What is Cultural Capital and the EYFS?

What is Culture Capital and how it can affect your practice?

This is what we’ll be discussing in this video.

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So, Culture Capital.

Culture Capital is so important, in the recent early years framework it is specifically mentioned as one of the good grade descriptions by Ofsted.

Leaders must adopt a curriculum which helps support Culture Capital. But what does this look like?

Well, Culture Capital is defined by Ofsted as the knowledge children need to prepare themselves for future success and to be educated citizens. But the term culture capital wasn’t first introduced by Ofsted.It is a sociological term which basically means the social and cultural advantage that some people have usually with regards to money.

This social and cultural advantage that some people have over others leads them to being more successful in life as they have access to more opportunities.

So when Ofsted use this definition it is in reference to how children may or may not be provided with opportunities which can then help them to be successful.

So for example, one child may spend a lot of time with their parents doing errands like shopping. This child will have a greater understanding of how money works, how transactions work, potentially even of how to budget over someone that hasn’t had those experiences.

So for example, one parent might be able to take their children to various locations, different countries, different places, with each of these places providing a new learning experience for the child.

Whereas others might not be able to spend as much time with their children potentially staying in home all the time and generally only learning their experiences through television. This is a type of knowledge that you wouldn’t have learned formally from school but is key to helping you develop as an adult. So, our responsibility as practitioners, or even if you’re a parent watching this, is to try to introduce our children to lots of different opportunities. So as Ofsted say, they are prepared for future success.

Some things that can be included in this is learning how a library works or having opportunities to go to museums.

But it could also be examples like knowing how to apologize or taking terms with each other.

It is important to recognize that not all children will have these opportunities to learn these things. So although this is not something specifically that we might teach like reading or writing, it is important for us to provide opportunities that children can learn these things.

Every child is different. So every child will have a different culture or different Culture Capital. Children will come into your setting having their own knowledge from what they’ve learned from at home or through their own experiences. Therefore, when you’re doing your Culture Capital and introducing this to your setting, it is important that you celebrate your children’s cultures and introduce their knowledge as well.

So, for example, if a child eats a certain type of traditional food, so for example, I like my Jellof rice, it’ll be good to introduce this into your menu of your setting so that they can feel their culture represented in the outside world rather than just having this food on a certain day, like when you do Culture day.

Imagine how accepted that child will feel knowing that their food is seen as normal rather than only getting it on a certain day.

This paints a picture that the culture that we are in is not a specific culture, but involves all of our cultures.

This comes in with everything and links in strongly with British values.

British values is all about democracy, rule of law, tolerance of others, mutual respect and individual liberty. Ensuring that your setting, whether that be a nursery, childminder any other setting, incorporates these British values, is an important part of Culture Capital.

So how does Culture Capital affect our practice?

As alluded to Culture Capital should affect your everyday practice and shouldn’t really be a set day where you celebrate cultures or anything like that.

It is about how we allow our children to experience different things that they might not be able to experience at home.

This is why it’s so important to really know your children. You might have a group of children that don’t have gardens at home, so getting them outside, exploring the outside world is important.

Or you might have a child that at home eats with their hands, so is unfamiliar with using knife and fork.

What would you do with this child?

It’s all about recognizing the differences that we all have and sharing all of our own unique experiences with each other. It’s difficult to say this is what you need to do with Culture Capital and this is how you will set up your practice because it is so unique to your children.

Using what you’ve learned, you should be able to use your own knowledge of your children to help introduce good Culture Capital in your setting.

It’s all about planning experiences to help your children develop.

Basically try to include, celebrate, acknowledge and build on your children’s knowledge, experiences and interests whilst also providing your own knowledge and experiences and including knowledge, experiences and interests of other children.

And that’s essentially what culture capital is.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the video.

If you have, hit the like button and if you have any questions on Culture Capital, leave a question in the comments below.

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