How Does the Early Years Learning Framework Nurture Creativity in Children?

Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) is a widely adopted significant structure that enables the initiation of learning processes in children in their early years. It is a part of the reform agenda built by the Australian Government’s Council for Early Childhood Education

The objective of the EYLF is to establish the future foundations for learning, which are tailored to meet the particular needs and preferences of every child. The structure is meant to achieve this objective while also offering a uniform set of criteria to promote quality, reliability, and consistency in the industry in the early years.

Many development theories for children consider youngsters to be imaginative, fantasy-friendly, experimental, and environmental. However, this degree of inventiveness does not necessarily have to be consistent throughout an individual’s life. However, Early Years Learning Framework inculcates an environment wherein the child grows with the creativity they already possess.

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The EYLF thrives on the concept of the 3 B’s.

• 1. Being: Let the child be what he/she wants to be. This affords them the liberty to explore the environment around them without any unreasonable restrictions.
• 2. Belonging: The environment they aim to explore has to have a sense of belonging, i.e., they should feel attracted towards it rather than feeling nervous or anxious.
• 3. Becoming: to let the child grow through the experiences he/she gains from the environment while accepting the fact that changes to the child’s behaviour are inevitable as the child is constantly experiencing and growing.

The 3 B’s are the cornerstones of early childhood learning. Although these do not mention the creative, artistic, imaginative aspects of a young mind, they still contribute to these skills that reflect in the child in the later years.

When we talk about letting children be, making them feel that they belong, and allowing them to become what they are growing into, we let them decide for themselves. They are making choices that would affect their immediate future. This power holds a lot of responsibility.

The building of creative instincts and intellect starts here itself. When the child is being made responsible for the choices they make, they tend to find new ways to satisfy their bunch of ‘whys’, and ‘whats’.

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The underlying concept of creativity is inquisitiveness. When the child is making decisions, that is when they become keen on learning and use the abstracts, they discover to turn them into physical forms. After all, creativity is all about transforming abstraction into reality.

The Early Years Learning Framework suggests that the starting point of a child’s learning must be based on the notions the child already knows about. Educators and parents should realize that children already know a lot more than what we assume.

It has been pointed out by various studies that creativity is inbuilt, it is a byproduct of personality traits such as being motivated and curious at all times, being confident about the uncertainties around, being open to change, etc. It also depends on the emotional processes the child has already undergone, such as hurting while playing, being anxious while involved in certain tasks like assignment help.

The application and proper execution of learning under EYLF include furnishing the child with several and continuous opportunities to explore disparate ways of knowing, thinking, and eventually learning. The child is exposed to problem-solving through reasoning, taking initiatives, expressing their ideas and thoughts, taking the most value out of a new experience, engaging in reflective thinking, etc. All of this requires a certain level of imagination. This imagination is what is referred to as the creative intellect. When the child is exposed to such experiences, challenges, and problems every day, it builds on the imagination which fosters creativity in the long run.

Further, the EYLF alludes to developing creative approaches to respond to the interests of young children. It expects the teachers to act in a way that is beyond the obvious. For instance, if the child is seen playing with car toys, the obvious action post is to ask the child to draw/paint a car, or maybe find books with numerous car images.

But what the EYLF demands is that the educators after taking the apparent steps must introduce activities like asking the child to point out cars they could see from the window. When the child can connect what they see in books, charts, and boards to real life, that is when their creative wheels start rolling. The educators are equipped with initiating ‘n’ number of possibilities which forms the crux of creative intentional teaching. When people attempt more attentively to children’s cognitive processes than the outcomes they produce in different areas of work and knowledge, creativity becomes more evident.

The Early Years Learning Framework believes in adopting a democratic attitude to define creativity. This, accordingly, aids the educators to move away from the myths that only some artistically talented children are creative. It embraces the fact that everyone is creative, it just takes a matter of time for a good polishing to bring out that creativity, which might either reflect instantly or within a few years.

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To nourish creativity means to develop the “can do” attitude among young individuals. EYLF aims at finding several and different ways to solve a single problem. This nurtures the creativity in the sense that now the child is not fixated on the one problem-one solution idea. The child applies their creative intellect to overcome the difficulties and complete the tasks at hand. The framework also creates an environment wherein the instructors are permitted to be creative and make use of their intuitions to act spontaneously.

Many activities in the EYLF include interaction with nature. The naturalness of this setting encourages young children to get their creative minds in tune with the variety of properties of nature they encounter. Other activities involving music, dancing, poster making, role-playing, building, etc., every activity or action on the part of the instructor as well as the participating child, has creativity blended within.

The best part about Early Years Learning Framework is that it promotes a lot of outdoor and indoor playing. Learning while playing is one of the best-recognized ways for early growth and development of the brain. Playing in itself has several creative turns and curves. For instance, playing house, or any other role-playing activity requires the child to imagine themselves in that scenario. This imagination brings out different levels of creativity in the child.

EYLF does not push the child to create something materialistic, it encourages the child to identify their creative instincts and act on them. For instance, while building blocks, a child may use those blocks as containers for some liquid. That is creativity. And that is exactly what it aims to achieve.

Author Bio

Henry Clay, an education consultant, currently associated with many clients in the tutoring industry like TutorOpedia, My Assignment Services. He loves to play football and reading books in his free time.