I am an Early Years Student and Manager of a day nursery I am studying for my Honours and my chosen subject for my dissertation is the benefits of circle time in the early years.
I have drawn a blank looking for research into the subject to back my findings I wondered if you could point me in the right direction.
You have chosen an intesting topic! Could I point you in the direction of our website research section where there are some titles and abstracts for various research projects and some whole papers scanned in, many of which are dissertations from Bristol University. There are also details about how to access the Education library at Bristol: http://www.circle-time.co.uk/site/research
Having said all this, not much of the research is purely for Early Years, one project that springs to mind however is by Fiona Wood, you will find it on the research section or by following this link: http://www.circle-time.co.uk/site/research/20
You may find others on there that might help. Can I also point you in the direction of our discussion forum where people ask other research questions and also our questions and answers section where the answers are categorised.
In discussions that I have helped with on circle time, although I have sometimes found that there are few papers on exactly what I would like to review, if you break down the subject area into, say, the Early Learning goals, and into what circle time has been shown to provide to other groups, maybe looking at speaking and listening skills, emotional literacy and self-confidence and self-esteem, it is sometimes easier to start writing!
Jenny Mosley's books on circle time, all advertised in our website shop, also give plenty of background to circle time. You could try to have a look at "Quality Circle Time in the Primary Classroom" or "More Quality Circle Time" for starters. I hope that with these leads you have some joy and can make a start.
Anyway, very best of luck with this from the team here Kind regards Zara Niwano
Jenny Mosley Consultancies Website, writing and research projects