Leszka, Daniel Mara, Elena-Lucia Mara, Allison Tatton and Linda Treadwell

Play and Learning in the Early Years for Inclusion – PLEYInWorking collaboratively in an

international context

Wanda Baranowska, Gill McGillivray and Adela Elena Popa,

with Karen Argent, Chris Collett, Deborah Harris, Justyna Leszka, Daniel Mara, Elena-Lucia Mara, Allison Tatton and Linda Treadwell

Cover illustration: ‘Planet Earth’ by Tudor age 7.

© 2011 Wanda Baranowska, Gill McGillivray and Adela Popa, with Karen Argent, Chris Collett, Deborah Harris, Justyna Leszka, Daniel Mara,

Elena-Lucia Mara, Allison Tatton and Linda Treadwell

No part of this publication are to be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the authors.

Published by Newman University College, Birmingham, UK.

Leonardo Lifelong Learning Programme Grant Agreement: 2009-1-GB2-LEO 044-01383

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Acknowledgements

The PLEYIn project team want to thank the numerous people and organisations who have contributed to the PLEYIn project activities in all three countries: Poland, Roma-nia and England. Our gratitude is owed to all the participants in project seminars, and colleagues from our respective universities and inspectorates. This includes transla-tors, seminar facilitators, administrative staff and technical support staff. Thank you to our children who have reminded us of the wonder of creativity in their drawings. Finally, thank you to Graham Brotherton and PLEYIn team members for their careful and critical reading of draft versions of the report.

The PLEYIn project team would like to thank the children, staff and families in Poland from the following:l Education Office in Lodz, Branch Office in Sieradzl The Janusz Korczak Special Educational Centre in Sieradzl The Ursuline Order’s House of Social Help in Sieradzl Children’s House in Tomisławicel Public Kindergarten No 4 in Sieradz “Słoneczne Przedszkole”l The Miś Uszatek Public Kindergarten No 5 in Sieradz l Public Kindergarten No 6 in Sieradz with Integration Sectionsl Private Kindergarten of the Ursuline Nun’s in Sieradzl Centre of the Young’s Socio therapy No2 in Łódźl Public Nursery in Zgierz „Koziołek Matołek” l Public Kindergarten No 12 in Zgierz “Pod Topolą”l Special Educational Centre in Zgierzl Private Kindergarten in Kalisz “Bursztynowy Zamek”

The PLEYIn project team would like to thank the children, staff and families in Romania from the following:l School Inspectorate for Sibiu Countyl County Centre for Resources and Educational Support, Sibiul Kindergarten no. 14, Sibiul Kindergarten no. 29, Sibiul Kindergarten and school of Sura Mica village, Sibiu Countyl Kindergarten ‘Gradina Mariei’ in Sibiu, ‘Sisters of Immaculata’ Association (Genoa)l School no. 25, Sibiul Community Service Centre “Prichindelul”, Sibiul Centre for Inclusive Education no. 1, Sibiul Centre for Inclusive Education no. 2, Sibiul UCOS (‘One child, one hope’) Foundation, Sibiul ‘The House of Light’ Day Care Centre for children with

mental and multiple disabilities, Sibiul Residence Centre ’Speranta’ for children with severe disabilities, Sibiu

The PLEYIn project team would like to thank the children, staff and families in England from the following:l Shenley Fields Children’s Centrel Bushbury Hill Children’s Centrel Victoria Special Schooll Garretts Green Children’s Centrel St Francis CE Primary Schooll Roundabout Children’s Centre and Low Hill Nursery Schooll Walsall Traveller Education Support Servicel West Midlands Consortium for Travelling Children, Schools and Families

Play and Learning in the Early Years for Inclusion – PLEYIn

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Contents

Abbreviations............................................................................................. 7

What’s it all about?.................................................................................. 8

1. Introduction............................................................................................ 9

1.1 Partners and aims of the PLEYIn project..................................................... 9

1.2 Children’s rights and inclusion................................................................. 10

1.3 What about play?................................................................................. 12

2. An International Context............................................................................. 13

2.1 England............................................................................................. 14

2.2 Romania............................................................................................ 15

2.3 Poland.............................................................................................. 17

3. Methodology............................................................................................ 19

3.1 Approach........................................................................................... 19

3.2 Research Design................................................................................... 19

3.3 Case Studies....................................................................................... 20

3.4 Participants........................................................................................ 20

3.5 Ethical Considerations........................................................................... 21

3.6 Project Management.............................................................................. 22

3.7 Data Analysis....................................................................................... 22

4. England Findings and Analysis........................................................................ 25

5. Romania Findings and Analysis....................................................................... 30

6. Poland Findings and Analysis......................................................................... 36

7. Conclusions............................................................................................. 39

What have we learned?............................................................................... 41

Appendices................................................................................................ 43

Appendix 1 A child born in Afghanistan: Hassan’s story.The case study child for England... 43

Appendix 2 A child born in Poland: Dominik’s story. The case study child for Poland........ 44

Appendix 3 A child born in Romania: Maria’s story. The case study child for Romania...... 45

Appendix 4 Questions for each case study.......................................................... 46

Appendix 5 Biographies for members of the PLEYIn team........................................ 47

Appendix 6 Principles collated from seminar data in each country............................. 51

References................................................................................................. 55

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Timeline of PLEYin project activities..................................................... 10

Table 2.1 Comparative Table of Early Years Provision for England, Poland and Romania..... 13

Table 3.1 Participant numbers........................................................................ 20

Table 5.1 Coding scheme for analysing data in the Romanian seminars........................ 30

Table 5.2 Order of main codes for all the participants and subcategories..................... 31

Table 6.1 Vertical analytical categories determined by analysis of the discourse

of participants in relation to inclusion................................................... 36

Table 6.2 Horizontal analytical categories determined by responses to the

case study questions and their variables................................................. 37

List of Figures

Figures

Figure 5.1 Levels of agencies that can intervene to address children’s needs.................32

List of Boxes

Boxes

Box 4.1 Inclusion Headlines............................................................................ 25

Box 4.2 Family Headlines............................................................................. 26

Box 4.3 Practitioners headlines...................................................................... 27

Box 4.4 Policy Headlines.............................................................................. 28

Box 4.5 Community Headlines........................................................................ 28

Box 4.6 Play Headlines................................................................................. 29

Box 7.1 Statement of principles from the PLEYIn Project........................................ 40


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Abbreviations

Abbreviations EnglandDfES Department for Education and Skills

EYFS Early Years Foundation StageNUC Newman University CollegeSEN Special Educational Needs

SEND Special Educational Needs and DisabilitiesUNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency FundUNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights for the Child

Abbreviations RomaniaANPFDC National Authority for the Protection of Family and Children’s Rights

CES Special Education NeedsCJRAE County Centre for Resources and Educational Support

ISJ Sibiu County Educational Inspectorate NGO Non Government Organization

RENINCO National Network for Information and Cooperation in Promoting Community Integration for Children and Youngsters with Special Education Needs

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What’s it all about?

This report tells one story of the PLEYIn project. Its purpose is to share the narrative of the research amongst those who participated in the research – it is told with practitioners in mind. There are other stories to tell, about the challenges of collaborative work, about the role of play in inclusion, about the impact of history and policy on inclusion, but those stories are yet to be told. A narrative approach is reinforced by Dey (1993:39) who says we should ‘tell a story’ of research and ‘construct an illuminating narrative’ for the reader. The beginning of the story was a desire to know and understand more, in this case, about play and inclusion in different countries from a children’s and human rights perspective. By bringing people (practitioners, professionals, academics, decision makers) together, by providing a stimulus for debate, by listening to others through collaborative, respectful work then there is capacity and opportunity for professional learning. This was the ambitious premise on which the PLEYIn project was founded. The report is therefore a collective account, contributed to by all members of the PLEYIn project team. It became evident at the first full team meeting in November 2009 that there was a shared commitment to the aims of the project amongst all team members. Words in the bid document had to be translated to actions, taking us towards the goal of a community of practitioners who, through the PLEYIn project activities, had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of play and inclusion. One of the outcomes from the project was to be a ‘statement of principles’ – thus a significant storyline in this report is how the statement of principles was constructed from the data, in other words, how the principles were grounded in what practitioners said about inclusion and play. This report is dedicated to all the children and practitioners who contributed in numerous ways to the PLEYIn project.


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1.1 Partners and aims of the PLEYIn project Four partners contributed to the formulation of the bid to the Leonardo da Vinci Lifelong Learning Programme for Partnership funding for a two year project from 2009-2011. The partners were the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania, the County Inspectorate for Education, Sibiu, Romania (silent partner), the College of Humanities and Economics in Sieradz, Poland and Newman University College (NUC), Birmingham, UK. Other collaborative work had already been undertaken, prior to the bid negotiations, between colleagues in the Sociology and Education Departments at the Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, the County Inspectorate for Education, Sibiu, and NUC. The PLEYIn project co-ordinator had also undertaken a ‘Preparatory Visit’ to Sibiu in October 2009 to explore project proposals. The final partner for the project, the College of Humanities and Economics in Sieradz, was located through Leonardo LLP partner search facilities. Email communication between partners established common interests and shared expertise in the field of early years care and education, play and inclusion. The aims of the PLEYIn project were to:l create networks of early years practitioners across partner countries sharing

vocational experiences and education opportunitiesl identify and develop practice focused strategies that are play based and designed to

include all children and families within the communities where practitioners work , and from that, to

l establish common concepts of inclusive learning through playl share and develop skills and expertise through training seminarsl promote the use of sustainable resources available in the communities where

practitioners are located, whether in rural or urban areasl undertake research and dissemination activities nationally and internationally in

order to share and evaluate the partnership project.

1. IntroductionNotions of ‘inclusion’ and ‘play’ in early years childcare and education are contestable, uncertain and create challenges for those who work with children and their families. In addition, it is recognised that a well qualified children’s workforce promotes inclusive learning for children. However, variations exist in how inclusion and play are constructed by early years practitioners within and across European countries and beyond (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD 2006). Such variations arise from social, cultural, political and historical landscapes specific to each country, but each country faces common challenges in terms of sharing professional expertise and making space for debates about ‘inclusion’ and ‘play’. The aims of the PLEYIn project intended to create such spaces for communities of early years practitioners with the needs of all children and their families in mind.

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The project team has been successful in achieving most of these aims, but they were ambitious. Creating networks, establishing common concepts and implementing seminars demanded careful planning to be worthwhile for participants and the project team had to be realistic in what it could achieve with the resources available. Table 1.1 shows the chronological order of key PLEYIn project events.

The planning events included field work in each country. The project team visited a range of care and education settings for children and young people, some with specific provision for children with special needs. The team met staff and were able to develop an understanding of provision, policy and practice in the context of inclusion and play in England, Poland and Romania. Discussions on these occasions returned to issues of rights, both children’s and human rights, as these are fundamental in any debate about inclusion. 1.2 Children’s rights and inclusion Article 26 of the United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) (1948) guarantees ‘the right to education… directed to the full development of the human personality and promot(ing) understanding, tolerance and friendship’ (Inclusion International 2009). Of equal importance is the right of children not to be discriminated against, as expressed in Article 2 of the United Convention of Rights for the Child (UNCRC) (UN 1989). Logically therefore the implication is that all children have the right to receive the kind of education that does not discriminate on grounds of disability, ethnicity, religion, language, gender or capabilities and offers equality of opportunities in terms of outcomes (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO 2003).

