Three things I learn at sleep-time: children’s accounts of sleep and rest in their early childhood education programs

Educators reflecting on sleep and rest time dilemmas in ECEC: where is the “critical” in reflective practices?

“…This finding is consistent with observational research undertaken by Staton et al (2015a, b) which found that children's autonomy was quite limited even in the context of flexible sleep-rest practices in which children were afforded some choice. The finding also aligns with accounts from children (Gehret et al 2019;Nothard et al 2015) and parents (Oakes et al 2019) that suggest limited voice in decision-making. These findings are at odds with current policy expectations presented in quality standards and current pedagogical philosophies that advocate for children's agency and ability to exercise voice in decisions that impact their experience within the centre (ACECQA 2018a).…”

“…Evidence from the Australian ECEC context suggests that, contrary to policy intention, current sleep-rest practices afford little opportunity for child autonomy or learning, nor involve genuine partnership with parents in decision-making. In two studies of children's accounts of sleep-rest time (Gehret et al 2019;Nothard et al 2015), children identified loss of autonomy and reported that during sleep-rest times their behaviour was controlled through punishment and reward. A survey of 750 parents of preschool children similarly shows limited input into practice.…”

Schooling Experiences of Disadvantaged Children in Preschool: Attitudes, Engagement and Interactions

“…Even though children frequently mentioned care routines in the classroom, sleeping was also among disliked activities. This finding contributes to the critiques that recent studies make about sleeprest times (Gehret et al, 2019;Nothard et al, 2015). Offering choices and providing flexibility to children in sleep-rest times may support their learning and engagement.…”

The when and what of measuring ECE quality: Analysis of variation in the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) across the ECE day

“…Connecting these findings to child outcomes a further study showed effects of naptime practices on child stress indexed using diurnal cortisol patterns (Thorpe et al, 2018). Extending this finding to Instructional support, studies of sleep-rest times found that children who do not sleep during rest time spend an average of 60 minutes and up to 190 minutes lying down without instructional activity (Staton, Smith, Hurst, Pattinson, & Thorpe, 2017) or opportunity for positive learning experience (Gehret, Cooke, Staton, Irvine, & Thorpe, 2019). More powerful are intervention studies showing a pathway from change in educator behaviour to residual gains in child outcome, with focus on effect size that demonstrate substantive outcome (e.g., effect size > 0.2; Farran et al, 2017).…”