Top tips: Cultural Capital in early years
Right from the start every child brings their own ‘Cultural Capital’, shaped by their experiences and everyday home life.
When children join an early years setting, they gain opportunities to explore new and diverse experiences through your curriculum. Discover how you can nurture and celebrate Cultural Capital helping children grow and thrive.
Here are 8 tips for nurturing Cultural Capital in early years
- Be curious about children and their families and get to know each child. Find out from families what knowledge, traditions, and experiences each child brings
- Provide opportunities to extend learning or fill in any gaps by building on the experiences and cultures that are brought from home and your knowledge of each child
- Use rich vocabulary during play to boost children’s confidence and fluency. Incorporate multilingual words, phrases, and songs into daily routine and while playing
- Embed children’s cultures and backgrounds into your everyday. Explore festivals and traditions meaningfully and in ways children can understand
- Share stories, rhymes, and music from around the world, providing props to promote engagement. Encourage children to act out stories, dance to the music, and fully immerse themselves in different cultural experiences
- Invite parents to share and contribute to your celebrations they could provide stories, recipes, or traditional clothing. Celebrate home languages by asking families to teach you key words or phrases
- Be mindful of how different cultures, backgrounds and ethnicities are represented in books, activities, and discussions. Offer a balanced, inclusive view of the world to help children appreciate diversity
- Give children opportunities to talk about their own family traditions and cultures.
Looking for more Cultural Capital in early years support?
Our ‘Cultural Capital Factsheet‘ provides guidance on the term ‘Cultural Capital’, used by Ofsted in its Early Years Inspection Handbook for Ofsted-registered provision.
Disclaimer: Activities with children must always be risk assessed, including for allergies or choking. Children must always have adequate supervision. Resources and materials must always be appropriate for children’s age and stage of development.
- England
- EYFS
- Ofsted
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