MonthFebruary 2009July 2009September 2009November 2009 March 2010May 2010

October 2010November 2010 December 2010March 2011May 2011July 2011

ActivityBid submitted to Leonardo da Vinci LLPPartners informed of approval of bidOfficial start of PLEYIn projectLaunch of PLEYIn project at NUC; PLEYIn team meets for the first time; planning for first series of seminars at NUCFirst seminar series at NUCPlanning event in Sibiu, Romania, for second series of seminarsPLEYIn website launched, www.newman.ac.uk/pleyin Second series of seminars at ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu; PLEYIn Romanian website launched, https://sites.google.com/site/seminareducatieincluziva/Planning event in Sieradz, Poland, for third series of seminarsThird series of seminars in Sieradz, PolandPlanning and report writing for final PLEYIn projectFinal PLEYIn project event at NUC; final report published

Table 1.1 Timeline of PLEYin project activities:


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The concept of human rights has evolved through advocacy for minority rights by the United Nations (UN) in the interwar and post-war years. In response to the Nazi persecution of minority groups during the Second World War, the call to respect all human rights, first expressed through the UDHR in 1948, was enshrined in the ethos of the UN. This placed an emphasis on ‘equality and human dignity and the worth of every person’ (Smith 2010:25). The framework includes principles of equal opportunities, dignity and self-determination, along with non-discrimination. Articles 22-27 address rights to work and a standard of living, health and well being to which education is seen as the key (Smith 2010:317). By the end of the 20th century, mainly due to lobbying by disabled people’s organisations, disability had become visible in the arena of international human rights, and subsequently second and third generation laws have placed more emphasis on the education of disabled children. Article 23 of the UNCRC (1989) specifically addresses the right of children with disabilities to enjoy ‘a full and decent life’ that promotes dignity, self-reliance and active participation (Lansdowne 2009:16). Whilst not specifically referring to inclusive education, Article 28 of the Convention states the child’s right to an education provided on the basis of equal opportunity and Article 29 states that: ‘education must be directed to the development of [all] children to the fullest potential.’ The development of inclusion and its position at the centre of education and social policy worldwide derives from a common understanding that, in a world that strives for human rights and equality, what existed previously is unacceptable. Historically, children world-wide with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) have been marginalized, either receiving no education at all or consigned to segregated ‘special education’. Such segregated provision has historically been based on the ‘medical model’ approach to disability identified by Oliver (1996) which explains children’s needs in terms of ‘deficit’ and ‘cure’. It has, by its nature, been limiting in terms of opportunities and outcomes, and perpetuated negative attitudes towards disability. Continued segregation and marginalization of children with SEND will inevitably impact on life chances and strengthen the already recognised links between disability and poverty. The growth of the disability rights movement during the 1970s in the United States, highlighted the right to participation of people with disabilities and signalled a shift to what Oliver (1996) describes as ‘social model’ of disability, in which social as much as physical environments are seen as disabling thus preventing full participation. The Salamanca Statement (UNESCO 1994) was a pivotal development in inclusive education, bringing together the international political strands of disability and education. It declared, among other things, that ‘regular schools with an inclusive orientation are the most effective means of building an inclusive society and achieving education for all’ (UNESCO 1994). Armstrong et al (2010:6) point out that: ‘a society that values social justice and equal participation cannot, at the same time, justify [segregated] special education,’ going on to describe inclusion as rhetoric that, on principle, few would oppose. However Norwich (in Cigman 2007:71) points out that ‘..where disagreement lies is in the extent and nature of inclusion.’

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Definitions of inclusion range from the ideological: ‘an attitude or a principle, a means of promoting an ethos which redefines’ ‘normality’ as accepting and valuing diversity’ (Jones 2004:13) to the pragmatic: ‘a system of education which recognises the right of all children and young people to share a common educational environment in which all are valued equally regardless of differences in perceived ability, gender, class, ethnicity or learning styles’ (Armstrong 1999: 76). Definitions often describes a process: ‘..of identifying, understanding and breaking down barriers to participation and belonging’ (Early Childhood Forum 2003). The European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (EADSNE) (2009) notes that the definition of inclusion has changed since first introduced to the educational arena. Since the mid-1990s schools across Europe have been struggling to respond to a more diverse student population in terms of race, culture, language and family structure and consequently inclusion has broadened out to encompass the inclusion of socially as well as intellectually diverse groups. Norwich (2008) highlights disability as being just one aspect of educational vulnerability, and internationally inclusion is becoming more about eradicating social exclusion among a range of diverse learners including children from ethnic and social minority groups. Ainscow (2007:5) sees the key to inclusion being about the process of ‘social learning’; valuing and accepting difference, which then promotes a genuine ethos of equal opportunities and encourages a problem solving approach amongst practitioners. This social model approach challenges deficit views of difference, seeking instead creative solutions to including children from a range of marginalised groups.

1.3 What about play?The project intended to explore how play could be a vehicle for inclusive practice in the three countries but, as the project developed, the emphasis shifted. It seemed that the interrelationship between the two themes of inclusion and play was difficult to disentangle for all involved in the project. Play is central to the way in which the curriculum is shaped and delivered in England using the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory guidance (DfES, 2007) but nevertheless demanded space and time for examination for all participants in the project across all three countries. Therefore, consideration of ‘play’ in policy and practice is revisited in each of the country sections in section 2. The team was conscious that inclusion was troublesome enough let alone attempting to deconstruct play too.

Summary pointsl Some aims of the PLEYIn project have been more successfully achieved than

others.

l A key aim of the project was to establish common concepts of inclusive learning through play.

l It became apparent as the project progressed that ‘inclusion’ competed with and dominated ‘play’.

l Issues of play and inclusion are underpinned by human and children’s rights.

l European countries have a shared history of exclusion and marginalisation of children with special needs and minority ethnic groups amongst others.


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2. An international contextOne of the aims of the PLEYIn project was to create networks of early years practitioners across partner countries sharing vocational experiences and education opportunities. For the project team to begin to create networks, it was essential to share policy and structures for early years provision in each others’ countries. Table 2.1 summarises pre-school provision, inclusive provision and school starting ages in each partner country. It demonstrates where there are common features of provision, such as reliance on family care, and differences, such as the school starting age.

0-3 years: Child Development Centres; inclusive provision encouraged in all mainstream settings with appropriate support; some specialist provision.3-5 years: Inclusive provision encouraged in all mainstream settings with appropriate support;some specialist provision, some residential, other co located or working in close partnership with local schools.

0-3 years: Public, voluntary, private, independent mix including Children’s Centres- level and mix of provision varies.3-5 years: Public nursery schools and nursery classes in primary schools (free) private nurseries and independent schools. Playgroups and other voluntary sector provision in many areas (often only part-time).

Country Pre-school provision Inclusive provision School starting ageEngland

*Free nursery school place compulsory for all 5 year olds from September 2010

4/ 5 years

Poland

Romania

0-3 years: Public Nurseries included in the healthcare system subsidised by local authorities and partly paid for by parents.3-6 years: Public nursery schools/ kindergartens and pre- primary sections of primary schools. Independent pre- primary settings- partly paid for by parents.NGO pre primary settings (particularly in urban areas), reliance on family care, particularly for working parents.

0-1 years: No provision other than family care.1-3 years: Public funded Nurseries (cresa.)3-6/7 years: Publicly funded Kindergartens ‘gradinita’ short schedule/ long schedule and residential programmes designed for those with challenging social backgrounds; some additional privately funded and NGO funded provision particularly in urban areas; reliance on family care, particularly for working parents.

0-3 years: No provision.In larger cities parents have an opportunity to use p rivate medical and psychological services.3-6 years: some ‘low level’ disabilities in integrated nurseries and schools; Special schools; Special groups ( particularly those with medical needs) in hospitals and sanatoriums.

0-3 years: No formal provisionSome NGOs (very few and not in every town) offer programmes for children under three, but only in urban areas. Parents can also have medical consultations or private psychological consultation, if they want to.3-6/7 yearsChildren with moderate needs (mild disabilities) are sometimes educated in mainstream kindergartens, supported by networks of specialist professionals (particularly in urban areas). Children with severe disabilities educated in special kindergartens (usually privately funded) or cared for by family. Limited segregated provision.

6 years for ‘zero class’ or 7 years (parents to decide until 2012 when it will be 6 years for all children

6-7 yearsCurrently parents decide but imminent change in legislation will change this.

More specific differences in terms of history, policy and legislative requirements in each country are outlined in the following sections.

Table 2.1 Comparative Table of Early Years Provision for England, Poland and Romania

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2.1 EnglandWithin the UK, England has a history of segregated provision for children with disabilities that has evolved from medical and charitable institutions created during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Prompted by international human rights awareness, the Education Act (DES, 1970) brought children with disabilities from the health service into education. This acknowledged for the first time that such children can benefit from education, but a segregated system of special education continued to develop, consistent with the medical model of disability. Progress towards a more inclusive system was formalised by the Warnock Report (DES, 1978), which paved the way for ‘integration’, supporting children with disabilities in mainstream schools through individualised statements of need. Shaped by the international human rights conventions of the 1970s & 80s (see previous section), the concept of inclusion has been interpreted in the UK as meaning full inclusion into mainstream. However, Lunt and Evans (2002) identify a move towards ‘responsible inclusion’ placing an emphasis on children’s rights to an appropriate education, however that might look, and accepting that for some children mainstream education might not be the best option. Farrell (2010:106) offers two positions, that inclusion can be ‘a euphemism for mainstreaming, or it may be intended as an encouragement to improving pupils’ participation in whatever setting they are educated’.

Driven by national disability rights movements such as the British Council for Disabled People (BCDP), and the Centre for Studies on Inclusive Education (CSIE), successive governments have promoted policies to close segregated special schools. Policy has been underpinned by disability legislation, the most influential of which is the Special Needs and Disability Act (SENDA; DfES, 2001a) which makes it unlawful for schools and settings to exclude children with special needs and disabilities without legal justification. Increasingly the approach has followed the social model of disability, pursuing whole school improvement. This is reflected in the government guidance ‘Removing Barriers to Achievement’ (DfES, 2004a), introduced as part of the Every Child Matters initiative (DfES 2004b) to improve educational and social outcomes for all children.

More recently in England there has been a growing recognition that the system is failing to meet the needs of some children currently included in mainstream. In 2005 Mary Warnock referred to the ‘disastrous legacy’ of her 1978 report, arguing that there are ‘limits to what can be achieved in mainstream schools, given the diversity of children’s needs and the finite available resources’ (Warnock in Cigman 2007:xii). Critics say that the idea of ‘full inclusion’ ignores the obvious ‘practical realities’ of disability and the rights of other children to an effective education (Hodkinson & Vickerman 2009: 80). This has led to the growing belief that that inclusion should not be about location, but about choice, and access to a high quality education that leads to equal opportunities in later life, placing special schools within the definition of inclusion as part of a ‘continuum of provision’. It is even argued that segregation could be viewed as a form of positive discrimination for children with SEN (Low in Cigman 2007).


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This view has been embraced in the 2011 Green Paper, which seeks to ‘remove the bias towards inclusion’ for children with SEND (DfE 2011) and underlines a lack of political will, driven mainly by financial considerations, for the radical systemic overhaul that would ensure that children with a broader range of needs are included in mainstream education. Cigman (2007) however differentiates between presumption and assertion, advocating inclusion as the default position, rather than the other way around. Despite the rhetoric of inclusive education as a fundamental human right, ambivalence is evident amongst policy makers and advisors, mainly due to lack of resources and negative attitudes. In terms of fostering inclusion through play, Theodoru and Nind (2010) contend that active involvement and participation in play is necessary as play is at the heart of early years education. It allows children opportunities to encounter experiences which support their emotional well being. However, although play has secured a role in children’s learning and development within the EYFS (Moyles 2005), evidence suggests that the notion of ‘play-centeredness’ (Moyles 2005 xix) is variable within and across different providers (Children’s Centres, Private Day Nurseries, Crèches, Local Authority Nurseries, Reception Classes) in England. Whilst in some settings practice may be underpinned by the ideology of play ‘starting from the child’ and supported by knowledgeable adults, this is not the case in all settings. Play is often tempered by constraints such as curriculum overload, top down pressure from managers, lack of resources and confusion around the contestable nature of play.

2.2 RomaniaAfter the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Romania tried to move away from a traditional social and school segregation of children with special needs and disabilities. In the communist years, from 1945-1989, such children were either enrolled in special schools or not entitled to formal education. For several years, Romania has been and still is undergoing significant changes in this field.

Changes regarding inclusive education were developing against a background of reforms in health, education and children protection fields. Since 1996, Romanian governments have pursued various social, economic and financial changes to improve the performance of the health and social protection system. In spite of these changes, health indicators are among the poorest in Europe. This explains why the health sector is posing the biggest challenges today and produces the highest dissatisfaction rates among the population. Romania has also engaged in recent years in redesigning and reforming the childcare and child protection system. The main emphasis was to change the priority from “institutional” to “family” care. As well as the health and social care system, the educational system is also undergoing a dynamic process of change and reform.

