The Framework
Eight developmental domains. Three strands within each. Three phases of growth: Seed, Shoot and Flower.
Phases describe how a capacity is growing, not how far ahead or behind a child sits. A child can be at Seed in one strand and Flower in another on the same day. The phases give practitioners a shared language for what they are noticing and what conditions to offer next.
The earliest stirrings: first interest, first attempts, the groundwork that comes before it is obvious to everyone. Our role is to protect the conditions in which it can begin.
Growth becomes visible. The child reaches, practises, repeats and gains confidence. Our role is steady support and rich, unhurried opportunity, not forcing the pace.
The capacity is established and expressed with independence, across different places and people. Our role is to widen the world in which the child can use it.
The framework is organised into eight developmental domains, each described through three strands, and observed across Seed, Shoot and Flower. Together they describe the whole child at the point they transition to school.
The disposition to wonder, explore and increasingly direct one's own learning. The thread that runs through everything else in the framework, and the reason it is called Growing Curious Children.
The eight domains, and the three strands within each, are the heart of Growing Curious Children. They are shared with the practitioners and settings who adopt the framework, together with the companion text and support, rather than published in full here.
For settings
Growing Curious Children is designed to be adopted by early years settings, with the full framework, the companion text Seeing Children Clearly, and practitioner support. If you would like to explore bringing it to your setting, we would be glad to hear from you.
The companion text
The educator companion to the framework, written to support practitioners in putting the domains, strands and phases to work in real settings. It sits behind the resources and training on this site and behind the observation practice the framework is built for. The aim is for it to grow into a published book.