Whose Family Is on the Page? Family Identity and Belonging in Early Years Curriculum

A teacher hands out a “My Family” page to twenty four-year-olds. It has boxes for a mother, a father and two siblings. One child lives with her grandmother and two cousins. Another spends half the week in each of two homes. A third studies the boxes for a while, then draws the whole street.

Each child has just learned something about whether their family fits the curriculum. No one said it aloud and no one was marked wrong, yet the message arrived. So the question for family identity and belonging in early years curriculum is not whether to teach about families. It is what the page tells children about theirs.

Belonging is not the same as sameness

children’s daily network of care can involve people beyond the conventional mother/father worksheet template. It does not prove family structure, so keep the wording about caregiving rather than saying “45% of children live with another caregiver.”

UNICEF’s analysis draws on internationally comparable data from close to 100 countries; it also reports that more than 80 million children aged 2–4 do not regularly play with a caregiver at home. (UNICEF The Power of Play)

For children aged three to six, family is where identity begins. They arrive with a home language, a grandmother who does the pick-up, a word for “friend” that nobody else in class uses. A curriculum can make room for this, or it can quietly ask children to leave it at the door.

Leaders often treat belonging as a warm feeling that comes from a kind teacher. That helps, but it is not a design. Belonging is shaped by what appears in the books, what the teacher asks, and whose stories get time. If every child must fit one family shape, belonging turns into resemblance. Some children match the template. Others learn to tidy themselves to match it.

What research adds

• Erwin, Valentine and Toumazou, from Montclair State University, wrote a conceptual paper on what is known about belonging in early childhood. They point out that young children’s own voices are largely missing from this research, so adult views have shaped most of it. They also warn that belonging built on sameness can exclude some children, and that families are key to understanding a child’s belonging, especially when the home language differs from the setting’s. They suggest drawings, photos and work samples as ways to hear children directly.
• Steed and Barla (2025) studied one inclusive US early childhood programme using a teacher survey and family focus groups. Their four themes included feelings of connection, community and care, and they describe research on belonging in early childhood as sparse. It is one programme, so it cannot be generalised. (Springer)

if belonging is something children and families experience, a curriculum needs ways for teachers to listen to both.

Designing family identity and belonging into the curriculum

Curriculum moment	Common shortcut	Belonging-minded design
Family picture or tree	One fixed family shape	Open prompt: “the people who care for me”. The child chooses who to include
“My Home” lesson	One type of house and set of rooms	Children describe their own spaces and routines. Every home is a valid example
Family traditions	A one-off festival display	Everyday and seasonal traditions, shared in words, pictures or objects
Home language	Labels in one language only	Welcome words from home in greetings and songs
Parent communication	One-way newsletter	Short prompts that invite families to send something back

The content stays close to what teachers already teach, but the child gets more say in what counts as a family. Family is also a child’s first community, which is why this topic sits close to community learning in the preschool curriculum. It is also the start of citizenship progression, since belonging to a family and a class is the first step towards belonging to something wider.

How do you know a child feels they belong?

You do not test it. Teachers notice patterns over several weeks: does the child talk about home, choose to share a family item, join group play, or settle at drop-off? Short notes, drawings and conversations give the evidence. It is read as a pattern, not a score, and used to adjust the classroom.

Belonging cannot be scored, and a quiet child at circle time may be settled or unsettled. What teachers can do is gather small pieces of evidence through drawings, gestures, choices and conversation. These can be filed in a preschool portfolio. Each item should link to a clear objective, such as “names family members and their roles”, not a vague aim like “feels included”.

A child who draws her grandmother’s kitchen and explains it aloud gives more usable evidence than a ticked box. So if every child draws the same family picture, what have we actually learned about them? For how these pieces fit a wider system, see the early years assessment framework.

Families as partners, not an audience

Home-school connection in preschool works when families can contribute without much time, paperwork or fluency in the school’s main language. A photo, a word, a song, a spoken story. Offer several ways in.

Family knowledge is also real-world knowledge: cooking, caring, trips to the market. That is the bridge to real-world application in preschool curriculum design [Community Blog 20 | Real World Application in Preschool Curriculum Design | Linked text: “real-world application”].

For curriculum leaders, three questions matter. Do the teacher notes include home-connection prompts? Do those prompts work for families who do not read the school’s main language? And is there a place in the plan for what comes back?

Where KODEIT Pre-K fits

Picture a Level 1 classroom (ages 3–4) working through Book 1, All About Me and My Family. The unit moves from feelings, body and likes and dislikes into family members, home and family traditions. The Teacher Book includes home connection ideas and observation tools. The resource library lists items such as a family tree, drawing-my-home and family flash cards, plus home extension activities and parent newsletters. In Levels 2 and 3, the Personal and Social Growth books extend this into friendships, self-esteem and teamwork.

It says its content is designed to be culturally responsive for schools across the world, with family and community values in mind. What it cannot settle for you is whose stories fill the pages. That stays with teachers and families, and the plan should leave room for it.

The question to take back to your team

A curriculum can only reflect the families it has heard from. So when a child’s home appears in the classroom, who chose what was shown, the adult or the child? If it is always the adult, belonging is still something adults describe, not something children can tell us about.

FAQs

Q: How can a preschool curriculum show different family structures without singling anyone out?
A: Use open wording such as “the people who care for me”. Let children choose who to draw or talk about. Treat every family shape as ordinary, not as a special lesson.

Q: Should schools assess a child’s sense of belonging?
A: Observe and record, but do not score or rank. Short notes, drawings and conversations across several weeks can show how a child engages. Use them to adjust the classroom, not to label the child.

Q: How much family involvement is realistic?
A: Offer small, low-effort options: a photo, a word from home, a story told aloud. Families differ in time, literacy and language, so one route is never enough.