Since 1995, the most important process towards inclusion in Romania was the shift from integrated education to inclusive education for children with special educational needs. Inclusive education practice in Romania was initiated by two pilot projects implemented jointly by the Ministry of Education, UNICEF and UNESCO. A significant contribution was also made by the RENINCO network (National Network for Information and Cooperation in Promoting Community Integration for Children and Youngsters with Special Education Needs), an independent not-for-profit organisation which assumed many of the tasks for implementing inclusive education in Romania. Also since 1995, a series of significant policy documents regarding inclusive practice were published in Romania and were disseminated to the public,

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along with legislative and administrative measures to foster inclusion. The first Romanian law that explicitly defines inclusive education was a Government Decree in 2005. At the same time a large number of NGOs raised public awareness of inclusive education by developing projects in the social services sector. One of the problems of implementing inclusive education in Romania was confusing and confused terminology even in official documents and legislative provision. Thus, several terms were used such as: impairment, handicap, disability, integration and special needs. They were used as synonyms and without being thoroughly defined. A linguistic innovation was needed because in Romanian, ‘inclusiv’ is an adverb with a precise meaning but it did not translate into the English word ‘inclusion’. A new term ‘incluziv’ was chosen for this purpose (see Vrasmas and Vrasmas 2007). Currently, several terms are widely used in official policy documents and in practice, such as ‘special education needs’ (‘CES’ in Romanian), ‘inclusive education’, ‘integration’ and ‘strategies in inclusive education’ (Ungureanu 2000). Romanian literature in the field acknowledges that achieving inclusion means challenging current attitudes, prejudices and mentalities regarding children with special needs, as well as changing policy and practice of exclusion and separation (Mara 2009). In terms of integration, children with SEN can attend mainstream schools and can follow the same curriculum as other children, but there are also specific rehabilitation and intervention methods available for additional support. Two important instruments for these children are the Individual Services Plan (ISP) and the Personalized Intervention Plan (PIP). In this context, studying the development of children with special needs in order to determine new educational strategies – better adjusted to their needs and therefore more efficient – has become one of the priorities for specialists preparing to work with these children (Vrasmas 2001). Despite these efforts, implementing inclusive education in Romania is still progressing slowly and facing difficulties. The most urgent challenge is to adapt and upgrade mainstream schools in order to become a place for all children to learn, including those with special needs. Adaptations have to be made in terms of physical layout but also in terms of curriculum adjustment and social interaction needs. There is a need for education and teacher training to accommodate these challenges though additional professional development programs in this field. An inclusive culture has to be developed in Romanian schools in order to be more responsive to diversity. The link between school, family and community is currently a very weak one and has to be encouraged; a community presence in school is almost nonexistent. Measures for inclusion in education that have been taken so far are not sufficiently articulated, indicating that there is not yet a unitary vision and coherent approach for all levels of education and all types of learners. There is not adequate focus on addressing the needs and reducing marginalization of some vulnerable categories of children such as street children, Roma children, criminal offenders and children from isolated areas. Finally, it is worth returning to play at this point and its role in inclusive education practice in Romania. Official documents (curriculum, syllabus, etc) as well as teachers and parents recognise the value of play in early years practice, and that play is the main activity enabling children to learn and to develop. Nevertheless, the traditional


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model of play in kindergarten is a structured one: often children play at their table, drawing or colouring, or with table games. The assumption for kindergarten practitioners is that structured play is more valuable than unstructured play. The layout of the classroom does not allow children to explore all types of play. Outdoor play is also a challenge for most of the kindergartens, because they are not suitably equipped for promoting children’s outside play.

2.3 PolandIssues of terminology, provision, practitioner education and training recur in the debates about play and inclusion in Poland.

Local authorities in Poland are required to provide kindergartens, healthcare units, schools and other social support, but the quality of provision depends on the financial status of districts (Fundowicz, 2005; Suwaj, Kijowski, 2009). Consequently, families who live in relatively poor regions do not receive the help they need or as much as in other areas.

In Poland there are several definitions of “social inclusion”. It is often considered to be the opposite of “social exclusion” and translates as a process of ‘social re-adaptation’. Literature indicates that social inclusion underlines a number of difficulties, but two major problems appear to have an impact on other aspects of inclusion. The first is that in Poland there is a lack of any organization or provision which has responsibility for coordinating and monitoring children’s overall development. It is currently devolved to individual departments, public services and institutions but their actions are not coordinated or joined up. The second is that the system of teacher and care-taker education requires immediate changes as it is currently anachronistic and does not consider fundamental professional values. Professional development needs to encourage practitioners to have an open-minded attitude and to accept difference and diversity. Currently it does not develop creativity and civil involvement, nor does it build key competences for professional career self-planning and social-management skills with reference to group/team teaching (Czyż, Falkowska, 2009: 5-6).

It is acknowledged that the first years of a child’s life are the optimal period for intervention in emerging difficulties in learning. Such interventions can respond to developmental delay or difficulties and plan for therapeutic treatment of disorders if necessary (Okoń, 1987; Przetacznik- Gierowska, 1993; Gruszczyk- Kolczyńska, Zielińska, 2004). Recent policy development has led to a reform of education in Poland. The new curriculum (Ministry of Education, MEN: Core curriculum for nursery schools and pre-school education, 2009: 23-25) focuses in particular on educating pre-school children and young learners and emphasises the role of play as a natural medium of education in this developmental period.

In theory children’s learning is based on their spontaneous play activities which are stimulating for the child’s development. But despite its long history (Kabacinska, 2007) and its vast popularity in Polish pedagogy, it is difficult to find an explicit definition of the term ‘play’. Numerous teachers’ dissertations available on the internet quote Huizinga (2008) and Szuman (1970). These authors claim that nursery school teachers understand play to be every activity or action which is done for pleasure, no matter what the final result. Play is entered into voluntarily, not by external force or necessity (Huizinga 2008).

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A similar approach to defining play can be found in other academic literature such as Okoń (1987) and Przetacznik-Gierowska (1999) who claim that play is an expression of the child’s creativity, is an indicator of their development, and, at the same time, a measure of their level of functioning. This concurs with Klim-Klimaszewska’s (2005) idea of nursery school pedagogy. In addition, Chauvel, Michel (1999) and Siedlaczek (2001) discuss different typologies of children’s play. Constructions of children’s play in Poland are more shaped by the practice of allowing play as a reward after non-play, or ‘work’ than by Rousseau’s naturalism of play (Przetacznik-Gierowska, Tyszkowa 1996).

One change as a result of the recent education reform in education is lowering the school age to the age of 5 and financing children education. This is seen to promote children’s educational chances, partly attributable to socialization opportunities. The process of teacher education now requires review and development in terms of additional knowledge about child development, inclusion and play and how to implement and apply these in practice. Both are crucial in work with children. It is desirable that changes will result in new constructions of children’s needs and creative opportunities for children’s education.

Summary pointsl Segregation has characterized education provision for children with special needs in

England, Poland and Romania.

l All three countries have undergone reform to move from segregation to integration and towards inclusion.

l Terminology is confused and confusing; particularly definitions of ‘inclusion’.

l Attitudes, resources, professional development opportunities, policy and practice are critical in promoting integration. Again, this is common to all three countries.

Children playing, by Izzie, aged 6


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3. Methodology

3.1 Approach The project partnership intended to create a network of early years practitioners sharing knowledge, skills, expertise and educational opportunities regarding inclusive education through play. One central issue of the networks created through the partnership was to establish common concepts of inclusive learning through play. For this reason, the main activity of the partnership was the seminars in each of the countries involved, as a context both for exchanging ideas and knowledge and for exploring the participants’ meanings of inclusion and play. The team decided that seminars were both an opportunity to create networks but also to undertake research. Therefore, the aim of the research within the seminars was to investigate participants’ constructs of the notion of inclusion through the medium of hypothetical and real life case studies. To achieve this aim, an interpretive paradigm was employed (Denzin and Lincoln, 2006, Guba and Lincoln, 2006) with a focus on social constructivist, hermeneutic approaches to data collection and methods of data analysis (Heywood and Stronach 2005). The method of data collection, that is, audio-video recording, allowed the conversations to be scrutinised by the researchers for how ‘inclusion’ is interpreted, understood and represented in discourse (Gillen and Peterson 2005). The theoretical frameworks that underpin the research are located specifically within Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Model of Ecological Child Development; Vygotsky’s (1978) social constructivist theories of child development and theories of reproduction, habitus and capital (Bourdieu 1977, for example).

3.2 Research design A complex design was chosen for the seminars. The structure for the seminars was in two parts. The first part consisted of presentations by academic staff from each of the partner universities, which provided an overview of inclusion and play within their country. Longer times for presentations were allocated to guest countries within each seminar, as local practitioners were not familiar with the policy contexts in those countries.

The second part of the seminars consisted of group discussions stimulated by three case studies located in each of the three partner countries. The method employed in this second part was the focus conversation. It could be argued that a focus group is being deployed as a specific method of data collection, but the term ‘focus conversation’ was preferred. A focus conversation acknowledges that there is a willingness to participate in discussion of a ‘shared experience knowledge and interest’ and also to explore statements and ideas’ (Clough and Nutbrown 2002: 78). Participants had been informed of the aims of the project as well as the aims of the seminars: the focus on inclusion, play and early learning had been made explicit. The purpose of this research design was to generate qualitative data, commensurate with the interpretive paradigm chosen.

For this second part of the seminar, participants were split at random into groups, each to discuss the case studies. There were slight differences in the three seminars

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regarding the number of groups for focus conversations and the number of case studies discussed. Participants in each of the three groups in England seminar discussed only one case study. Participants in seminar groups in Romania and Poland discussed all three case studies. The change was made as a result of participant evaluations and suggestions.

For research purposes, it was only the second part of the seminars that was to be video-recorded, with participants’ prior approval and consent. Responses to the case study questions (see Appendix 4) were also noted on a flip chart for future analysis. In addition, evaluations from participants were sought at the end of the event. The project team, as facilitators of the discussions, was also part of the participant group.

For the third part of the seminar, the groups came back together in order to share conclusions and final thoughts in a plenary session.

3.3 Case StudiesThe planning of the research design began months before the delivery of the first seminar, and one of the tasks was to prepare the case studies. Romania and Poland teams employed real life case studies (Maria and Dominik respectively).The England team constructed the hypothetical case of Hassan, a child born in Afghanistan in order to present a typical scenario for early years practitioners working in a large city in England such as Birmingham. All case studies included aspects of the individual child’s micro, meso and macro-experiences, such as interests, characteristics, family and local provision in an early years context. All three case studies had the same four questions for participants to respond to, aiming to provoke discussion and reflection on a range of issues related to play and inclusive practice (see Appendix 4). Seminar participants in all the three countries received the case studies, the questions and a policy background describing the local context for each country prior to the event in order to familiarize themselves with the materials.

3.4 ParticipantsThe three country teams had some degree of freedom in deciding about specific aspects of the research design, such as the number and type of participants invited (see Table 3.1. As a result, a wide range of participants in terms of professional role, responsibility, experience, expertise, social and cultural diversity received invitations to the seminar.

Table 3.1: Participant numbersEngland

March 2010Romania

November 2010Poland

March 2011Seminar

1Seminar

2Seminar

1Seminar

2Seminar

1Seminar

2Number of particpants

35 19 46 46 22 39

Total 54 92 61


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In England, the research was undertaken with two different groups. Invitations were sent to all students registered on the following degree programmes at NUC: Post Graduate Certificate in Education, Initial Teacher Education, Early Childhood Education and Care and Working with Children, Young People and Families. Both full and part time students were invited. Invitations were also sent to a range of specialists and professionals working in the early years sector, for example the Walsall Traveller Education Support Service and local authority early years advisors. In addition, invitations were sent to all NUC staff. The first seminar comprised of participants who were students, most of whom had little or no experience of working within the sector.

The second seminar comprised of more experienced practitioners. The first seminar was held during the day in an attempt to attract as many participants as possible and the second seminar was held during the evening for the convenience of practitioners who had work commitments.

In Romania, the participants were early years practitioners and specialists from kindergartens and schools, mostly women, from Sibiu city and also Sibiu County.

Overall there were 92 participants in addition to six facilitators who were academic staff from the ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu. The groups were different for each of the two days of the seminar. Participants in the first seminar consisted of teachers and managers from Sibiu County kindergartens. Participants in the second seminar were specialists involved in inclusive practice such as psychologists, speech therapists and support teachers. In Poland, 20 of the participants in the first seminar were professionals with at least ten years experience in social care institutions or primary and secondary schools as teachers, therapists and social worker s for example. 17 were also academic lecturers and researchers. This group is defined as More Experienced Practitioners (MEP).Three groups of participants, 39 in total, took part in the second series of seminars. All of them were degree students of Pedagogy. Nearly 80 % of them were practitioners in early years education and social care with under five years professional experience. For the purpose of the research this group is defined Less Experienced Practitioners (LEP).

