Embracing diverse perspectives in the early years.

This chapter explores how the flexibility and freedom of the EYFS framework (DfE, 2021a) offers early years practitioners opportunities to create and shape a curriculum that can encompass diverse perspectives. With a focus on the specific area of ‘Understanding the World’, Style’s (1988) view of curriculum as both mirror and window provides a framework for creating an effective early years curriculum. As a mirror, the curriculum should reflect the child’s emerging sense of self, family and community. As a window, it should reveal the past, the people and the places beyond the child’s immediate experiences. This is crucial at a time when young children are beginning to establish a sense of their own identity and to form opinions, views and perspectives of the wider world.