1st Edition
The Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Well-being (SSTEW) Scale Supporting Process Quality in Early Childhood
The SSTEW Scale helps all those working with children aged two to six to achieve their full potential and enjoy the benefits and pleasure of delivering high quality early education and care.
The Quality Rating Scale (QRS) is a tool to uplift process quality in Early Childhood Education and Care and it is known to be predictive of child development. Using it to support quality improvement in a setting or class will result in enhancing children’s learning and development.
Designed to measure and promote practice that supports children and adults engaging in sustained shared thinking (SST) and emotional well-being (EW), it facilitates the development of strong relationships, effective communication, self-regulation and concept development. It looks at the quality of interactions that occur between the adults and the children and between the children themselves. It also considers the responsiveness of the adults to the children and how they intentionally support children’s play, learning and development.
It can be used by practitioners at all levels, helping them to take a systematic approach to self-assessment so that they can build on what they do well and improve where they need to. It is also an essential resource for measurement by researchers and those engaged in auditing settings.
This new edition includes updated information about the evidence-base for SSTEW and children’s development and learning as well as new examples of practice and supplementary information accompanying the indicators. In addition, there is a stronger focus on formative assessment and new additions to the assessment section.
Online or face to face training can be set up via the authors’ dedicated website https://birthtosevenmatters.co.uk/
1. Introduction to the Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Well-being (SSTEW) Scale 2. Subscale 1: Building trust, confidence and self-regulation 3. Subscale 2: Supporting and extending language and communication 4. Subscale 3: Supporting learning and critical thinking 5. Subscale 4: Planning and authentic assessment 6. SSTEW Scale score sheets 7. SSTEW Scale Profile 8. Joint Observation/inter-rater reliability for the SSTEW Scale
Biography
Iram Siraj is Professor of Child Development and Education at the University of Oxford, UK.
Denise Kingston is a senior researcher at the University of Oxford and honorary research fellow at the University of Sussex, UK.
Edward Melhuish is Professor of Human Development at the University of Oxford, and Birkbeck, University of London.
"As a thought leader in early childhood education and care, I have found the SSTEW scale, (part of the suite of resources known as the Curriculum, Leadership and Interaction Quality Rating Scales - CLIQRS) an essential tool to support quality improvement. I have used the scale with individual settings, across a large organisation to improve quality – Goodstart Early Learning, Australia, and also as part of a large English, Department of Education research project – The Study of Early Education and Development (SEED). At all levels the tool gives the teacher or researcher a clear overview of what is required to improve quality for children’s learning in a systematic and evidence-based approach. SSTEW is an uncomplicated resource which improves teacher’s understanding of sustained shared thinking whilst supporting children’s emotional well-being."
Sue Robb, OBE, General Manager of Pedagogy and Practice, Goodstart Early Learning, Australia