3.5 Ethical considerationsPrior to the three seminars a letter of consent had been sent to all participants, explaining the aims and design of the research and requesting consent to audio-video record seminar groups. This letter also informed them of their rights as participants in research, such as the right to withdraw from the research at any time without explanation etc. In England, ethical approval had also been sought from the NUC Ethics Committee.

A reminder about confidentiality was also provided by discussion group seminar facilitators at the beginning and end of each discussion group. Video footage was only made available to the research team. The research team members had the responsibility to ensure the safety and protection of the data files. All the reporting activities of the research ensure anonymity and confidentiality (actual names are not used, either of adults, children or families).

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3.6 Project managementNUC had the responsibility to manage the project. Each country had a team involved in implementing the project and also a project manager. The three countries shared responsibilities, as detailed below:

NUC responsibilities included:l initiating and maintaining regular communication between partnersl managing and updating the action plan agreed in consultation with partners and

ensuring the tasks and outcomes are congruent with the project aims and outcomes and are on track throughout the project

l initiating, monitoring, editing written outcomes of the projectl reviewing risks to the project and responding to mitigate any threats to outcomes

being achievedl ensuring the evaluation and dissemination process and ensuring these tasks are

completedl implementing partnership agreements with all partners ensuring commitment to

the agreed tasks

All partners’ responsibilities:l for lead tutors to identify a network of early years practitioners to target for

seminars in their own country l travelling to partner countries, contribute to and participate in seminars and other

planned events and meetingsl planning with the team of lead tutors and implementing interactive, engaging

seminars for interested parties / networksl being actively involved in dissemination activities and management process, and

providing requested reports on project progressl hosting visits by tutors and seminars in their own country within the duration of the

project. l supporting visiting tutors by making arrangements for field visits; sourcing

accommodation, helping with travel arrangements, providing opportunities for cultural and social activities, facilitating meetings with colleagues working in the early years sector to share practice and promote networking.

Each country project team will have further opportunity to evaluate actions, responsibilities, outcomes and events as required by the National Agency in each country, for example.

3.7 Data analysisFollowing the seminars, each research team agreed a protocol for data analysis and worked to undertake this stage of the research process. Again, specific aspects of the research, like choosing the method of data analysis, were differently managed by the research teams in the three countries.

In England, raw data existed in the form of audio-video recordings of the focus conversations of participants in response to the four questions for each case study. This resulted in three hours of audio-video recording. Three members of the PLEYIn


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England project team met and watched the audio-video recorded data. As the audio-video data played, they independently made notes on emerging categories from the focus conversations, and then compared notes. Six potential common categories were identified and agreed at this point (see next section). The second phase of the analysis was designed to confirm, change or reject any of the six categories that had emerged in the first phase. Each of the same three team members took the data relating to one case study to re-examine the data carefully then select and arrange data by category (Radnor 2002).

It is acknowledged that this process is fraught with subjectivity on behalf of the researchers but it did confirm that the six original categories captured what participants talked about in the focus conversations. Subjectivity arises from variations in definitions and notions of inclusion, special schools, multi-agency working, SEN, as they change from person to person and country to country. The England PLEYIn team wanted to explore such subjectivities as part of the data analysis process. Similarly, ‘social languages’ which ‘allow us to express different socially significant identities’ (Gee 2005: 35), shape how participants constructed the identities of the children, their families, their needs, their cultures and so on. This process also resonates with Foucault’s discourse analysis or regimes of truth (Dahlberg and Moss 2005: 141) whereby dominant discourses ‘come to be accepted as true’. Discourses revealed dominant constructs around play and inclusion in the context of each child case study in the data analysis. Data were organised as ‘headlines’ for the six categories for the findings section in order to capture and present participants’ discourse instead of the researchers’ interpretations of it.

In Romania, the seminar delivery produced more than nine hours of audio-video data for analysis and also written data on flipchart sheets. The audio-video data were transcribed, resulting in a significant amount of written material. The transcribing process respected categories such educators/specialists, countries and the case study questions. The categories provided independent variables for comparing the data. The main method used for analysing the data from the Romanian seminar was qualitative content analysis (Babbie 1992; Mayring 2000; Ritchie and Lewis 2003; Pope, Ziebland and Mays 2000), a method for inductively exploring the data in order ‘to generate categories and explanations on social phenomena’ (Pope, Ziebland and Mays 2000).

From the many types of qualitative content analysis available, a conventional content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon 2005) was used. The main approach is the careful examination of data and constant comparison (Strauss and Corbin 1990). This process consists of reading the text data repeatedly in order to compare each item with the rest of the data and to index it to a category. Thus, a large number of themes (or codes) emerged and an initial coding scheme was elaborated. This initial coding scheme was continuously developed, as the rest of the codes were sorted into the different categories and added to the coding scheme. Whenever a code was not consistent with any of the existing categories, a new category was created. The final result of this process was a complete coding scheme, containing all the data in their analytical categories. As researchers moved along this process of analysing data, it became self-evident that a summative content analysis approach was also needed for interpreting the data (i.e. counting codes and then making comparisons between

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categories). The summative approach in qualitative content analysis means going beyond counting words and exploring the latent meaning of occurrences (Hsieh and Shannon 2005).

In Poland, raw data consisted of transcriptions of six hours of audio-video recording in addition to the notes taken during the seminars. The Poland research team used qualitative content analysis and the same process of open coding as the Romanian team (Babbie, 2005). More emphasis was placed on the search for ‘what’ (i.e. as a risk factor or a protective factor) rather than the number of occurrences within the discourse of the participants. Raw data in the Polish research, taking account of where some concepts are subsumed into others or merge, were divided into two separate categories: horizontal, determined by the discourse of the participants in relation to inclusion and vertical, connected with the case study questions (risk factors and protective factors). Moreover, sub-codes within the main codes were apparent and indicated further variables for analysis (see Tables 6.1 and 6.2).

Similarly, the categorisation of the two groups participating in the seminar (more experienced practitioners and less experienced practitioners, MEP and LEP, see Section 3.4) was identified as an independent variable in order to investigate whether this had an influence on the categories.

The codes and categories facilitated a comparison of codes which emerged from the data from each of the three countries’ seminars as presented in following sections.

Summary pointsl The aim of the research within the seminars was to investigate participants’

construct of the notion of inclusion through the medium of hypothetical and real life case studies.

l The seminars had a complex design of three sections, the second of which was devoted to qualitative research.

l The main method of data collection was focus conversations centred around three case studies located in each of the three countries.

l A wide range of practitioners participated in the seminars in the three countries.

l The England team’s approach to data analysis was to note the emerging themes in the participants’ discourses regarding inclusion and play.

l The Romania team’s approach to data analysis was to apply qualitative content analysis (conventional and summative).

l The Poland team’s approach to data analysis was also to apply qualitative content analysis.


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4. England Findings and Analysis

The order of presentation of findings, England, Romania and Poland, has been decided on the basis of chronology. As the report tells the story of the project, so the reader can follow the sequence and associated changes and development of the research (see Table 1.1).

Processing of the data from focus group discussions in England resulted in six themes or categories: inclusion, family, practitioners, community, policy and play. Silverman (2007: 64) warns of ‘the scattergram approach of simply quoting favourable instances’ in data analysis of discourse but as data were sifted, sorted, coded and re-read, the risk of anecdotalism was mitigated through repeating the process of comparison and checking for a match of categories. Therefore, findings include direct quotes from participants presented in boxes (Headlines) and additional discourse as a commentary to the boxes. The team acknowledges that the discourse is often ambiguous due to a lack of context and confirmation of meaning. Individual seminar group dynamics shaped discourse too, such as relative contributions of quieter and more vocal practitioners and more or less experienced practitioners, a variable pursued by the Poland team in Section 6.

Discourse related to inclusion is presented first as it was the most frequently occurring category. Participants constructed inclusion as differentiation, as a means of promoting consistency, a means to meet emotional needs, a way to cope with SEN beyond the role and responsibilities of early years practitioners. They consider inclusion to be shaped by the practices and beliefs of other professionals and parents and to be determined by access to services. In the case of Hassan, inclusion was conflated with English as an Additional Language (EAL).

Box 4.1: Inclusion Headlines ‘There is a need to measure behaviour; to move child away from others.’

‘SEN not the right thing for the child.’

‘Observed behaviour is the focus rather than the antecedents.’

‘They should be looking at the child’s behaviour to see if there’s a problem, to put him in SEN.’

‘As he gets older he may miss more time from education if there is a lack of early intervention.’

‘Teachers are resistant to change.’

‘They seem to have jumped onto the behaviour problems rather than [looking at] the child’s background.’

Seminar in England March 2010

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In addition, participants noted how inclusion is challenged by labelling, stigma,

prejudice, social attitudes amongst children, families and practitioners. They

acknowledged that needs are explained by culture and life history, that difficulties

can be remedied by social inclusion in the setting, and that integration is better than

segregation.

How the case study children could be integrated into their settings arose from the

first question about risk factors and to some extent the second about protective

factors. It became evident that there was a wide variety of interpretation of the term

‘inclusion’ but there was minimum debate as to what is understood by ‘inclusion’; it

was frequently conflated with the term ‘integration’ and EAL needs. The influence of

policy underpinned the discussion about integration, for example relating to the EYFS

(DfES 2007) and the SEN Code of Practice (DfES 2001b), reinforcing the importance of

entitlements being explicit in statutory requirements.

The second most frequently occurring category was family with interesting variation in

how the children’s families in the case studies were constructed. Participants talked

about the case study families as being in need, being traumatised, being isolated,

being alienating (not alienated), being un-involved, being different, being together,

being resilient and being proud.

Box 4.2 Family Headlines‘The family wants to be involved.’

‘Families have to seek out support to access it.’

‘Families do not have much to do with kindergartens.’

‘Practitioners should communicate with the family more and talk about what the child is doing in the kindergarten.’

‘I think she travels on the bus, she attends the meeting for unemployed women, she looks after the house- I think she is quite a strong woman’ about Dominik’s mother.

‘Parents’ own education [is important and their] potential role in helping Dominik to learn…’

‘[The] child is not just alienated by agencies but by parents too…. [he is] just picking up things from his brothers and sisters at home rather than being sat down and read to by [his]parents.’

The discourse tended to be dominated by a deficit model of ‘family’ and ‘parents’.

Protective factors written into in the case study of Hassan (see Appendix 1), such as

his bond with his sister and the willingness of his parents to contribute to the setting

were not considered to be as significant to Hassan’s integration to the setting as his

ability to speak English for example. Some participants recognised levels of resilience

within families, and how parents in the case studies were committed to supporting

their children in difficult circumstances. The variation in participants’ sensitivities

to the needs of families could be attributable to their own biography: experience,

training and education as well as attitudes and prejudices, as evident in Practitioners

Headlines, Box 4.3, too.


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In addition, participants’ discourse noted that practitioners should be able to

differentiate, to research, to meet individual needs, to support the child holistically,

to understand the child’s life story, to understand EAL, to access other agencies and

services, to involve parents, to learn some words in home languages, to explain the

child’s background to the class but ‘not to scare them’, to establish a routine, to

undertake home visits, to be creative, to learn about the child’s culture and to be

empathetic. Participants also noted that practitioners have limited access to training.

Box 4.3 Practitioners Headlines ‘Practitioners do not have enough knowledge to manage or enough experience.’

‘Practitioners do not listen to the child.’

‘Their minds and their views need to be changed... the Early Years are the door because this family does not have much information or knowledge ... it is not correct to have judgmental views.’

‘But the child has no voice.’

‘[Practitioners] should provide a haven.’

‘[Practitioners] should explain the child’s background to the class but not to scare them.’

‘[Practitioners] should explain to parents that their child’s behaviour is wrong.’

The discourse relating to practitioners suggests that participants, who are also

practitioners, set high expectations of themselves and of each other. Such

expectations could be argued to be unrealistic. They expect practitioners to be

experts in identifying the needs of all children but also individual children such as

those in the case studies. But there is a tension here between competing roles of

being ‘carer’ (providing a haven, being a nurturer), being ‘teacher’ (‘explain to

parents that the child’s behaviour is wrong’) and being ‘the early years professional’

(being reflective, being able to differentiate, being able to access agencies). Research

shows that early years practitioners in the UK struggle with competing roles and

identities due to the low status and gendered nature of early years work, a legacy of

past policies and social constructions of childcare (McGillivray 2011).

