Aistear: The Early Childhood Curriculum Framework
Aistear is the early childhood curriculum framework for all children from birth to six years. The word Aistear is the Irish word for journey and was chosen because early childhood marks the beginning of children’s lifelong learning journeys.
It contains information for parents and practitioners that will help them plan for and provide challenging and enjoyable learning experiences that can enable all children to grow and develop as competent and confident learners in the context of loving relationships with others. Aistear describes the types of learning and development that are important for children in their early years, and offers ideas and suggestions on how these might be nurtured.
Aistear can be used in a range of settings, including children’s own homes, childminding settings, crèches, playgroups, pre-schools, naíonraí, and infant classes in primary and special schools.
What is in Aistear?
Aistear uses four themes that connect and overlap with each other to
outline children’s learning and development. The themes are
Well-being
Identity and Belonging
Communicating
Exploring & thinking
The Aistear framework is broken up into principles and themes, guidelines for good practice, user guide, key messages from research papers and learning experiences.
The Aistear framework is available online at http://www.ncca.biz/Aistear/ or alternatively you can access Aistear here.