High Scope Programme

The High Scope model‟s development began in 1962 with the High Scope Perry preschool programme, a programme for three and four year old children operated at Perry elementary school in Ypsilanti, Michigan. This programme was designed to help children overcome the negative effects of poverty on schooling, an idea later embodied in Head Start programmes, which has grown steadily over the years through funding from the federal government of the United States (Hohmann & Weikart, 2002). The High Scope programme is based on the theoretical perspective of Piaget, who believed that children learn best when they build understanding through direct experiences with people and objects in the world around them. The High Scope programme, developed by David Weikart, emphasises the development of the whole child and focuses on strengthening cognitive skills through active, hands on learning experience (Henniger, 2005).

A child‟s development and learning in the High Scope curriculum is organised around a set of key experiences developed from research and development theory.

“The key experiences have been identified in the categories of social and emotional development, movement and physical development, and cognitive development. These key experiences take place in active learning settings in which children have opportunities to make choices and decisions, manipulate materials, interact with peers and adults, experience special

40 events, reflect on ideas and actions, use language in personally

meaningful ways, and receive appropriate adult support” (Hohmann and Weikart, 1995, p.299).

To create a setting in which children learn actively and develop strong conceptual understandings, the High Scope curriculum uses a procedure called the plan-do- review sequence (Hohmann and Weikart, 1995). The teacher encourages children to plan the tasks they want to accomplish during free-choice time, engage in those activities and then spend time later in the day reflecting what they have learned. The plan-do-review sequence is the central device in the curriculum that permits children opportunities to express intentions about their activities while keeping the teacher involved in the whole process.

With the goals of strengthening the overall development of the children, while focusing specifically on cognitive skills, the teachers in a High Scope curriculum take on the following roles: active learners as they work with children; careful observers as they seek to understand the development of the children and plan motivating activities for them; planner of classroom environment to facilitate meaningful and interesting learning for the children and effective communicators as they provide positive interactions to motivate children to reach higher level of understanding (Roopnarine & Johnson, 2005).

a) Previous studies on High Scope

Weikart and his staff first developed and used the High Scope Perry preschool programme to assist disadvantaged children in the Ypisilanti‟s public schools in the state of Michigan, U.S.A. By virtue of its experimental design and long term duration, since 1962, the evaluation of the High Scope Perry preschool programme is one of the most thorough examinations of programme effects ever undertaken. The study focused on 123 African American children born in poverty and at high risk of failing in school. In the early 1960s, at ages 3 and 4, these children were randomly divided into a High Scope programme group and a no programme group

41 which did not receive preschool programme. The two groups have been carefully studied over the years. At age 27, 95% of the original study participants were interviewed with additional data gathered from their school, social services and arrest records (Schweinhart, Barnes, Weikart, Barnett & Epstein, 1993).

The basic outcomes of the study (Schweinhart et al., 1993) are as follows :

1) A higher percentage of High Scope students had completed high school than non program students

2) Fewer students had been arrested

3) More young adults from High Scope programme had a job at age 19 than those not attending the program.

4) A greater percentage of these young people were self supporting as young adults 5) Nearly three times as many former High Scope students owned their own home 6) Fewer students in High Scope have been classified as special education students. These results, it was argued, (Schweinhart, et al., 1993) translated into considerable savings to the public. Lower costs for special education, jails and police interventions; higher income levels; and less reliance on welfare services all mean that early intervention programmes can be highly cost effective.

b) Implications for practices in early childhood education

The High Scope research has wide ranging implications. These suggest that high quality preschool programmes for children living in poverty can have a positive long term effect on their lives (Schweinhart et al., 1993). Their early educational success leads to later school success, higher employment rates, and fewer social problems such as crime and welfare dependence (Schweinhart et al.,1993). And early childhood education can help individuals realise their potential.

In contrast to the Behaviourist approach, the High Scope approach appears to give attention to developmental domains and in particular with the focus on the children‟s cognitive skills beyond the manifest behaviours of children. The High

42 Scope approach reflects the changes in thinking in preschool education but also the changing contexts in preschool education.

Both the High Scope approach and the Bright Start Cognitive curriculum share the similarity of strengthening children‟s cognitive skills through active and hands on learning in their respective programmes.