Participants’ discourse relating to policy was broad-ranging in terms of micro-,

meso- and macro-level policies. Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Ecological Model of Human

Development is implicit in other headlines in how a child’s potential for growth and

development is shaped by family (Box 4.2) and community (Box 4.5) at the micro- and

meso-level. In Box 4.4, the impact on inclusion of policy is articulated by participants

as connections are made between government policy and inclusion in practice, ie,

macro-levels of influence. Some participants understood tensions between policy

and practice, and how ‘regimes of truth’ Foucault, in Dahlberg and Moss 2005)

are dominant in education to the extent that policy places focus on assessment

bureaucracy for example rather than the child in need.

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Participants’ discourse around policy and the case study children noted how the SEN

Code of Practice was being implemented too hastily, but another participant felt it

was too slow. They talked about policy changes being too frequent, being too tightly

bound with national economy, being shaped by ideologies and national imperatives

(such as Health and Safety). They voiced a need for joined up services at a local

level, for key workers, for settling in policies (for child’s and parents’ benefit), for

signposting to services and specialist parent workshops.

Box 4.4 Policy Headlines‘Look at the child, not the policy.’

‘Has to be top down.’

‘He played on the streets in devastated buildings.’

‘The old lady who often looked after him probably didn’t have any qualifications.’

‘What would happen to her (the child) after 18? Who would look after her?’ Researcher / tutor’s reply, ‘Well, this is a big problem. There is no caring [sic] for children after 18 in Romania.’

‘Policy depends on what Government [party] is in power.’

The discourse about community was contradictory however; it placed obligations on

communities and was characterised by negative constructions of community. Discourse

suggests participants struggle to define ‘community’ and that they are uncertain about

the interface between children, families, early years settings and ‘communities’.

Participants noted that, for the case study children, community support is available

but also that the community erects barriers through racist attitudes and language and

that it is prejudiced against disability.

Box 4.5 Community Headlines‘Co operatives [would help] - whereby the community helps themselves.‘

‘The community needs to be involved [with the children’s centre]; there should be images of the community so the child can see and develop his understanding of people in the community.’

‘The child may be isolated in the school and the community through language barriers.’

‘Racism in the community will cause him not to be a happy child.’

‘The community is diverse.’

‘The community is not diverse.’

Play was the least frequently occurring category aspect of the case studies, even

though they were designed to ‘flag’ its potential in supporting the needs of the

children in the case studies.


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Summary pointsl Data from seminars in England resulted in six categories: inclusion, family,

practitioners, community, policy and play, in descending order of frequency of occurrence.

l Discourse suggests that participants are concerned about how to support children and families, but that there are tensions created by policy imperatives relating to SEN.

l Discourse was ambiguous and contradictory. This can be attributed to variability in participants’ experience, expertise, professional and personal ideologies.

l Inclusion is often conflated with integration and needs arising from children with EAL, for example.

l Participants had high expectations of practitioners as experts; competing roles were implicit.

l Play featured least in the discourse.

Box 4.6 Play Headlines‘Creative activities can engage individual children.’

‘Play can channel frustrations.’

‘Children use play to express himself.’

‘Safe violent release play or rough and tumble play can be helpful.’

‘Play can be a type of therapy.’

‘Parents may not value play.’

‘Early Years education is about learning through play.’

‘Parents may need to be taught how to play with children.’

There are potential explanations for this: play is complex in itself, so is avoided when

there are other distractions in the case studies to focus on. Alternatively, the value

of play and its therapeutic properties are under-emphasised in all three countries; or

participants were not confident in exploring play-based activities and learning as a

means to overcome exclusion. Finally, facilitators may not have steered the discussion

to consider play as a means of including the children. Whichever it is, the team needs

to explore it.

A social constructionist paradigm recognises political, cultural, historical influences.

What is seen in one context as a ‘social problem’ may also be seen as a social problem

in another (poverty, behaviour, EAL, culture) but there are nuances and perspectives

that can be aligned to moralistic discourses, social justice discourses and / or social

integrationist discourses (Levitas 2005).

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5. Romania Findings and Analysis Data coding was descriptive and thematic as described previously. Attention was given to negative cases – situations when ideas shared between participants seemed to be different to the majority of views expressed (Bowling, Ebrahim, 2005: 525). The final coding scheme can be seen in Table 5.1. Ten main codes emerged from the Romanian seminars: family, child, practitioners, community, education, inclusive education, interventions, resources, play and collaboration/network.

Codes Code definition ExampleFamily References to the whole family or just to the

parents.‘involvement and support from Hassan’s family’‘instability of family environment’‘education level of parents’‘the fact that parents are accepting of the child’s situation’

Practitioners References to the practitioners (teachers and specialists) dealing with the child.

‘educators’ volunteering’‘medical training for educators’‘the lack of specialists (speech therapist, psychologist, counsellor)’

Community References to the community (or part of community) in which family lives.

‘poor neighbourhood’‘the neighbour taking care of the child’‘more involvement from the community’

Interventions References to the interventions used (or that should be used) in dealing with the child. Three types of interventions emerged:1. Level 1 - interventions from the family and practitionersLevel 2 - Interventions from 2. community, associations, NGOs3. Level 3 – statutory interventions

‘law in this field should be improved’ (level 3)‘the child is following a recovery programme’ (level 1)‘involving local authorities’ (level 2)

Resources References to the financial (material) and educational resources used in dealing with the child.

‘more financial aid for this child’‘high number of children in the classroom’‘insufficient space in the classroom’ld’

Child References to the child in the case study. ‘encouraging Maria’s inherent skills’‘Maria’s emotional deprivation’

Education References to education in general: activities (also extracurricular), practices, curriculum.

lack of social and educational integration of Dominik’‘treating the SEN children equally’‘well organised inclusive education in UK’

Inclusive education

References to inclusive education: activities, practices, curriculum.

‘lack of social and educational integration of Dominik’

Play References to play (settings, resources related to play, play activities).

‘play adapted to the child’s needs’‘ecological vision on play’‘play suffocated by rules’

Collaboration/ network

References to collaboration or participation in networks of all those involved in dealing with the child.

‘network of parents for helping them being informed about SEN children’‘sharing responsibility between all those involved’

Table 5.1: Coding scheme for analysing data in the Romanian seminars

It was evident in the analysis that codes varied in their number of occurrences and that participants had preferred themes for discussion. We thus considered that a summative approach was appropriate to understand participants’ preferred themes. The summative approach in qualitative content analysis aims to explore the latent meaning of codes occurrences (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). It was decided to use only the verbal content of the seminars and to explore data with reference to three independent variables to facilitate comparison:

1. The role of the participant as either early years teachers or specialists (speech therapists, psychologist and support teachers). We will use ‘teachers’ and ‘specialists’ to differentiate between these two categories.

2. The three countries (England, Romania, Poland).3. The four case study questions (see Appendix 4). Table 5.2 shows the main codes in descending order by the number of occurrences and also the rank each code received for the two categories of participants in the study (early years teachers and specialists). Several interesting conclusions can be drawn from the data presented in Table 5.2. The ‘Family’ code is the most frequently used and is distanced from the second code (Interventions) and the third one (Practitioners). Teachers in the study make more references to family than the specialists and think more of their actions should be related to family. For both categories family is mentioned more in response to the first question of the case study (ie., concerns about the child and his situation) than the others. Most of the utterances in this code acknowledge the difficulties that families face in their efforts to meet their children’s needs, for example ‘I think the real problem here is the lack of affection from the mother and the fact that she does not show emotional closeness’ (teacher, first day of seminar).

Table 5.2. Order of main codes for all the participants and subcategories Codes Code occurrences Rank Order of codes

for teachersOrder of codesfor specialists

Family 99 1 Family InterventionsInterventions 72 2 Interventions Family

Practitioners 46 3 Practitioners PractitionersChild 33 4 Inclusive education ChildInclusive education 32 5 Community EducationEducation 25 6 Child Inclusive

educationCommunity 24 7 Resources ResourcesResources 19 8 Education CommunityCollaboration/network

12 9 Collaboration/network

Collaboration/network

equal to PlayPlay 7 10 Play


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The second most frequently occurring code is ‘Interventions’. Participants in the seminar frequently referred to who can/must have an active role in addressing the child’s needs and in what way. They mentioned distinctively three types of agencies that can or should intervene, as can be seen in Figure 5.1. One example of a level 1 intervention is captured in this comment: ‘In my opinion, teachers working with this child have the responsibility to talk to other parents of children in the setting to raise their awareness of this child’s needs’ (teacher). The overall interventions mentioned are level 2 interventions (that either were already implemented or should be implemented in the future): by NGOs, church, local authorities, neighbours, medical institutions, etc. The specialists involved in the seminar made more references to interventions than the teachers, and they referred much more to level 1 and 3 interventions, which are interventions made by the family and practitioners, and also by the state.

For the third code, ‘Practitioners’, specialists and teachers make an almost equal number of references and most of these are related to the third and fourth questions of the case study. As expected, a difference was evident regarding the number of occurrences for this code in relation to the country, in the sense that there were fewer references to practitioners in the England and Poland data and much more for the Romanian data. Reviewing all utterances here revealed some critical points for reflection. First, the overall picture drawn by Romanian practitioners (teachers and specialists) about themselves emphasises their emotional involvement in working with the child. The emotional bond with the child is considered an essential quality of any practitioner and necessary to help the child.

Second, another significant aspect was how practitioners’ privileged family status more than age and experience. Thus, some participants placed less value on experience in working with young children and more on young people being better suited for the job as they can emotionally bond more easily with the child. The idea that, if practitioners have children of their own, they can respond better to other children’s needs was also expressed by some participants. This was mentioned in relation to Maria and her foster mother: ‘Difficulties that Maria’s foster mother has in dealing with her can in part be explained, I think, by the fact that the mother doesn’t

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LEVEL 1

LEVEL 2

LEVEL 1 = Family and practitioners working with child

LEVEL 2 = Interventions from local community (NGOs, church, local authorities, neighbours, medical institutions,etc

LEVEL 3 = Interventions from the stateLEVEL 3

Figure 5.1. Levels of agencies that can intervene to address children’s needs.

have her own children and this is not a real family. I would suggest that Maria should be transferred to a real family, with children’.

Third, a need for more opportunities for training and ongoing development of practitioners was acknowledged and expressed by the participants. ‘Only with proper training in pedagogy and in medical and psychological fields can we support those working with children like Maria and manage such cases effectively’ (specialist).

The reason we chose to identify a fourth code separately as the ‘Child’ and not within the ‘Family’ code, was its visibility in the participants’ discourse. The specialists made references to this category much more: the ‘child’ category ranks the fourth for the specialists and the sixth for the teachers. Many of the sub-codes mentioned here were either psychological characteristics (like sociability or tendency to aggressiveness) or physical features (like health status) of the three children in the case studies. Many of practitioners involved in case studies discussions also stressed the potential of all three children for development and the fact that this should be valued most.

The next two codes could also have been considered together as one category, but we decided to assess them independently because of the need to understand the views and constructs of inclusion and inclusive education: the aim of the research. The summative handling of data indicates that the ‘inclusive education’ code apparently has a more important place in the teachers’ discourse than in the specialists’ one. References to inclusive education are made mostly for the Romanian case study (probably because participants had more detailed knowledge about the inclusive education system in Romania). The fewest references to inclusion related to the Poland case study. There was much discussion here regarding what practitioners could and should do for children with SEN. As negative points they mentioned the discontinuity of the assessment process of children with SEN; the financial obstacles which impede the deployment of more specialists; the fact that only children with mild disabilities are included and delays in integrating children with SEN in kindergarten and school. ‘Going to special school means the efforts made in kindergarten for including Maria are negated and therefore it is regressive for her’ (teacher).

Seminar in Romania November 2010


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In the sixth category, teachers made fewer references to ‘Education’ than the specialists. Generally references were made to curriculum, educational environment, teaching activities and extracurricular activities that can enhance the potential of children. It is noteworthy that discourse regarding ‘Inclusive education’ and ‘Education’ codes, compared with utterances in the ‘Family’ or ‘Practitioners’ codes, was expressed in a language shaped by pedagogical theory such as ‘curricular adaptation’, ‘educational environment’, ‘diversity of educational offer’, ‘valuing the potential of children with SEN’, etc. In other codes a less professional discourse was evident, especially when talking about practitioners’ work difficulties or relation with the families. As for ‘Family’, community seems to closer to the teachers than the specialists, maybe because they interact more with families and people from the local community, while the specialists’ work is more focused on the child. The most frequent idea here was ‘people from community should engage in helping the efforts of practitioners’, but other various issues were also mentioned: community integration, tolerance/discrimination from community, the role of the community church. The last three codes, ‘Resources’, ‘Collaboration/network’ and ‘Play’ had the fewest occurrences and they ranked almost the same for teachers and specialists. In the ‘Resource’ code we put together all contributions regarding either educational or financial resources (intervention tools, methods, toys, money). There were more references to financial resources and less to educational resources. Here the participants’ accounts mentioned equipment in day care centres, lack or insufficient financial resources (or the need to supplement these resources), teaching resources and payment for education. Regarding the ‘Collaboration/network’ code, many practitioners talked about collaboration as a necessity and a tool for achieving inclusion. They talked about how collaboration between institutions and agencies involved in the inclusion process should be mandatory and stipulated in official documents (like education law) and protocols.

Participants noted there is no real communication between institutions or between specialists working within them. They also suggested that a unique assessment form which included relevant information about the child from birth would be a real help for their work. The following testimony is significant in this context: ‘I have worked with children with special needs about whom I knew nothing. They had a disability certificate and a very brief assessment from the commission that issued the certificate…and nothing else. I had to do a personal assessment of the child all over again. Then I made a phone call to all the prior institutions the child had attended to gather more information about him. But only because I wanted to, this is not a mandatory requirement of my job.’ The participants gave much attention to collaboration, but few of them conceptualised their ideas in terms of network. The participants talked about the network of parents, or the support network surrounding the child, but not in the sense of a formal network.Quantitatively, it seems that play is not an essential issue in relation to inclusion for the participants in the Romanian seminar. Only seven accounts in the two days of seminars referred explicitly to play. However, interesting issues were raised in this respect for practitioners in Romania. Practitioners invoked the ‘organised nature of

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play’ in Romanian kindergartens or even that play is ‘suffocated by rules’. Accounts of play varied by country, by case study and video material; they were conducive to different types of discourse. Thus, for Poland the participants talked about ‘street play’; for England they acknowledged that ‘play was well adapted to the child’s needs’ and also that in England, compared to Romania, play is seen as more important and beneficial for inclusion.

Summary pointsl Ten main codes emerged from the Romanian seminars: family, interventions,

practitioners, child, inclusive education, education, community, resources, collaboration/network and play.

l There were different rank orders for teachers and for specialists in each of these ten codes.

l Different discourses were used by participants when addressing different themes of the case studies.

l More theoretical and professional language was evident in the debate within the education and inclusive education themes than for other themes.

l There was no recognition of benefits brought about by collaborative work within formal local networks of practitioners and parents for facilitating inclusion.

l Similarly, there were no references to communities of practice among practitioners working in the field of inclusion.

l Play does not feature in discussion about inclusion.


35 ‘Me’ by Mara age 4

6. Poland Findings and Analysis

The process for analyzing the data from the Poland seminars was explained in section 3.7.Tables 6.1 and 6.2 show the research categories and variables that emerged from this process.

Table 6.1. Vertical analytical categories determined by analysis of the discourse of participants in relation to inclusion

Category: Family Support Changes required

Family members:- mother- father- child/children

Persons- close family- neighbours-professionals

Level of knowledge and com-petences of:- practitioners- parents- children- other social groups

Strengths observed within the family:- relationships between family members- behaviours of family members - feelings- family members’ atti-tude to the outside world

Institutions- educational- offering help

Law - social- local- educational

Family life contexts:- social and cultural en-vironment of the family life- life perspectives (aspi-rations, aims)

Tools - algorithms of interventions- finances- education- knowledge

Structure of social inclusion help/support-interdisciplinary/multi-pro-fessional networks

Seminar in Poland March 201136

Vari

able

s an

d th

eir

vari

ants

Table 6.1 shows data organized into in three vertical categories: family, support and changes required. The analysis of participants’ discourse connected to ‘inclusion’ determined the variables in each of these three categories: family members, strengths within the family, family life contexts etc. It is significant to note that practitioners identified change as being important for inclusion, specifically in terms of practitioners’ skills, knowledge and understanding; legislative change and structures for inclusion. These categories inevitably overlap with those identified in Table 6.2, which were determined by participants’ responses to the case study questions (see Appendix 4) specifically.


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Category Variables and their variantsDichotomy of variable level:

Risk factors

or

Protective factors

Family:- history- employment of parents- level of parents’ educationStrengths observed within the family:- relationships between family members-behaviours of family members - feelings- family members’ attitude to the outside world

Persons- close family- neighbours-professionals Institutions- educational- offering

Level of knowledge and competences of:- practitioners- parents- children- other social groupsLaw - social- local- educational

Practitioners’ duties

Diagnosis of:- child’s needs- family needs- risk factors- protective factors

To build plan of actions:- providing the needs - supporting individual de-velopment of a child - strengthening protecting factors- weakening risk factors

To set frames for cooperation between:- educators and parents- professionals (network)

Broader implications

Development on the basis of achievement of various science:- healthcare system- system of education towards responding to child’s developmental needs - social regulations (pro-social campaigns)

To build up practitioners’ knowledge about:- social group dynamics- the nature of tolerance- tools of social inclusion of a child

To train practitioners’ inter-personal competencies To increase practitioners’ level of social competencies

Table 6.2 also shows that the most significant risk factors in the Poland data were related to ‘family’. This can be attributed to overlap within the data and / or the significance of family for inclusion and to contribute to risk and protective factors. Participants talked about paternal absence, parental health such as addiction and illness, features of the child such as illness or disorder, the child’s level of social functioning, features of the child’s neighbourhood such as poverty and isolation, the child’s traumatic biography as being significant risk factors. The lack of coordination of actions taken by statutory agencies and organisations as a risk factor engendered very lively discussion among MEPs particularly.

Table 6.2. Horizontal analytical categories determined by responses to the case study questions and their variables

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Thus the data did not reveal new risk factors or categories for social exclusion but they reinforced the importance of ‘social environments integration and cooperation’. Protective factors are in general dichotomous with reference to the risk factors and so they similarly concern ‘family’ as the most significant category. Participants noted particular parental attitudes such as being involved in their children’s activities, developing strong emotional relationships and being open-minded and features of the child such as their health or level of social functioning. They also noted features of the neighbourhood (proximity to big cities, access to medical and welfare services) and the provision of adequate tools to support the child’s development (education, integration, eating habits, health care) as essential protective factors. The categories underlined the importance of professional competencies, the ability of practitioners to identify the needs of children and families, to coordinate actions and to gain relevant qualifications and competences. Discourse suggests that the most significant implications for inclusion are to build protective factors and to neutralize risk factors. However, the data did not determine play as a tool for children’s inclusion. Play does not appear as a category or as a variable in the analytic categories. No significant differences were noticed between LEPs and MEPs perception of child’s case studies although MEPs acknowledged the importance of formal legislative and financial aspects on inclusion. In this respect participants look forward to essential changes in Poland. LEPs, on the other hand, focussed on the development of their skills and on increasing their level of knowledge and understanding of children’s needs, growth and development. Both groups of participants unanimously postulated the creation of specialist networks which can work together for children’s inclusion.

Summary pointsl The search for single risk and protective factors did not bring any significant

findings in Polish research and concur with previous research (Rutter, 1987; Ostaszewski, 2003).

l However, findings from Poland confirm the multifaceted, complex nature of the risks and chances a child has for inclusion.

l Findings also confirm the legitimacy for creating networks of professionals to cooperate together.

l The absence of play being perceived as a tool for inclusion calls for further research into play and its role in children’s socialization, education and inclusion.


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7.Conclusions

The PLEYIN project team agreed that any synthesis of findings from each country should capture each country’s distinctiveness – we were not seeking homogeneity or comparison. However, on examination of the findings from the three countries, there are several points for reflection. First, the methods for data analysis evolved with each seminar series, determined by the expectation, or not, within the academy for each country that quantitative data analysis would feature in the research. Second, there were common threads within all data, such as recognition of the value of professional networks, the potential of the neighbourhood to provide support, the need for early intervention and effective communication between everyone concerned with the child, the lack of reference to play and the need for additional professional development. Third, data from Romania and Poland both indicated the need for legislative support for inclusion whereas data from England and Romania both emphasised the nurturing, maternalistic discourses of early years education.

What we have learned from the project is outlined in the following section, but in terms of synthesising data, the PLEYIn project outcome of a ‘statement of principles’ provided the opportunity for the team to undertake such a synthesis in a way that was grounded in the discourse of the research participants and unadulterated by those undertaking the data analysis. It is a summative outcome of the research process.The statement of principles was constructed through a re-examination the data from each country using a similar process to how data were processed from the seminars. This required repeated reading of all the seminar data to elicit and compare factors related to inclusion founded in each country. Each factor was compared with the rest of the data and indexed to a category – these became the basis for a ‘principle’. Whenever a factor was not consistent with any of the existing categories, a new factor, or principle, was created. The result of this stage of the process was a statement of principles for each country. These were collated into a table of principles for all three countries, presented in Appendix 6.

Therefore the final statement of principles (Box 7.1) was constructed from the categories of network, diversity, family partnership, play, skills, knowledge and understanding, advocacy, continuity, policy, early intervention and involvement in community.

‘The playground of joyfulness’ by Jake age 7.

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Box 7.1 Statement of Principles from the PLEYIn Project

Inclusion is best supported when there are strong connections between practitioners, specialists, families and agencies. This acknowledges shared responsibility, and that these work in an integrated way to co ordinate activity in the interests of the child and family.

Inclusive practice recognises that diversity of culture, language, religious belief, social class and ethnic origin provide a positive resource that should promote the wellbeing of all children and families.

Mutually respectful partnership with families is fundamental and that this is underpinned by the need for well developed professional skills to enable respectful, flexible and appropriate interventions that are sensitive to individual family circumstances and promote inclusion

Play should be a key tool for inclusion in the early years, especially for children with special educational needs. Practitioners should understand the value and potential of the pedagogy of play and that education and training focus on developing knowledge and understanding of play for inclusion.

All those involved in working with children and families are committed to continuing professional development, reflective practice and have a sound understanding of the factors that frame and shape their practice.

Practitioners have a key role in challenging stereotypes and prejudices and should promote the rights of the child and the family in the setting and beyond.

Intervention and support, to be effective, requires continuity of provision, monitoring and evaluation to allow for future provision to continue to support inclusion.

Organisations should be proactive in seeking to influence policy makers to sustain and promote inclusive practices

Intervention for inclusion should begin as soon as possible.

Extra-curricular and community based activities are an essential tool for the inclusion.


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In addition to presenting the Statement of Principles from the PLEYIn Project, the conclusion is an opportunity to reflect on how well we have achieved the aims of the project (see Section 1). The project aims were ambitious; it has already been acknowledged how the complexity of ‘inclusion’ alone dominated the project activities let alone grappling with ‘play’. Therefore, the aim of establishing common concepts of play and to promote the use of sustainable play resources proved unrealistic and needs to be pursued beyond the scope of the PLEYIn project. The creation of networks of practitioners within the partner countries has taken place, and the establishment of the PLEYIN project team as a network across countries is an achievement we are proud of. The seminars were well received and dissemination events are ongoing at the time of writing this report.As the project draws to a close, it is important to offer some final reflections, as presented in the next section, from members of the PLEYIn team in terms of what we have learned from the project and from the research.

What have we learned?

We - the PLEYIn project team - think there is more work to be done about what both ‘inclusion’ and ‘play’ mean for practitioners, educators and researchers. We learned that multiple definitions of play and inclusion already exist and that these potentially add to confusion and uncertainty. The project has confirmed the need to tease out what is understood by key terms such as educational inclusion and integration, social inclusion and social exclusion. We learned about what is important to practitioners and what their priorities are. We learned that children’s and human rights provide a shared foundation for understanding inclusion but that the medical model of disability can sometimes obscure policy and practice. We have come to appreciate that play is a tricky concept and has yet to be unravelled. This is possibly the most significant ‘treasure’ from our work, that is, to explore the potential of play as a tool for inclusion.

We learned there are challenges in international collaboration from linguistic differences and from competing demands of day to day work commitments on team members’ time. Also we learned that there are significant benefits of working with others from different professions and different policy contexts. As a project team, we learned about how history and policy shapes professional ways of thinking and ways of doing our work. We have developed professional communication skills through interacting with colleagues in other countries and acquiring and / or extending foreign language abilities.

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In all countries considerable progress has been made in recent years regarding inclusive education, but challenges remain. A community of practice, consisting of professionals within one field of work, allows opportunities to by share knowledge and expertise through regular interaction and collaboration (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder 2002). Such communities of practice exist in all three countries, but most of these groups are small, composed of similar practitioners (i.e. only teachers) and organised within the boundaries of the institutional setting or professional organisations. Thus, the opportunity to really communicate between all those involved in the inclusion process is largely absent. Participants did not explicitly acknowledge in their discourse the need for a community of practice in their field, or the need to be part of a formal network, but participants in Romania and Poland indirectly mentioned the advantages of such a community. Also, many participant evaluations written after the Romanian seminar delivery stated that the seminar filled an emptiness in their practice and they expressed the wish to be part of more similar events, where they can interact with their colleagues.

We learned about how the project provided the opportunity for participants in each locality to meet and discuss themes related to inclusion and to strengthen the links between them. Talking about the difficulties in their practice or sharing examples of good practice were ways of raising their awareness of what a formal professional network or a stronger community of practice could achieve for them. They embraced every opportunity to learn a little more about examples of good practice, resources and strategies used in other countries. Again, this aspect of the project directs us as to what can be done in future work in our respective countries as well as collaboratively.

Finally, in respect of future work to support ongoing professional development with early years practitioners within and across Europe, Mohamed (2006:145) offers a constructive point for reflection,

In this way an attempt can be made to move beyond a simplistic view of children as innocent and harmless, towards discussion to address issues of race, class, disability, ethnicity and gender.


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Appendix 1A CHILD BORN IN AFGHANISTAN: HASSAN’S STORY

By Karen Argent and Gill McGillivray

Hassan is four years old. He lives with his parents and younger sister aged eighteen months in one room in private rented accommodation in a suburb on the outskirts of Birmingham. There is a possibility that they may move to another area in the city in the near future. They arrived in England a year ago as asylum seekers from Babaji in Afghanistan. Both parents are well qualified, experienced teachers. The family was initially refused leave to remain in the UK but with help from the Refugee Council, they are pursuing an appeal and hope to achieve refugee status.

The family fled conflict in their home town where they experienced persecution and violence. Some of their family had already been killed and others had disappeared. The region had suffered bombing for a several months and most of the infrastructure had been destroyed.

Hassan has been attending a local nursery school for four months within a well established Children’s Centre (CC). The setting has a parent partnership policy and values the relationship with all parents. There are no other children from an Afghan background. He speaks fluent Pushtu and his parents have communicated via a translator that he has very good use of his home language and is developing well. They have explained to early years practitioners in the nursery that he relates well to his sister. His parents use picture books and activities that they are able to borrow from the CC toy library. Both parents would like to become volunteers in the setting and are awaiting the outcome of a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check. Hassan enjoys creative activities but finds other parts of the routine and curriculum very challenging. He refuses to participate in group activities and prefers solitary play. He can be very disruptive and sometimes violent towards his peers. Staff are concerned that he may therefore have emerging behavioural difficulties and, in consultation with Hassan’s parents, staff are now initiating the process of the Early Years Action stage of the SEN Code of Practice in order to address his individual needs.

Recently the family has experienced several racist comments from the local community and there is an active British National Party presence in the area.

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Appendix 2A CHILD BORN IN POLAND: DOMINIK’S STORY

By Wanda Baranowska and Justyna Leszka Dominik is the youngest of four children in this family. Dominik’s sister is 8 years old. Her name is Agnieszka. She has special educational needs and attends a special school. Agnieszka has some mobility difficulties so her mother travels to school with her. They travel by public transport and have to take two buses to get there, and two buses back. When the weather conditions are bad, Agnieszka doesn’t go to school. Dominik’s other siblings are twins. They are 6 years old and they started to attend the nearest public school last September. Dominik stays at home because his parents are not able to pay for nursery education.

Dominik’s parents each have secondary education qualifications. His father worked as a worker in a textile factory, which was closed down. Since then he hasn’t found permanent work. He takes up some physical casual jobs, which are illegal with no registration and without benefits. He has no rights to unemployment benefit. He also has had alcohol problems since he lost his job. Dominik’s mother worked as kitchen assistant in a nursery, which was privatized and she lost her job because of staff redundancies. Then she worked as a cleaner in a public hospital, where she was also made redundant. She has rights to unemployment benefit. Dominik’s mother attends meetings for unemployed women but this has not yet helped her to get a job. When she goes to school with Agnieszka, she takes Dominik with her or he stays at home with their neighbor, an elderly lady. The family income comes from the mother’s unemployment benefit, the benefit for a disabled child, some welfare benefits, and other profits from Dominik’s father’s casual work. Dominik’s siblings have lunch provided, as do all children who go to school. This is financed by the social welfare system. Dominik and his parents are provided with free meals from Caritas (a charity organization supporting poor people run by the church). Dominik is often ill. He is susceptible to infections of the upper respiratory tract. He is smaller and thinner than his peers. He has a speech defect and occlusive abnormality. However, he isn’t under the control of a specialist. Local children in Dominik’s neighbourhood have access to a local day-care room after lessons (for 3-4 hours per day). This place is situated near the church and it is the best place for children to learn and play together. They do not have conditions to do this at home which is why they spend so much time there. What is more, they get some help to do the homework, and they also have a hot meal. This provision is free of charge, but the conditions and quality are not as good as they should be. The environmental day-care room takes care of children with a variety of educational, social and emotional needs. There is only one person to take care of those children each session. There are also students, who work as volunteers.

Dominik’s mother struggles with staying at home and not working; in fact she is on the verge of depression. Her husband doesn’t help her run the house. Because of the difficulties they are facing, Dominik’s parents focus on current daily problems such as housing, heating and feeding and clothing their children. They live day by day and have difficulty planning for their and their children’s future. The family lives in an old industrial part of an average size city. The district is known as a very poor and quite dangerous part of the city. Children often play on the streets or among devastated buildings. This is a typical family for this part of the city.


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Appendix 3A CHILD BORN IN ROMANIA: MARIA’S STORY

By Daniel Mara, Lucia Mara and Adela Popa Maria was born in Medias, Sibiu County, on March, 2003. Her mother, Claudia, had a normal pregnancy and delivery. There are not many things known about her family, because at present, Maria is raised by a foster mother named Marilena. She is now living in Sibiu, and has no relationship with her biological mother. Marilena, raises Maria by herself (she is not married), in a climate characterized by rigidity and a well defined system of rules. Marilena’s financial situation is satisfactory and she receives monthly a payment for caring after Maria. The psychologist that sees Maria considers that the level of her integration in the foster family is average.

Maria was diagnosed in early childhood with epilepsy, hyperkinetic disorder, and mild mental retardation (the WISC-R test shows that her mental age is five). She has medical treatment for her epilepsy –as well as vitamins. Once a year, Maria goes at the Neuropsychiatry Department of Children’s Hospital for a psychological evaluation and other tests (EEG, blood tests). Every year she has been reassessed, a disability certificate has been issued.

Maria goes to a regular kindergarten in Sibiu, in a school-preparatory class. Maria came to this kindergarten when she was two years and eight months old, and according to her foster mother, she was pretty much “a wild child”, but now is a quiet girl. Her group is formed of 24 children and most of them will go to school this September. Her two teachers try to differentiate work as much as possible with Maria, in order to adapt curriculum contents to her capacity. Maria often refuses to participate in tasks carried out with the whole group of children, therefore the teachers are compelled to find other activities to involve her. She has been seen drawing, whilst the other children were working in their notebooks, doing graphics or mathematical exercises. She shows restlessness during cognitive activities that require focused attention.In the past Maria has had difficulties to adjust to the social environment, but currently she has good social skills and she is integrated in her group. Her care takers consider that her development is good. She demonstrates acceptable, good behavior; she is communicative and friendly. Maria usually has a cheerful and optimistic attitude. She is more easily motivated by external stimuli, in particular by material rewards. She is very interested in free creative games and entertainment activities. She is very affectionate towards her teachers and other care persons in kindergarten.

The psychological assessment states that Maria has difficulties in defining simple concepts (like “family”, “house”, etc.) and in determining the concepts’ similarities and differences. She can make classification of objects based on simple criteria (shape, size or color), showing her low ability to make abstract operations. She also has an unsystematic, low-capacity and mechanical memory. She has difficulties in voluntarily maintaining and focusing attention for longer periods of time. Maria is right handed, oriented in the physical environment, but has difficulties in graphic orientation (on paper). Her time orientation is satisfactory.

In September, Maria will enter the Special School for children with disabilities, as their care takers (the physician and psychologist) consider she cannot cope with the requirements of a regular school.

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Appendix 4Questions for all case studies

What are your concerns about this child and his circumstances (risk factors)? Consider what might be contributing to your concerns for the child and their family in terms of inclusion / exclusion from access to support, education, well-being and so on. Can you identify some aspects of this case study that indicate areas for development (protective factors) to help improve inclusion and facilitate resilience? What are the responsibilities of Early Years/kindergarten practitioners in relation to supporting the needs of this child and family and why? Are there wider implications for practitioners in terms of further reading and research, pedagogical practice, liaising with other agencies, curriculum, routine, policies and resources?


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Appendix 5BIOGRAPHIES OF THE PLEYIn PROJECT TEAM

Karen ArgentKaren has been a Senior Lecturer in Early Years Education Studies at Newman University College since 2001. Prior to this, she taught in a wide range of educational settings including special, nursery and primary schools. She has also worked in the voluntary sector as an Inclusion Worker on one of the first Sure Start Programmes. Her current doctoral research relates to how practitioners choose picture books with a disability related theme to use in nursery schools. Other related research interests include constructions of childhood, socially excluded groups, disability awareness and children’s rights. Her aspiration for the project is to explore different definitions of inclusive practice and how these are influenced by politics, history and culture.

Wanda Baranowska, Coordinator of Poland team for the PLEYIn project, Doctor of Humanistic Sciences, pedagogist, family therapist, and cognitive- behavioural therapist of children with neuro-developmental disorders. Wanda is a former early years teacher with twenty years experience. Currently, she is a senior lecturer at The College of Humanities and Economics in Sieradz, lecturing on the psycho- pedagogical diagnosis of children’s developmental needs, therapy and support for children with neuro-developmental disorders. She also lectures on methodology in social sciences. Wanda is the author of numerous scientific articles and scientific monographs. Her previous and current research interests include creativity in early years education, early years education for social inclusion, pre-school and school support for children with special educational needs, cognitive- behavioral therapy of children with neuro-developmental disorders (ADHD, CD, ODD, Asperger’s syndrome), school functioning of children with neuro-developmental disorders, mental disorders, chronic illnesses and school disabilities, children’s self- esteem and the level of motivation to learning, algorythms of early-years natural education, teacher’s personality as a factor of children’s development and also constructs of ‘the family’ in Europe. Jane BenistonJane is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College and had previously worked in the field of early years for twenty years in Birmingham as a teacher, Religious Education co-ordinator, Foundation Stage Co-ordinator and Assistant Head-teacher. Her first degree was in Primary Education from Birmingham University, followed by a Masters of Education. Jane has been involved in projects in local children’s centres such as supporting parents and early years staff in developing numeracy skills, barriers to learning and the ‘Thinking Hats’ initiative. Jane’s research interests include the concept and role of play, child development, thinking skills and cognition in young children. Her doctoral work continues this interest with a focus on young children’s problem solving skills. The PLEYin Project has provided an opportunity to continue to explore the social construction of play in an international context and how this can be used as a vehicle for inclusion.

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Chris CollettChris is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood Education and Care at Newman University College. After gaining a Bed (Hons) in ‘Mental Handicap’ in 1981, Chris taught in a range of special schools, working with children with moderate to profound disabilities, from nursery age to young adults. After a short time teaching adults with learning and mental health difficulties she moved to the Birmingham Special Educational Needs advisory service, initially teaching on the team for children under five, then as team, and service, manager. Chris’s interest continues to be inclusion, SEN and disability; she is currently undertaking literature-based research into inclusion within other European countries, so is especially interested in this aspect of the project.

Dalvir GillDalvir Gill is currently a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College in Birmingham. Dalvir’s interest and understanding of Diversity and Equality issues is well-documented in her career as an Early Years Practitioner, as a local government officer, the training Director for EYE (Early Years Equality) and Research Fellow. She has been lecturing nationally and internationally on these issues for several years. Dalvir is a working group member of the European network DECET (Diversity in Early Childhood Education and Training) working on the development of materials on diversity, and additionally has undertaken a number of national research projects including the DfES (Department for Education and Skills) Black and Minority Ethnic study, ‘Sure Start for All’. Dalvir developed the innovative ENCO (Equalities Named Co-ordinator) training for which she was awarded the 2002 Partners in Excellence Award for providing excellent services for families and children. Since 2004 Dalvir has been managing the UK section of a major 5 country, international study called ‘Children Crossing Borders’. This is a study of how the early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems of five countries are serving the children of recent immigrants and of what parents who recently have migrated from another culture want for their children in ECEC settings.

Deborah HarrisDebbie is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College and has worked in the field of early years for twenty years in Bedfordshire and the West Midlands as a teacher, Foundation Stage Co-ordinator, Advanced Skills Teacher in Early Years and Creativity and more recently teaching at both undergraduate and post-graduate level. Debbie has developed a module for Newly Qualified Teachers (QTS) which aims to develop their continuing professional development through critical reflection on a range of issues such as multi agency working, inclusion and parental partnership. This has also included undertaking research around the way in which this work has influenced the practice of NQTs. Debbie’s research interests include the role of music in supporting children’s learning and the role of the pedagogue and listening to children. By being involved in the PLEYin Project I hope that all participants will have a clearer understanding of how issues such as inclusion and working with children and families are addressed within three very different cultures.


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Justyna Leszka, Doctor of Humanistic Sciences, pedagogist, speech therapist. Justyna worked as an early years teacher for ten years and has worked as a speech and language therapist with children with special educational needs. Currently, she is a senior lecturer at the College of Humanities and Economics in Sieradz as lecturer on special pedagogy, social pedagogy, speech therapy and SEN therapy. Justyna is the author of numerous scientific articles and scientific monographs. Her previous and current research interests include the integration and inclusion of children with language and communication disorders into mainstream schools specifically children with hearing loss, autism and delayed speech development. She is also interested in language acquisition of young children with development disorders; early reading education methods; family functioning for children with disabilities in their local community and advisory services for parents with children with disabilities. Both Justyna and Wanda share the same aspirations for the project which are to challenge professional experiences and to seek universal solutions for children’s social inclusion in recognition of social diversity in Europe.

Elena – Lucia MaraElena-Lucia has been a lecturer at the Teacher Training Department, ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu, Romania, since 2008. Elena-Lucia teaches a module on Didactic of the Romanian Language to students in the Letters Faculty and also Pedagogical Practice in local schools. Before that, Elena-Lucia taught the Romanian language at a College in Sibiu. Elena-Lucia successfully completed her Ph.D in the Philology Sciences four years ago. Her interest in Early Years education began with her teaching experience in a kindergarten centre for more than five years before she started her undergraduate studies. From this project Elena-Lucia hopes to extend her knowledge of issues of inclusion in young children’s education.

Daniel MaraDaniel is an Associate Professor at the Teacher Training Department, ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu, Romania. He teaches Psychology of Education and Pedagogy to future teachers from different faculties. Daniel achieved his Ph.D in Inclusive education in 2004, after completing a Masters degree in the same domain in Italy at Bologna University. It is for these reasons that Daniel is interested in inclusive education, and cognitive and meta-cognitive development. Through the PLEYIn project, Daniel hopes to extend his understanding of the field of inclusive education.

Gill McGillivray, co-ordinator of the Newman University College team for the PLEYIn project.Gill is currently Programme Leader for the Early Childhood Education and Care programme at Newman University College. Prior to moving to Newman University College in 2002, she was a manager of Early Years and Psychology programmes in further education. Gill’s first degree was in Psychology, and she completed the MA in Early Childhood Studies in 2004. Her doctoral research focused on de- and re-constructions of professional identities in the early years workforce in England. Other research interests include pedagogical philosophies and practice; international perspectives on childhood and child development. Her aspiration for the PLEYIn project is to create space for teams of early years practitioners to undertake research and work collaboratively to explore and understand issues of inclusion from different cultural, sociological and pedagogical perspectives.

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Adela Elena Popa, coordinator of the Romanian team for the PLEYIn project. Adela worked for five years in a kindergarten in Sibiu as a speech therapist with children with special educational needs, particularly children with speech, reading and writing problems. She studied different topics related to children in need. Currently she is a lecturer at ‘Lucian Blaga’ University of Sibiu, in the Faculty of Sciences, Department of Sociology and Social Work. She teaches several subjects to students from the Sociology and Social Work Department, including Medical Sociology and Sociology of Community. Adela’s current research interest is exploring the role of community in contemporary Romania and involvement of community members in implementing reforms in different fields (education, health, social policy). Her aspiration for the PLEYIn project is to study the emergence of a community of practice among specialists and practitioners in the educational field.

Allison TattonAllison is a Senior Lecturer at Newman University College and also runs a Foundation Degree Programme for Teaching and Learning Support Assistants. She began working at Newman in 2004 where she was employed as part of a European Social Fund Research Team and undertook research into ‘Skills Gaps and Training Needs in the Early Years Sector’. Having gained a BA (Hons) in Primary Education from the University of Central England in 1997 Allison worked in several primary schools in the Birmingham and Worcestershire area. She gained her Masters Degree in 2007 and her current research interest are in the development of early literacy skills, the role of the teaching assistant in supporting inclusion and ‘looked after’ children. Her doctoral research focuses on the biological children of foster carers and how fostering impacts on their lives.

Linda TreadwellLin has been working within the field of Early Years Education for many years; firstly as an early years teacher and senior manager in a range of schools within the Birmingham area (Foundation Stage), and more recently as a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education. She has taught on a range of programmes and courses including the CACHE Diploma Early Years, The BTEC National Diploma Early Years, Foundation Degree Early Years and BA Early Childhood Studies, in both further and higher education. Lin has been the programme co - ordinator for the Sector Endorsed Foundation Degree Early Years for seven years. Lin is interested in aspects of young children’s learning and development; emotional well-being, the role of play and the role of the adult in enhancing learning. Her most recent research has examined how an Early Years setting has interpreted and included learning from the Reggio Emilia approach into their provision.


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Appendix 6Principles collated from seminar data in each country

England Romania PolandCommunication PrincipleWell developed skills in communication and engagement with children, families and other agencies. Networks principleAwareness of macro level influences at community and societal level including structural limitations and challenges of integrated and multi agency working, informed by particular government agendas and consequent resources.

Networks principleIt is important to establish or consolidate inclusion networks of practitioners, specialists, families and other relevant members of community, where examples of good practice can be properly disseminated.

Shared responsibility principleThe partnership between education institutions, practitioners, families and community is a basic condition for inclusive education. Inclusion should be facilitated by efforts of all the relevant social actors and agencies in community, not only by the efforts of practitioners/ specialists and families

Network principle.The main condition for effective family support is to create a network of experts and institutions. Identify individuals / groups / organizations, which will coordinate the activities of other.

Network principleThis principle proposes that inclusion is best supported when there are strong connections between practitioners, specialists, families and agencies, that acknowledges shared responsibility, and that these work in an integrated way to co ordinate activity in the interests of the child and family.Diversity PrincipleChallenge stereotypes by recognising and disaggregating elements of identity and culture in relation to eg. language, disability, ethnicity, religious belief, class, experiences and perceived expectations.

Diversity principleDiversity (cultural, ethnic and religious) should be seen as a resource and not an obstacle for inclusion.

Inclusion principleActions should take into account the individual circumstances of families and individuals such as language, disability, and work towards their inclusion in the community. Children, regardless of the family of origin, should have development conditions similar to the conditions for the development of other children in the same country.

Diversity PrincipleThis principle proposes that inclusive practice recognises that diversity of culture, language, religious belief, social class and ethnic origin provide a positive resource that should promote the wellbeing of all children and families.

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England Romania PolandPartnership PrincipleBe sensitive to the rights and needs of every family to facilitate a mutually respectful partnership that values difference and diversity.

Family involvement principleFamily involvement is crucial for the process of inclusion. All actions of practitioners (decisions regarding further steps, educational activities planning, etc.) should be based on family participation and engagement.

Depth diagnosis of the family principle.Well developed skills in family diagnosis, thinking about all the risk factors and protective factors, treatment of the child’s welfare as a supreme principle.

Environmental influence principleThe family situation should be analysed in the broad context of environmental. The ability to perceive the positive and negative characteristics of the environment, cultural, historical and political. Flexible actions. Be sensitive to individual family circumstances.

Family Partnership PrincipleThis principle establishes that mutually respectful partnership with families is fundamental and that this is underpinned by the need for well developed professional skills to enable respectful, flexible and appropriate interventions that are sensitive to individual family circumstances and promote inclusion.Play PrincipleChallenge a predominantly utilitarian discourse and promote the important of play as a tool for inclusive provision.

Play principlePlay is one of the most important tools for inclusion of children with special needs. Free play, not constrained by rules and considering the creative and emotional potential of children, brings invaluable benefits for inclusion.

Play principleThis rule was not formulated by the participants of the seminar. This is probably too little experience in this field in Poland. It should be fun to develop as a means of inclusion, especially young children and promote a method for action in early childhood education centres.

Play PrincipleThis principle proposes that play is a key tool for inclusion in the early years, especially for children with special educational needs. Practitioners should understand the value and potential of the pedagogy of play and that education and training focus on developing knowledge and understanding of play for inclusion.


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England Romania PolandKnowledge and Understanding PrincipleSound knowledge and understanding of relevant subjects that relate to inclusive provision eg. political, historical and cultural context, the impact of poverty, relevant frameworks for early identification, intervention and support, cultural background, pedagogical strategies that meet individual needs and challenge barriers to learning and ensures accessible, flexible and responsive provision.Reflective Practice PrincipleProfessional values and attitudes towards working with a wide range of individual needs that are informed by ongoing CPD, reflection and awareness of reflexivity.

Permanent skills developing principle.Professionals working with families must constantly improve their skills. Train in the new social risks and forms of assistance. They should have a background in social skills, law, education.

Skills, Knowledge and understanding PrincipleThis principle requires that all those involved in working with children and families are committed to continuing professional development, reflective practice and have a sound understanding of the factors that frame and shape their practice.Advocacy PrinciplePromote the rights of the child and the family in the setting and beyond

Tolerance principlePractitioners working with children with special needs have the most important role in encouraging the tolerance towards these children. Together with families involved, they should take actions for changing stereotypes and prejudices against these children.

Advocacy PrincipleThis principle proposes that practitioners have a key role in challenging stereotypes and prejudices and should promote the rights of the child and the family in the setting and beyond.

Continuity principleInclusion efforts should be continuous, not fragmented and interrupted. Only this way the benefits provided by the actions meant for inclusion can accumulate and have positive effects.

Principle of continuationAfter giving the family/child support they should not be alone. It is necessary to monitor the fate and actions. Help in further planning the development of life

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Continuity PrincipleThis principle proposes that for intervention and support, to be effective, requires continuity of provision, monitoring and evaluation to allow for future provision to continue to support inclusion.

Early intervention principle.The intervention for inclusion of children with special needs should begin as early as possible, not only when the child is enrolled in the educational system (kindergarten or school).

Changes at the central level principle.Institutions, NGOs, local governments should influence the government to make necessary changes in the law. Lack of regulations or bad regulation causes that aid is ineffective or not feasible.

Extracurricular activities principleInvolvement in extracurricular activities of the children with special needs completes and supports formal steps to inclusion.

Individual strengthening principle.Activities of professionals must be directed at individuals. It should invest in more manpower than the support material. Relation to children should be used with individual curriculum.

Policy PrincipleThis principle proposes that organisations should be proactive in seeking to influence

policy makers to sustain and promote inclusive practices

Early intervention principleThis principle proposes that intervention for inclusion should begin as soon as possible.

Involvement in community principleThis principle proposes that extra curricula and community based activities are an

essential tool for the inclusion.

‘Pillow fight’ by Charlotte age 9.


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Additional Resources

There is an extensive collection in Newman University Library that has been purchased specifically to support students / researchers interested in the PLEYIn project. The collection includes fiction, non-fiction, DVDs, poetry, for example, connected to the three countries involved in the PLEYIn project as well as wider European context.

‘A little boy and his boat’ by Tudor age 4.


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